Try The Happiness Approach

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: The Business of Happiness

Competencies: self development, self control, achievement orientation, adaptability/flexibility/stress tolerance, cognitive hardiness, coping skills

Who benefits: absolutely everyone

Consultant Usage: good background material to assist in any type of coaching or consulting assignment; a way to approach work and interactions

What’s it about? I am very happy to recommend this book.  In fact, I am extremely happy to recommend this book.  But only to readers who can answer the following three questions in the affirmative: First, do you like books filled with stories?  Because this book is a first person almost autobiography. Second, are you genuinely seeking to put more happiness in your life?  Because this book offers a plan to get on the happiness trail.  It is not just about “wishes” and “hopes”.

Third, are you willing to suspend judgment at the beginning of the book.  Because the author thesis is genuinely suspect.  The book revolves around his ideas that happiness leads to success for both individuals and companies.  My first reaction was “Well, if I run around seeking or being happy all the time, how will I ever get any work done?”  It took me a while to jump on board, to become a believer.  But once I got it, I GOT IT!

The author is Ted Leonsis.  He is not a writer, he is a businessman.  He sold his first company at age 28 for 60 million bucks … and wasn’t a happy person.  After a near death experience on an airplane, he began a personal journey to find happiness and for him success followed.  He allowed that working made him happy if done the right way.  And along the way he became a leading force in AOL, sold out near the peak, started another company and sold it to American Express for 312 million, made movies, bought a professional sports team, and now has given more than 1,000 speeches on and has written a book about happiness.

Here is what says: “The strangest thing that has happened is that by systematically attempting to achieve happiness, I have actually increased my prospects to be successful in business and life.” 

For businesses he writes about the double bottom line: “There is, I believe, a ‘double bottom line’ that is made up of fiscal results and positive impact on people and society.”

The nitty-gritty of the book is “(H)appiness is a driver of success, not the other way around.”  He then elaborates on the six-“secrets to extraordinary success in life and work”:

• Goal-Setting
• Communities of Interest
• Personal Expression
• Gratitudes
• Empathy Expressed by Giving Back
• Higher Calling

My review hardly does this book justice.  It is not a pie-in-the-sky, do-gooder, touchy-feely, Pollyannaish, sappy manuscript.  It is a businessman’s take, approaching happiness just like you would any other business project. 

When I finished it I felt good and I thought a lot about how it applies to my life.  What more can you ask from a book?

Catch you later.
[tags]happiness, happiness and work, happiness at work, empathy, goal-setting, gratitudes, communication, oral communication, self development, self control, achievement orientation, adaptability/flexibility/stress tolerance, cognitive hardiness, coping skills, ted leonsis, bill bradley, william bradley, bradley[/tags]

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.