YouSaid · the spoken record

Shawn Achor

lines on the record: 53
first: 2026-07-14
most recent: 2026-07-14
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Looks at the sun, we both see a ball of burning plasma. But when I see that sun, I also see something that was created by, I believe, loving God. And that belief activates all of the other core beliefs that we have in psychology. It changes the belief that I am not alone, that I matter, that my behavior matters, so that I have something to give, that I have something to be grateful for. When we believe that there's something greater than us, it pushes us to become greater than ourselves.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bigger themselves. I had a Harvard professor who said that who didn't believe in God, but he said, if you can get religion, do it because it's so highly correlates with higher levels of happiness. But what I find fascinating is you started with the introduction about believing that you are a child of God. In 2000, 5% of people claimed that they did not believe in a God. Today it's 24%. There's been a massive shift that's occurred within our world, maybe up to 24% of people who don't believe now that they're a child of God, when they might have back in 2000. And it changes who we are. My greatest hope is that there is something greater than us and that there is an afterlife because I believe justice isn't possible if this world gets the last word. But also, I'm a scientist. And if I'm looking at the sun and someone who's a scientist who doesn't believe in God,”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You can skip this chapter. You can focus on the other beliefs for sure. But from a scientific perspective, religious beliefs are actually neurologically different. What that means is we can tell on a brain scan if you're having a belief about something that's supernatural versus you're having an ordinary belief. You can actually tell the quality and difference of beliefs based upon this. And we also know that it's highly predictive of how long someone lives, how much social connection they feel, how much joy they feel.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's actually one of the most powerful and predictive beliefs that we have the belief that there's something greater than ourselves. And I knew that I was going to get pushed back by putting it in the book. People would say, you're writing a science book, stay in your lane. But you tell me.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We do the same thing. Once you change that identity, the whole point of this book is that if you change your beliefs, beliefs don't just shape our reality. They predict what happens next. It happens next for you as you look for hikes. Almost at the speed of light.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What a great dash. So special Is that something I didn't think could change or that I wanted to change because it might harm him actually change in a moment and his beliefs changed overnight as well because when we went back to school we had gone on dozens of hikes but for the first time ever he went back to school and he told his teacher and son's friend I'm a hiker I'm a hiker now if you believe you're a hiker what do you do next you climb more mountains what we're finding”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The belief changed when we got back to the rental house. So what happened was there is a creek behind our house and there is a board that went across this creek that was very flimsy. And every time my son, Leo, would go up to that board, my belief that was holding me back was I was a helicopter parent. I felt like I had constantly had to be talking and protect our house was bubble wrapped within an inch of its life until he was eight. Every time I saw Leo go towards that bridge, My brain would immediately say, Say something. So I'd be like, Leo, stop. Hey buddy, watch your step. Hey, look out, that bridge can fall. But this time, without doing anything, those entrenched helicopter parent beliefs changed. And in an instant, my brain shifted to, he's got this. And so for the first time, as he would walk across that bridge, I didn't say anything. And he fell right into the creek. No, he's fine. But what happened that moment is...”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We found an emergency hut that had been built back in 1888 for some reason, and we huddled together for warmth in that emergency hut in 34 degree temperature with no blankets and no flashlights. And then the next morning, something utterly ordinary happened. Some people are listening to the story being like, he is providing a meaningful experience for his kids, and others are like, I need to be calling child protective services. I'm watching her reaction to this. But the next morning, something utterly normal happened, the sun rose, and then we rose and then we hiked down the rest of the hill. And we did not feel any of the pain from the day before. We felt like we had a new lease on life and we felt bonded in a new way.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It started out so well. We started hiking and we were in good spirits, and I saw some hikers pass my mate. I know what they're thinking. They're thinking he is an amazing dad. He is so special to bring his son on this. And it was special and unique because there were no other kids out on this trail. And it was just professional hikers passing us. Well, the only problem with little kids is that they have little legs. And it took them six hours to do the first third of the hike. And we got to the top of the mountain and we realized we were trapped. Because you can't go back down there. It's too treacherous. You have to go over three more peaks and then down the backside. So I huddled Michelle and Leo together and I said, the sun is going to set in two hours. We have to take no more breaks and we're going to run, which was not a thing. And we just realized that we found out that it snowed on top of the mountain as well, which we didn't know from the base. So two hours later, the sunset, and we were on the second peak, and then a miracle happened.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we decided this in February, but we were going to go in October when the leaves were changing. Then I got a brilliant idea. What if we brought... My son Leo on this trip, who's eight. My wife, who's the smarter of the two of us, said that's a terrible idea. It's eight hours. It's an incredibly difficult hike, and he's eight years old. So I bugged her for the next eight months, but the answer was still no. Until the night before the hike, with minimal coaching, my son Leo went up to Michelle and said, mom, can I please go on that hike with you tomorrow so I have something to be proud of? So, the next morning, the three of us got to go on an eight hour hike in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. We started our hike at 9 a.m. We start our eight-hour hike at 9 a.m. and we finish the hike at 11 a.m. the next day.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Such a great question. Thank you so much. It's a beautiful one that I think a lot of us wrestle with because what you're asking about is can belief change and how do we change it and what do we lose when we change those beliefs? I was worried when I took time away with Zoe that the world was passing me by. And it did have cost. We're missing out all the time. Right now while we're here in this incredible moment, someone's kissing for the first time, right? Or they're winning a race, right? Or they're having a baby, right? Or they're having these moments. We're missing out in different ways. And they're missing out on this moment. What we find in those times is we're looking, can beliefs change and does it take a long time? And I think that one of the most important things I've learned in this research is about how those entrenched beliefs that sometimes hold us back can actually change. If I can, I would love to tell a story that I went through that was what made me experience that that relates to the Hill study that I mentioned earlier. So a few years ago, my wife and I, Michelle and I got to go on an eight-hour hike in the White Mountains in New Hampshire.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I went through back surgery myself and have the scar. And, you know, I was one of the lucky ones that it actually worked. But I don't know if I got a real surgery. I was”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tripled. What this means for you is that the power of belief is not dwindling or declining scientifically the power of belief to heal us is greater now than it was 20 years ago, that the power of belief is actually ascending.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's that we live in a world where we feel like the power of belief is on the decline with technology and the way that the world is right now. It feels like our beliefs are dwindling in this world. But scientifically, we're actually getting the complete opposite message. So the placebo effect remain constant over time, but I was looking at depression studies and I found that over the past three decades, the placebo effect, the likelihood of a fake intervention that you believe is real to have an effect upon you rose by 7% every decade for three decades. Why would belief become more predictive of people's lives? So I got fascinated and I started going deeper into the research and I read over 100 articles and meta-analyses and what I found is in all these conditions from heart disease to cancer to childhood epilepsy to depression to anxiety, we found that the placebo rate over the past two decades has doubled if not”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Doctor comes in, gives him an assician, Ghost has a coffee, and then comes back and sutures him back up, giving them a scar, but no surgery. But when they wake up from anesthesia, they have... Scar, so they don't know if they got a real surgery or not. Here's what happened at the six month mark. The healing effects for both groups were almost identical between the real surgery and the sham surgery. Two years later, mobility inflammation pain were all improved almost at the same level between people that got a real surgery and people that believed that they had a surgery. But this is where things take a huge turn because we've heard about placebos. This is the part that if you walk away from one thing from our conversation together.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know how they got this proof. Two thirds of them did get a free knee surgery. The doctor came in at the Baylor College of Medicine, created an incision, fixed their ligaments, fixed the cartilage, and sutured them back up, leaving a scar. For the other third,”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Big fan of leaf, so. Here's something amazing that I didn't know until I started working on the book that changed, I think, everything for me. So I would love to share this because I think is both of what you're saying is that we've heard of something called the placebo effect. The placebo effect is the belief that if I give you a fake pill. Or fake intervention, but you believe that it's real, you show real health outcome benefits. In fact, every drug that the federal drug administration has to test, we compare it to the power of beliefs. We've known this for a while. In fact, we've known this, but we underestimate the power of beliefs because there is a study back in 2001 called the Cham Knee Surgery, which is a famous one because what they did is they invited 300 gentlemen in and they had terrible knee pain that would not get better.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When the teachers started to believe that their behavior mattered, that they were not alone, what we saw was in the classrooms where the teacher's levels of optimism rose, the teacher students test scores rose, but we weren't working with the students. We were working with the teachers, and you could see the contagious effect of positive beliefs, not just upon ourselves, but upon the people that we serve as well. And we got reports that people in the community, who sometimes the teachers never even met, the guardians or the parents of those students, that their well-being scores were improving. We worked with the teachers, but you could see an effect upon the students and upon the community, which I think both of those stories that both of you described about how beliefs, beliefs are more powerful than I think we give them credit for.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go to work, the way you show up to work is different. It's a deeper meaning of care so that you are lifting each other every day and so that through Sean's work, you know, happiness fuels more happiness and more success.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Make the difference in change. And Intentionally focused on Did a lot of training and time intensity. To focus on Are the people inside? And worked to ensure that the staff and the students That what they do mattered how they”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so I got the opportunity to work with Superintendent of Genesee County, which is where Flint, Michigan is. And was invited in to share this research on beliefs and happiness. And I was nervous going in because it's Flint. You've got entrenched inequality and discrimination, racism and lead in the drinking water. They had to turn off the water fountains while they were there for the students. In the midst of that, to come in and talk about happiness and optimism was daunting, but also, I believe, so crucial. Because when the teachers believed that their behavior might not matter, They left on average after two years. So our goal was could we change the beliefs for the teachers and see if it had an effect upon the students?”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hope that they'll get over cancer. And I talked to a pastor, one of my friends named Matt Tuggle in Dallas, and he says that when people are crashing out or when they're at the bottom where a relationship fails or a marriage fails or they don't get the job that they want or that they lose someone, his goal at the bottom is to help them to start to believe that the future you hoped for is not the only future with hope. And what I loved about this is that we get fixed on one version of hope that changed for you, that there were other futures that had hope. But once you see that, it gets back to the newspaper study. When we believe that there's possibility out there, when we believe that there's something greater than me, what we find is scientifically our beliefs predict what happens next. And I'm not surprised to hear the incredible successes you've had in your”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Coming anxiety or depression or loneliness, or trying to date or try to find a job in the midst of a world that doesn't look like it should, those mountains are collapsing or expanding based upon whether or not we think we're alone or we're with other people. My first thing I would say is that when we look at those challenges, this is why happiness can't be self-help. As soon as you put happiness books in the self-help section of a bookstore, we make it 20 to 30 percent steeper for people to achieve because they think something's wrong with the world, but something's wrong with me, I need to fix it. And then once I fixed it, then I can be successful. And what we're finding is the greatest predictor of long-term levels of happiness and success is your social connection score. It's other people. It's the breadth, depth, the meaning, and your social relationships. But the other thing that I think is so important about where you're saying is that you're searching for hope like many people are in this world. Hope not just for dating, but hope that people have for a job.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As I listen to your story, I hear so much from this research. I think from the very beginning, I think you heard that you're not alone. I think that you helped other people know that they're not alone in the midst of it. That's one of the most powerful beliefs we have. There's a study, one of my favorite studies in the book, that found that if you're looking at a hill you need to climb in front of you, if you're looking at that hill by yourself, your brain shows you a picture of a hill that looks 15% steeper. Then if I put someone next to you that you believe is going to climb the hill with you. That shouldn't be happening. The hill is not changing, but our perception of the hill that happens instantaneously before you do anything is different based upon do I think I'm alone or do I'm with other people? And it wasn't just the physical ones that were affecting us, it's the emotional ones as well.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't stop to help the person. What this means is when we feel like we don't have enough, we stop being the type of person that we want to be. We stop living out the values that we have, providing loving love to other people. So as you described, your core value is being a servant to other people. We have to believe that we have something to give in that moment. And it might not be money. It might not be a lot of time that you have to spend with that person. But even a smile or a wave or a note of kindness or a hug or a touch on their shoulder, we've all known has a huge effect upon us and it starts to help us live out our lives”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Researcher who is standing in a doorway sick and slumping over, and it's clear he's in distress. And the majority of the pastors who felt like they had enough time stop and ask a person if they can help. And the majority of the pastors who are reading the Good Samaritan story who felt like they didn't have enough time”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Study is a famous psychology experiment, and they had these pastors read about the story from the Bible called The Good Samaritan, which simply was about how there was a person that was injured on the side of a path or a road. And all these people that should have helped didn't. And then the person who you never thought would have helped was the one who actually helped the good Samaritan. So the pastors learn this, are reading about the story. They're writing up a sermon, and then they have to walk across campus to deliver the sermon, and there's two conditions. Half of them, they told, you have plenty of time to get over there, just walk down this path and you'll deliver your sermon to the people they're waiting for you there, but you have lots of time. The other group, they said, you are so behind right now. You took way too long to do this. You need to get over. They're waiting for you. You need to get over, walk as fast as you can down that path. So there's a hurry condition and non-hurry condition. So some of them believe I don't have enough time. These are pastors. They're reading the good Samaritan story about helping other people. And along the path they put an undercover”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love this because I think there's oftentimes in our life we feel like we don't have something to give. If we don't have a ton of money, we might think I have nothing to give. And then we don't even give $5 to a charity. Or if we think I'm too busy, I have no time right now. Then we think I don't have time to send that text to a friend to just check in to hear how they're doing. What happens is that we go back and forth between these beliefs. We either feel like we have enough or we feel like I don't have enough. But then we go too far in this. In the book, I pair I don't have enough, not with I have enough because I don't think that that's true. I don't think that we always have enough. We might be in debt or we might be sick or we might want things that other people have. That's not where I'm going. The opposite to me of that I don't have enough is I have something to give. And there's amazing research about how this changes us. There's a study that I've read about in every one of my books because I love it. It's called The Good Samaritan Study. And the Good Samaritan”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Back at the Divinity School, I learned that the word for angel is just simply messenger. And that guy was an angel because he delivered a message to my brain right when I needed to hear it. But we need those people within our life, those messengers. And that messenger could be a teacher or a parent or a good friend or a therapist. We need these people.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Information to the brain, these neurosciences can actually watch on neuroscans. They can actually watch you encode a new belief almost at the speed of light. And that's what happened in that moment. Suddenly, the scales fell from my eyes. I felt like I could see that this talk was an opportunity to maybe help somebody else. And then maybe I'd done some...”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the driver took me to the wrong location. He took me to Target headquarters, but I was supposed to go to a theater. And so the organizers called me on the phone and said, stay where you are, don't go anywhere. We're going to send somebody to come get you. It's clear you're lost. And I felt lost, but I decided to go up the escalator into Target headquarters. And while I was doing that, this guy jogged up the stairs next to the escalator. And he said, are you Sean Acor? And I said, yes, thinking that this was the escort. And he shook my hand awkwardly over the railing as we were going up the escalator and stairs together. And as we got to the top of the escalator, he said, I just wanted to let you know, your book changed my life. And then he went through a turnstile into Target headquarters and disappeared, and I have no idea who he is. I have no idea who he was. I have no idea why the research, not my book, but the research had an impact upon his life. But as soon as my brain heard that message, something happened. There's a study that just came out in nature where they found that if you provide new”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. Yeah. And then I got another note literally five seconds later that someone got this incredible opportunity that I really would have wanted. And because I was tired, in that moment, I went into a mental tailspin. And my brain thought, you know, if you stopped working, the world wouldn't be like, no, it would just shrug. And then I started to feel like maybe I matter less now. And then I thought maybe I don't matter. And as soon as I had that belief, things started to change. What happened immediately was I was blind to the opportunity to get to speak a target. I was blind to the fact that I had taken time to be there with Zoe and Leo. And I remember getting into a car to go to the talk and sitting in the back seat looking out the window, despondent, and just feeling like I was watching the world pass by.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that's important to say because beliefs are real, even if they're not true. If a child, if a student is surrounded by people who love them and care for them and parents that care for them and teachers that care about them, but they believe that they're not lovable or believe that they're alone, that belief is not true, but it's real. It creates real effects. In this period that I was a stay-at-home dad, I started to feel like these opportunities were passing me by. And I showed up, I got to the talk at 3 a.m. in the morning, so I was tired. And when I woke up the next morning, I got a news alert that someone had made in my space a gun, the New York Times number one bestseller. And I thought to myself, I wish I had that, but I'm a stay-at-home dad now, so good for them.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Belief to try and help in those moments. And what I learned from those people, those nurses, the doctors, those school teachers was the same thing I learned from Zoe, that the lens to which you view the world changes not only your present, it changes what happens next.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What happened in that moment overnight is my beliefs about what was important and how I mattered changed. And what changed next in my life was because of those beliefs. I remember holding Zoe's hand, this little three-pound baby that was under the purple light with all those wires just keeping her alive. And I decided that I was going to not only take a step back from work, but I was going to become a full-time dad for the next couple years to take care of Zoe and our family. And it was amazing. And it was also hard at the same time. In a way, I didn't expect because I saw all these opportunities that I wanted seemed to pass me by. And the world seemed like it was passing me by. But I'm grateful for that time because not only did shift my beliefs, but also it gave me space. And when the pandemic occurred, these hospitals and schools started reaching out about what could they do when they were suffering so much. And I had the space, but also that meaning.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But instead of going on a book tour to talk about research on how you pursue happiness and success, instead my happiness as a researcher sat in the NICU in an incubator for the next 50 days while these doctors tried to keep her alive”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And she got there and they said, ma'am, your water broke. You need to stay here for six weeks trying to hold this baby in. And two days later, she was rushed into emergency surgery. We didn't even have a name for this child. It was three months too early, and we almost lost her three times in a two-day period of time. And she kept sparking back to life, and we found her name. Her name is Zoe Sparks Acor, and she just turned eight.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, eight years ago, I had this book come out, and my wife, Michelle, was pregnant at the time, and we were going to have a baby at the end of April. So I decided let's have this book come out the first week of February so I could go on the book tour, sprint, and then get off the road and be there with my wife and new child. The day before the book came out was the Super Bowl. And during the Super Bowl, during the first quarter, while my team was playing, my wife's water broke. We didn't know that was what was going on at the time, which is very important to the story. It was three months too early, and it was during the Super Bowl. So She uber to the hospital. Husband of the year. I got her an Uber Excel, so that's fancy.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Found that when we're in a grateful state, when we're positive, our brain thinks it's possible for there to be good things around us. So your brain scans for it. But if you don't believe that it's possible that there are good things in the world around us, you don't look for them. So you miss out on those possibilities. I'm reminded of this quote by my favorite author, who's C.S. Lewis, and he said that there are people that believe in miracles and sometimes see them. Think the same thing is true for people they're scanning for the things that they're grateful for in their lives.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So the people start doing it as quickly as possible, looking for all the photos in the newspaper. But on page two of everyone's newspaper, but in big letters, but not in a photo, it says stop the experiment now. We'll give you 10 pounds if you stop now. And here's what happens. The people who felt that they were unlucky, the people who are the pessimist or the people who felt like good things wouldn't happen to them, they finished the experiment and they get paid because they get the number correct. They get five pounds. But the group that thought that good things just happened to them, that good things can happen in this world. The optimist, it turns out that they stopped the experiment and not only get double pay, but they saw an opportunity that other people didn't see in that reality. And neuroscience has found out why afterwards.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It does because gratitude is searching for the good that's in the world around us, and it changes not only what we feel when we have water pressure or central air or food on our plate, it changes what happens next for people. There's this amazing demonstration experiment that was done by a researcher named Richard Weissman. And what he did is he had people come into a room like this one and he would give them a survey and find out, do you think that you are a grateful person and that you're a lucky person? The good things just seem to happen to you, that if you work for it, the world can conspire in your favor. Or do you think you're an unlucky person? The bad things just keep happening to you no matter how hard you work. And then he hands them a newspaper. And in the newspaper, he wants you to count the number of photographs that are in it. So you go quickly through it. And if you get the number correct, you get five pounds. It was done in the UK.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our sales rise, our productivity improves. We live longer. We become more altruistic. Everything we test for on the ACT and SAT Serendize Test rises, our creativity nearly triples our intelligence rises. It turns out having a grateful brain is one of the greatest possible advantages you could give to someone in the midst of a world that doesn't look like it should”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My first book was called The Happiness Advantage And what we found was that when the brain becomes more grateful for the world that we're in, it doesn't mean that we're grateful for everything that's happening. It doesn't mean we're grateful for the inequality or the discrimination or the racism that's in our world right now. But when we find those moments that things we're grateful for in the midst of it, it allows our brain to actually move from the part of the brain that sees how my behavior does matter, that fearful part that says things will never get better or that I will never be okay to the front part of the brain that moves forward. And what we find is as somebody becomes more grateful, what we find is that almost every single business and educational outcome we know how to test for improves dramatically.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Changes the attitude. I know that my wife and I, Michelle, every time she was pregnant, I prayed and hoped and believed that our children would be okay and be healthy. And we went through two miscarriages. And in the midst of when our hopes are dashed, when we feel like the world doesn't look like it should, in those moments, if we have given up the belief that my behavior matters or is that I matter or that we still have something to be grateful for or that there is something greater than me, we wouldn't have our children right now. And we would have a very different view on the world.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the important part that I would add to that is that positive beliefs don't guarantee positive outcomes, but they do propel us towards them. That if I believe and hope that a good outcome would happen from a cancer, it doesn't guarantee... That outcome will happen, but it changes your attitude towards”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And you have changed one belief. And that belief is my behavior matters or my behavior doesn't matter. What happens next changes dramatically in the science we do? So what we find is if you believe your behavior matters and you have stage three cancer, Eat healthier, you go to the doctor, you take the medication you need, you deepen your relationships with your friends because you know that that's going to help you. And what we find is their outcomes change. Same world, different beliefs, different outcomes.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think we live in a world that doesn't look like it should. And in the midst of that world, we keep reading news stories that we keep feeling like my behavior doesn't matter. Or we get a negative feedback at work or we don't get a job or we go through a breakup or something bad happens in our life. And what happens in those moments is if you take the same broken world, but you give a different belief to that same individual, their outcomes change dramatically. If you take the same student with ADHD, the same young mother who's trying to overcome the debts that she's in or caring for aging parents or the same person that”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They hear that belief that you're not good at math and they actually perform better than if they had not even had that prime. And the reason for that is that you've touched on a signature belief, something that they believe so deeply that no matter what the world says. They believe that eventually my behavior matters if linked to the right people.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some of these studies before. It's called stereotype threat that if I threaten you with a stereotype, you perform worse across the board. But what's amazing in the research that not many people know about is that there's a 10% minority report that we never talk about. 10% of the women or those black students that read that racist article beforehand, 10% of them do better on the math test.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I can, but there's actually amazing research on this very phenomenon that you're talking about. They did studies where they had a student come in and they were about to give them a math test. But if it was a woman about to take a math test or a black student before taking the test, half of the students would be given a neutral article just talking about the world right now. And then half would read an article about how women are not good at math or black students are not good at math. And then they take the test. And what they found is that the students were randomly assigned. The scores, the math scores should have been the same for both groups, but the groups that heard that they do not perform as well, when they read that, they start to believe that. And when that happens, the math scores actually dropped significantly. And they've done this over and over again. But I have to tell you, as I heard your introduction, there is something that we've heard.”
2026-07-14 · The Oprah Podcast · Your Life Changes When Your Beliefs Do with Shawn Achor and Oprah · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT