Michelle Gielan

Research Focus: Communication and Sustainability

Founder of IAPR & NYT Best-selling Author of Broadcasting Happiness

Michelle Gielan has spent the past decade researching the link between happiness and success. She is the bestselling author of Broadcasting Happiness: The Science of Igniting and Sustaining Positive Change and was named one of the Top 10 authors on resilience by the Harvard Business Review.

Michelle is an Executive Producer of “The Happiness Advantage” on PBS and a featured professor in Oprah’s Happiness course. She formerly served as anchor of The CBS Morning News, and her research has received attention from dozens of media outlets including The Washington Post, FORBES, and The New York Times.

Michelle holds an advanced degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. from Tufts University in Computer Engineering.

Sample Topics

Broadcasting Happiness: Creating Success through Positive Engagement

Effective, positive communication is the single biggest driver of success at work. New research in the fields of neuroscience and positive psychology is showing the incredible ripple effect positive communication can have on employee engagement, productivity, and happiness.

After spending years as a national CBS News anchor broadcasting to millions and receiving an advanced degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Positive Psychology, Michelle developed simple, yet proven techniques for positive communication that drive individual and team success for quantifiable results. During this interactive session, Michelle will share case studies showing the benefits of applying these tools, including one from a client that applied her research and increased gross revenues in 18 months by $300M. Michelle will train professionals at all levels of the organization how to inoculate their brain against stress and negativity, build optimism through effective positive communication, and get others to adopt a more resilient mindset to fuel a talent-enhancing culture at work.

The Science of Positive Authentic Female Leadership

A mindset hijacked by stress is one of the biggest barriers to high performance for leaders and their teams, yet new research shows 91% of people could improve their default response to stress using simple, proven habits. The antidote to the weight of change, uncertainty, and non-stop demands is building a resilient, optimistic mindset.

In one of the largest studies on stress of its kind, Michelle has identified the three major dimensions of your response to stress that predict your well-being and performance. In a separate landmark study done in partnership with Stanford and Yale, her team trained executives at UBS how to rethink their relationship with stress, and four weeks later that group as compared to the control reported a 23% decrease in stress related symptoms including headaches, backaches and fatigue. Drawing from that work and numerous other studies, Michelle will train your audience how to how to identify stress response pitfalls that waste energy and leave us stuck, use unavoidable stress to their advantage to boost performance, develop simple habits to retrain their brains to be more resilient and optimistic in minutes, thereby booting performance and well-being.

The Optimism Quotient: Changing Our Mindset, Fueling Success

We often overestimate the impact our life circumstances have on our happiness and success. New research shows 90% of our long-term success is predicted not by our external circumstance but how we process the world around us.

So what is the scientific key to our success? Optimism: the expectation of good things to happen and the belief that our behavior matters, especially in the face of challenges. Optimists are more successful, make more money over the course of their careers, stress fewer days each year and achieve better results at work – not to mention they experience more joy while working towards their goals.

Nationally recognized researcher and best-selling author Michelle Gielan will empower you with practical, research-based positive communication strategies to fuel optimism and resilience. Learn the science behind how to train the brain for greater optimism to reap the benefits: 31% increase in productive energy, 37% higher sales, 40% higher likelihood of a promotion, and a 23% decrease in stress. During this interactive session, Michelle shares the strategies for raising our personal optimism quotient, responding to challenges more effectively, and channeling this new mindset into tangible success.

What People Are Saying

“Our group includes data geeks, research nerds, and senior business executives … a diverse group that expects that theory is backed by proof … some were concerned that her message could have been considered subjective … her message not only resonated, but also transformed our audience to adopt the challenge of radiating happiness. Including Michelle Gielan in an event is to ensure happier, more productive, more successful outcomes for your group.”

–The Incentive Research Foundation

“Michelle was more incredible and down to earth than I could have even expected! … We took the 21 Day Challenge in an email campaign and our open rate was twice the industry average AND our click through rate to her tools was nearly THREE times the industry average! … Many folks are using a Power Lead who did not attend our event. That piece has gone viral and become a part of our fabric! Michelle Gielan truly made an impact on our organization!”

– VCU Health System

“Michelle is a delight and everyone was overly impressed with her message and her positive spirit. Many times at conventions we find ourselves so involved in industry material that we fail to look at other opportunities to have speakers that help us in life, and being positive. The world is a crazy place at times and … Michelle teaches us the power of being happy and how it impacts every aspect of our lives.”

– Director of Business Development, United Real Estate

Book: Broadcasting Happiness

In the midst of some of the lowest levels of engagement in history, creating a positive mindset is only the first step. What comes next is finding ways to sustain positive change, getting others to adopt that positivity, and replicating successful patterns of behavior. If you want to help your team be more innovative, productive or sell more each quarter changing your story in specific ways is the key. Peppered with case studies, Broadcasting Happiness shows how real companies are using these techniques to improve their cultures—and bottom lines