Happiness
Happiness is no longer just a warm and fuzzy feeling, it’s now a highly researched and respected subject with tools and techniques shown to increase individual happiness levels.
Not only that, we’re also seeing high quality, credible and convincing statistics that reveal the positive impacts of happiness on productivity, creativity, health and innovation. Given the relevance of these areas to all of us and our companies, there’s no doubt it’s time for Happiness to arrive on the corporate agenda.
Happiness is an important topic for companies – Really?
Why Happiness is Compelling for Businesses
Happiness has been highly researched over the last decade
Hard research shows that happiness results from a series of behaviors and attitudes that can be taught, and learned at any age
There is strong evidence of causality between employee happiness and successful business outcomes
A conclusion of 225 peer-reviewed academic studies shows that happy employees have, on average, 3x the creativity of their unhappy colleagues, 31% higher productivity, and 37% higher sales.
And it’s more fun to work in a company filled with happy people, which is great for attracting and retaining talent, as well as delivering great work
Whilst we can’t make others happy, happiness is contagious, which means that a bunch of happy employees can work miracles for overall company morale
What can we learn on a Happiness Course?
Explore the theory and practice of ‘How to be Happy’
Introduce a set of tools and techniques that will increase personal happiness levels both at home and at work
Encourage and empower individuals to manage and amplify their happiness by experiencing and then adopting the tools and techniques that bring happiness
Provide research, demonstrations, examples, and stories that motivate and inspire participants to adopt the happiness habits and behaviors
Measure participant happiness before the course and again a few weeks afterwards so that participants get positive feedback measures on how this is working for them personally
Look for other business impacts such as increased morale, increased creativity, more lightness and fun!
WHAT CAN WE LEARN ON A HAPPINESS COURSE?
The course content can be adapted and delivered in any of these formats:
1-3 hour motivational speech
1 day class
3 day course
6-8 weekly classes lasting 2-3 hours
Other formats can be discussed
On-line support providing supplementary literature, exercises, assessments, tools, and other interesting information is currently in development
WHAT DO WE DO?
Explore the subject of happiness in more detail (theory and practice) drawing from positive psychology, philosophy, sports science, emotional intelligence, neuroscience, neuro-linguistic programming, eastern mysticism and all the major thinking about happiness from the last 20 years
Bust the big 3 myths of happiness (we are born happy/unhappy, we get happier as we get more money/stuff, success bring happiness). Get the real data and the hardcore research on what moves our happiness levels up and down
Learn how to reconcile happiness in the present vs happiness in the future and discover tools that allow us to measure how much happiness we’re banking for the future vs how much happiness we’re enjoying today
Explore the evolution of our brain, discover which part of our brain gets in the way of happiness, and learn the behaviors that will control it
Understand why gratitude is so important for happiness. Get in touch with gratitude through in-class guided meditation. Learn techniques that enable us to adopt the behaviors of gratitude into our everyday life
Explore how meditation works to quiet the unhappy mind. Learn about meditation, practice a meditation in class, develop a meditation practice to suit your lifestyle
Being ‘in flow’ produces the ultimate performance for world class athletes and sports people. Discover why we experience our highest feelings of fulfillment, as well as delivering our best performances, while we’re ‘in flow’ and learn how to increase the time we spend there
Living a life ‘on purpose’, i.e. knowing what is our personal mission in life, is key to finding and holding onto happiness. The happiest people understand their life’s mission and are guided by it. We will work through an exercise that helps to illuminate and put us in touch with our Life’s Purpose
Discover why optimism is important for happiness. All participants will have the opportunity to measure their levels of optimism and work with tools and techniques to increase their optimism levels. We’ll also look at the power of words in setting moods and outcomes
Other topics include visualization, work life balance, vision boarding, clutter clearing and the impacts of love, social networks and community on happiness
Need more information?
Read about the Inspiring Happiness course in Fast Company online magazine here http://bit.ly/15a 1p7GX
The Inspiring Happiness course at MEC won Adweek’s Gold Project Isaac Award for HR Invention. Read about it here http://bit.ly/16gaGLO and here http://bit.ly/11x4O41
Helen Mumford Sole teaches the harder core, more academic version of this subject matter at Eugene Lang College, The New School for Liberal Arts as a credit course for undergraduates
Clients who have loved this content include Coca Cola Enterprises, Citi group, Merck, MEC Global, Momentum ad agency, as well as other private clubs, institutions and individuals who have been coached in happiness. An ‘Evening of Happiness’ was even gifted as a birthday present to a well-known individual by his daughter!
Happiness for Leaders is also available as a course designed specifically for senior leaders.
What Happiness course participants say about it