The Power of Beliefs

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The internationally bestselling author of The Happiness Advantage and Big Potential illuminates how harnessing our beliefs can influence our success in the real world.

Same world. Different beliefs. Different outcomes.

The greatest predictor of your future is the beliefs you hold about the world. In this extraordinary book, world-renowned researcher and author Shawn Achor illuminates how beliefs change the math about what is possible and probable in our lives. And by changing the math, beliefs change our path.

Drawing on two decades of research, as well as his work with NASA, the NFL, and over a third of the Fortune 100 companies, Shawn has discovered that the predictive power of beliefs has increased significantly. Beliefs about ourselves, money, the world, politics, faith, and work do more than shape the lens through which we see the world. They shape what happens next. Scientifically speaking, beliefs don’t just reflect reality. Beliefs bend reality.

Unfortunately, our beliefs can be empowering or they can be destructive. During what Achor calls the Great Drift, we have seen the staggering rise of the Four Horsemen of the Modern World: burnout, anxiety, loneliness, and depression. We are underperforming our true potential. But there is hope. Stunning new research in this book reveals the seven most predictive “core beliefs” that alter our future health, success, wealth, and education. Scientifically, these core beliefs take the cap off our potential, enrich us, strengthen us, and heal us.

Shawn explores the six main ways of changing your and others’ beliefs using research-based strategies he has tested everywhere from Wall Street to impoverished schools in Africa, from Camp Pendleton to Camp David:

• The Disaster Elevator: change what part of the brain processes the world.
• The Memory DeLorean: change the memory.
• Stopping Negative Mantras: change the language.
• Creating a Neural Tribe: change the sources.
• Starting the Wave: change the contagious actions.
• Common Texts, Common Action: change the texts.

The Power of Beliefs shows how seven core beliefs predict your present, bend the probability of future success, and, in the modern world, are the key to creating a better life for you and for others.

Shawn Achor is one of the world’s leading experts on the connection between happiness, success and potential. His research on mindset made the cover of Harvard Business Review, and his TED talk is one of the most popular of all time with 16 million views. He has worked with over a third of the Fortune 100 companies, the Pentagon and the White House, and lectured in more than 50 countries (from CEOs in China to doctors in Dubai and school children in South Africa). His Happiness Advantage training is one of the most successful corporate training programmes in the world. His research has been published in the New York Times, WSJ, Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Fortune. He is the author of The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness.

Shawn Achor’s book, The Power of Beliefs, published in 2026, takes the reader on a profound journey into the human mind, arguing that our beliefs do much more than simply reflect the reality we live in—they actually have the power to bend it. Drawing on two decades of research in over fifty countries, as well as his extensive work with NASA, the NFL, and Fortune 100 companies, Achor expands upon his earlier work in positive psychology. He proposes that the lens through which we view the world, forged by our conscious and unconscious beliefs, is the single greatest predictor of our future. When we change the mathematical probabilities of what we believe is possible, we fundamentally alter the path we take. Achor explains that human belief is not a soft or secondary skill; instead, it is an ascendant force that dictates our health, happiness, relationships, and success.

The book is uniquely timely, written as a response to a modern phenomenon that Achor identifies as the "Great Drift." In today’s highly connected yet deeply isolated world, society is experiencing a staggering rise in what he calls the Four Horsemen of the Modern World: burnout, anxiety, loneliness, and depression. During this Great Drift, many people have slowly lost their sense of agency, leading to a pervasive feeling of apathy—which Achor describes as the true opposite of happiness. Apathy is the tragic loss of the belief that change is possible and that our behavior still matters. Because of this drift, we are collectively underperforming our true potential. However, Achor offers a deeply hopeful counter-narrative, presenting scientific evidence that our beliefs are more predictive and more healing today than they were even twenty years ago. We possess an incredible, innate ability to pull ourselves out of this drift by consciously reshaping our internal narratives.

To guide this transformation, Achor introduces seven Core Power Beliefs that act as the foundation for a thriving life. Rather than vague platitudes, these are scientifically backed mindsets that dictate positive outcomes across all aspects of human existence. The first and most critical belief is the conviction that our behavior matters, which restores our sense of agency. This is closely followed by the belief that we inherently matter as individuals, and the vital understanding that we are not alone in our struggles. The remaining core beliefs include the realization that our work and efforts are meaningful, the ability to recognize things to be grateful for in the present moment, the empowering feeling that we always have something of value to give to others, and finally, the comforting certainty that there is something in the universe greater than ourselves. Achor argues that these seven specific beliefs are currently under threat in the modern world, and the extent to which we can consciously embrace and defend them is the strongest indicator of how successful and fulfilling our lives will be.

Understanding these core beliefs is only half the battle; the real magic lies in learning how to adopt them. To address this, the final portion of the book serves as a practical manual for rewiring our minds, outlining six distinct strategies to shift destructive narratives into empowering ones. Achor introduces fascinating psychological tools, such as the Disaster Elevator, which helps shift the part of the brain processing information by visualizing different tiers of worst-case scenarios to find a viable, productive path forward. He also discusses the Memory DeLorean, a technique used to re-encode and alter the core memories upon which limiting beliefs are built. The other strategies involve stopping negative mantras by actively changing our internal language, creating a "Neural Tribe" by consciously choosing the sources of information and the people we surround ourselves with, starting a wave of contagious positive actions, and finally, utilizing common texts and shared narratives to build collective resilience. Together, these tools prove that we are not permanently stuck with our current worldview.

Ultimately, The Power of Beliefs is both an optimistic roadmap and a rigorous scientific exploration of human potential. It teaches us that happiness is the joy we feel while moving toward our potential, and that this joy actually fuels success rather than resulting from it. Since you love the convenience of carrying a large personal library on your devices and prefer digital formats for quick searchability, this is definitely a title you might enjoy downloading as an ebook or sampling first on Google Books. Reading it on your Kindle would allow you to easily highlight his practical frameworks and quickly locate specific cognitive exercises—like the Memory DeLorean—whenever you need a quick mental reset. Achor’s writing serves as a powerful reminder that by intentionally crafting the stories we tell ourselves, we can take the cap off our potential, heal our minds, and create a profoundly better life for ourselves and the communities around us.