Success doesn’t create happiness. Happiness creates success.

“Across the board, people who are primed with positive emotion achieve at a higher level, whether they’re students, doctors, or other professionals,” says Daniel Lerner, co-author of “U Thrive: How to Succeed in College (and life),” and professor at New York University, where he teaches a course called “Science of Happiness.”

Typically, people think they’ll find happiness when they’re successful: “When I get the job, the promotion, the raise, the car—whatever it is you’re looking for—then I’ll be happy,” he says. “But research shows that when we have higher levels of positive emotion, we perform in a way that’s more efficient and more effective.”

In this episode of the CUNA News Podcast, Lerner discusses the link between positive emotions and high performance, and explains how people can work at being happy.

He will address CUNA’s 2018 America’s Credit Union Conference, which takes place June 28 to July 1 in Boston.

You can listen and subscribe to the CUNA News Podcast in Apple’s iTunes Store, Google Play, and Stitcher Radio.