Author Archives: Christophe Pelletier

Happiness killers

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When it comes to finding happiness, the usual approach is to find ways to achieve that goal. Of course, it is intuitively the logical angle, but is it really? I am asking the question because most people either look for or offer “recipes”. Considering the amount of books, methods and “gurus” of all sorts, one would think that everybody would be happy by now. Unfortunately, the ways to find happiness are very similar in their outcome as the many diets promising you to lose weight. Only a lucky few succeed. One of my favorite ways of dealing with impasses is to turn the issue around and ask why it does not work. If it is difficult to find an effective method to be happy, maybe it is better to remove all the clutter first and look at what hinders you from being happy. It is interesting to move away from “How can I be happy?” to “Why am I not happy?” There are many kinds of reasons for that and many of them are sheer happiness killers. Let’s review here a number of them, in no particular order.

Envy

There has to be a reason why envy is listed as one of the seven deadly sins. It just makes those suffering of it plain miserable. Wanting the same as what others have is not bringing you happiness if it is not really what you want or need. At best, it can bring some temporary satisfaction or relief, but then there is always something else coming in the picture creating desire and therefore frustration. Happiness is a very personal matter. What makes you happy is not what make others happy. Keeping up with the Joneses or following the herd is actually is major case of self negligence. No wonder that envy is always in the way of genuine happiness. It can also get people in trouble. How many people spend more than they should and get themselves in financial trouble and stress just to have things that does not deliver what they are supposed to? That even adds to the unhappiness.

Ego

What a powerful thing is an ego! The problem is that the bigger it is, the more it obstructs the path to happiness. There is nothing like a bit of overblown pride to thwart happiness. Instead of being open to positive change and help, ego will actually cause more blindness and resistance to improvement, and for what? Of course, ego makes some people achieve a lot in their lives, although often it is more about fighting the acceptance of their own insecurities. What better example of this than Orange POTUS #45 (aka Trump), constantly erring in denial, anger and bargaining to fight old demons and refuse reality because it is too scary. You can become the supposedly most powerful person on Earth and yet be insecure, scared and miserable as hell. It is up to you if you wish your ego to stand in the way to happiness.

Superficiality

This is a side effect of envy. If the purpose is to keep up, then you are actually only busy putting up a show. It is not so much about substance as it is about appearance, and let’s face it whether you realize it or not, unconsciously you know that you are only busy filling a big vacuum. And instead of filling it with substance, you are only filling it with hot air. Then, it keeps feeling empty and that is why it feels unhappy. As the term says it, self-esteem is about self. Your self-esteem is about you. If you let the outside world define how you should be and what you should do, there will be little hope to be truly happy. Happiness is personal and you are the only one who knows what is good for you. Nobody else does. There you have it, do what you enjoy doing. Do what makes you happy. There is a reason why this works. Because when you do what makes you happy, your serotonin level gets a boost and that feels great. Neurologists have discovered a long time ago that creatures (not just humans) are always coming back for what gives them pleasure and always try to avoid what they feels as unpleasant.

Doing something you don’t like

Beyond the fact that doing something you don’t like is no fun and clearly won’t make you happy, it is also often a serious source of stress. This is particularly true when it comes to work. Having to go day after day to a place that you dread and resent cannot be good for you. Unfortunately, there are so many people who live this life. Stress is bad for the health, both mental and physical as the two really go hand in hand. How many people just choose for the slow death, somehow thinking that this is the way life is and/or because they fear the alternative. As the saying goes, better the devil you know than the one you don’t. The only problem with this approach is that the devil you know is just that: the devil, and generally speaking it is not a happy company. The solution here is to dare changing your life and that is scary.

Fear of changing something and fear of failure

It is just stating the obvious, but it is true: fear is scary. Fear is paralyzing, too. It is actually what happens in the wild. Fear is a defense mechanism. In that sense, it is a good thing, but the problem is that it is so only if there is real and actual danger. Fear of the unknown is a bit different. The unknown can be scary but it does not mean that it is dangerous. It can be or at least feel risky. There is a chance to take but what is the alternative? Waiting for death? Perhaps, it makes more sense to feel alive, though. Life is about taking chances. When applying for a job, there is the possibility to not get the position. When feeling attracted to someone, there is the possibility to be rejected. But there is always the possibility to get the job and to find love. The only way to know if you can swim is to go in the water. That is scary, too, but it is life. It always comes down to one simple question: “What would you do if you could not fail?” Answer that question and then go for it. If you still feel scared, just realise that there will always be more opportunities later anyway. You might trip on this one attempt, but you just get back on your feet and try again. The only true failure is to not try. The thing with trying is that after a few attempts, it kind of becomes fun to do, although every time there will be that uneasy feeling in your stomach, but that is part of the excitement!

Taking things too seriously, lack of humour

What comes to mind when you think happiness? To me, it would be smile and laughter. Happiness, unlike stress, makes you relax, and when you relax, you smile. In my opinion, it is just that simple. So don’t take things too seriously, after all in the grand scheme of things, everything can be put into a different perspective, to some extent. A good example of that is the song from Monty Python’s movie, The Life of Brian. We come with nothing; we leave with nothing; so we lose nothing. The movie also shows how dangerous and nutty people who take things very seriously can get. Just look around in the world. All the fascists, fanatics and extremists all share one characteristic: they haven’t got much sense of humour, and they tend to kill those who do. The same thing can be noticed with social media and the online shaming and lynching by the digital crusaders and other puritans, aka keyboard warriors. Actually, what do they have in common with their aggressive and intolerant behaviour? Just think about it for a few moments. Here is the answer: they are all very unhappy, probably mostly about their own shortcomings and failures, and they translate that hate of their lives into the hate of those who they think have managed to have it better than they do. What is that word already? Oh yes: envy. Let’s face it; there is no happiness without laughter and humour. Humour is actually a defusing mechanism. It helps us deal with absurdity and impasses by turning a situation into what ridicule it contains. Humour is a way to blow some steam without violence. We have another way to deal with absurdity and frustration and that is a much less pleasant one than telling a joke. The other way is violence. It is also a very natural way of dealing with frustration. It liberates energy and makes the perpetrator feel good. Of course, it is an unacceptable way of dealing with conflict, but it exists and we must not be naïve about it. Just see the rate of domestic violence that has taken place during the Covid-19 lockdowns to see my point. Humour and laughter make people feel good and it has lasting power. Opposite to that, violence does neither. It does not make others feels good and it has no lasting power for the perpetrator’s satisfaction.

Taking things personally

Slightly on the side of the previous point, also about my point on ego, but also about taking things seriously, is to think that everything that happens is about you. Wouldn’t that be wonderful if the entire universe revolved around that one so very special person? It probably would, but it just does not, so let’s get over it and have more humility! At the beginning of my career, I remember a sign that was posted at the door of the mail room of the company where I worked. It was humour, you know, the stuff that makes happy. It said “Do not come here to talk about you, we do plenty of that when you are not around”. I found that was quite funny, and actually very true, as people are people and you can be sure they will judge you, whatever you do. The thing about taking things personally is that it makes you become oversensitive to what happens. I don’t think that there has ever been anyone who has had nothing bad happening to him or her in life. That is the way it goes. We all experience setbacks and disappointments. There are always moments that feel unfair and make us sad and/or angry. That is life. As Nietzsche said “what does not kill you makes you stronger”. That is very true. We do become stronger from those events. We do not really grow from comfort and an easy life. We grow from learning and we learn best from when it is tough. So, it is better to find ways of growing a thicker skin because it helps dealing with disappointments and setbacks much better, and that then leads to a much better ability to find happiness.

Too high standards and expectations

Here is a real killer: aiming for the unattainable! There is no better way to be disappointed than to set the bar too high, because whatever we try and do, we always fail, and the others always fail us. This is the perfect recipe for an everything-sucks state of mind. Let’s think a little here. Is it possible to get some happiness for a self-inflicted world of every sucking? You know the answer as well as I do and I will not elaborate any further. Just adjust your standards and expectations to something realistic. First, who might one be to think that they can set standards to others? If they do not like the people in their lives, they should just go look for some other ones. Also, be cautious about being too demanding, as the result is that others will walk away from you and you might end up alone, and that does not make anyone happy. But adjusting expectations and standards does not mean not having ambitious ones; it is good to have ambition in life. It gives motivation and a sense of purpose. Achieving a better life always increase happiness. It is just that you must aim at ambitious goals but they also must be realistic. Here, realistic is of the essence because as the word says it, it is about reality. Living outside of reality to eventually discover that it is a mistake is a good way to kill happiness.

Negativity, being judgemental

Here is a side effect of unrealistic expectations and considering oneself as the universal standard. We all do some of that at some point and we are all the target of some judgement by others at some point, too. I am not going to set unrealistic standards to human nature and say we should never be negative or judgmental. I would be disappointed and that could make me bitter. Like all things in life, it is a matter of moderation. The negativity that comes from the everything-sucks perception of one’s world is simply destructive. It is a spiral nobody should enter and that anyone stuck in it needs to get out as soon as possible. It is not easy because those suffering from chronic negativity find some sort of a masochistic pleasure in it. It is a great way to deflect one’s own unhappiness on others. After all, everything is the others’ fault. Negativity morphs into victimization –even martyrdom- and self-pitying. Good luck to ever be happy with that! The same thing applies about being judgemental. It really is about comparing oneself with others. It is in a way another manifestation of envy and ego. The problem with comparing is that by doing so, we lose the focus of finding happiness, which is always inside of us, and try to define ourselves relatively to others, which never provides happiness, because our own happiness does not live in other people’s lives.

Not enough communication

Last but not least on this list, communication is of such importance in life in general and happiness in particular. Communication feels good. It is a way of sharing one’s own burden with others, which makes it lighter to bear. Communication also helps others doing the same with us and it gives us a good feeling to help others, especially our loved ones. Communication is the only way we have to solve problems. If we keep our problems inside, how can we or anyone else solve them? Getting input from others and from a different and more objective perspective is quite useful to overcome setbacks and get back on our feet. If we do not do that, there is no way to improve, to learn and to move forward. Without communication, a person is stuck and we all know that this feeling is not conducive for happiness. Nothing is so important that it cannot be addressed and solved. Communication is the way to resolve and avoid conflicts from turning into destructive behaviour. Sadly, too many people suffer from a lack of communication and that is why they decide for alternatives with negative consequences, in which happiness cannot even find its way in. Communicate, and especially listen! This is the greatest gift you can do to another human being.

Copyright 2021 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

The little things that make happy

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Happiness is quite the popular topic. There are countless books and publications on the subject and yet people still seem to have a hard time finding happiness. Here follows a little story about something rather benign that made me happy. I do not really know why but it did, and I want to share it because there are interesting lessons to learn from it.

One of my pair of shoes, which I bought some 12 years ago look beaten up. They are waterproof hiking shoes and I have to admit that I had not taken the best care of them all these years. They look so beaten up that over the past few years I had used them only for gardening purposes. Of course, they got dirtier and more beaten up but they are sturdy and so I kept using them. Lately, I used them to shovel snow and they got wet and showed some tough water stains. It reached a level of ugliness that bothered me. So, I looked at what kind of shoe care products we have in the house. My wife has a quite a collection of such products and I found a few that would help the shoes look a little bit better. I gave the shoes a good scrubbing and brushing. I applied care products a few times in all the creases and cracks to make sure they would nourish the leather. I finished with a good shoeshine and polishing and… I could not believe my eyes. I bought some new shoelaces and the shoes now look really great, almost as good as new. They look so good that I do not use them just for the garden anymore, but I use them for my trips to town during the winter. They are waterproof, comfortable and warm. That is ideal for our winter conditions here. It is also a lot cheaper than buying new shoes. I cannot explain why, but restoring these shoes has really made me happy. I am proud of them and I am proud of myself. Silly? Perhaps, but who cares anyway? All that matters is that it makes me happy. That is lesson one. Your happiness is for yourself only. Others do not have to understand or agree. As long as your happiness does not harm anyone else, it is nobody else’s business.

Lesson one is really important because it comes to a simple fact: happiness is about you, not about pleasing others, which means that others are not the ones deciding what makes you happy. But there are more lessons from this:

  • Happiness is what make you feel good, regardless of what it is. There are no particular rules.
  • Happiness is not necessarily about grand ideals. In fact, most of the time, it is not. It is about the little things, because little things are easier to achieve than bearing the world’s salvation on your shoulders.
  • Happiness is not about money. For my shoes, all it took was some care products that we had in the house for years and a pair of new shoelaces. The total cost was just a few bucks, while buying similar new shoes would have cost at least 30 times more. Perhaps, the fact that the restoration cost so little was part of the happiness.
  • Happiness is not about others, but it is about what you think and feel. Yet, I got some positive comments on my shoes, so I guess it confirms that they look good.
  • Happiness is not about having fancy things or high-tech stuff. These are stupid hiking shoes and all it took was some shoe care products, a rag and, bit of elbow grease and less than a quarter of an hour.

If we focused on the little things of daily life that make us feel good, instead of desperately trying to keep up with trends to impress others, the world would be happier, except for  marketers of course, but they, too, might find happiness in something else than what they currently do. To be happy, follow your feelings, not the trends. Happiness can only come from inside.

Copyright 2020 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Are you depressed today?

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It is useful to read the news. Apparently, this is Blue Monday (yes with capital letters). I did not even know that. Actually, I woke up rather upbeat, and then, boom, I saw the headlines. Today is supposedly the most depressing day of the year. Why? I have no idea. Is it true? Apparently, there is no scientific proof of that at all. Nonetheless, there is not one media outlet that does not mention today’s blues. If there is something I would find depressing, this sheep-like behavior of the media would be it. They all present the same lame and useless topics to pretend to be on top of the latest news, except that this is not about information but simply gossip and trying to feel trendy and get attention.

There is no reason to feel any more depressed today than any other day. Do not let people trying to sell something talk you down! All that matters is to have a positive look at life and get up with the desire of making the day interesting. At least, that is my philosophy. If you start the day convincing yourself that it will be a terrible one, then of course, you already have spoiled it for yourself. But do not blame the calendar for it because in this case the culprit is you. It is true that winter time can be dull at times. There is less daylight and the weather can be sometimes unfriendly, but that is no good reason to feel bad. Winter is temporary and soon nicer days will come. Here where I live in Canada, we have had some nasty cold and quite the dump of snow the last couple of weeks. The wind was cutting like a knife through the several layers of clothes that I wore but I had a great time being outside shoveling the snow about every day. I got a great work out and once back inside, I actually felt as warm as during my recent stay in Florida.

Happiness really starts with the mind. Although life can bring hardships, we always have the choice between making ourselves miserable or happy. It is easier said than done, that is true. Nonetheless, it can be done. And there is nothing wrong to also decide to freewheel mentally for a day or two if it feels like too much of an effort. Take your time to recharge the batteries, but never ever just give up on your day because the media tells you a bogus story. Since when should we believe everything that is on internet?

Happiness does not fall on your lap. It is something that you must nurture. Just like a relationship, it is something that is never over. Happiness is something to perfect and polish a little more every day. The effort is worth it because happiness feels good and everybody wants more of a good thing. That is a simple neurologic truth. Besides, is the alternative better? I doubt that most people enjoy feeling crappy, and often they do because they set their mind on feeling so.

Forget about the gloom that sensationalism sellers try to make you believe. Embrace this Monday 20 January and make something good out of it.

Enjoy your day! … and tomorrow and the day after that, etc… The choice is yours.

Copyright 2020 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Happiness: Always more vs. always enough

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It has been a while since my last article on this blog. I guess I have been rather busy. I intend to write more regularly in the future. The main reason is that happiness is an important topic, although too often neglected, just like health. Yet, both are interdependent.

I will resume by looking at whether happiness is the result of always wanting and having more or whether it is just about having always enough. The current economic model is really all about pushing people to always want more. Enough seems just not enough. It is true if the main parameter of economic performance is the GDP, but is the GDP the right indicator?

Happiness is a theme that comes and goes. During periods of economic growth, it seems to be overlooked as shopping seems to be the panacea for continuous bliss. But when the economy is not doing so well, then happiness reappears as an important theme. It was quite noticeable during the Great Recession of 2008. Since money was a bit short and the outlook uncertain, happiness suddenly emerged as being something of value. Even political leaders and the UN were engaging in attempts to use happiness as an indicator of prosperity and considered as something to assess how countries are doing. The example that they all referred to was Bhutan, which has happiness as one of its parameters. The media were adamant about it. It sounded promising and we were perhaps headed toward a different ranking of what is truly important and what makes people happy but then something terrible happened: the economy started to boom again. Since then, who talks about Bhutan and its happiness indicator for global improvement of societies anymore?

With the economy doing well and people having more disposable income, the main concern became the old one again: how to give your hard-earned work money to corporations as quickly and as much as possible and dig yourself into debt? I guess that I am old school but I am not really keen on giving the money that I earn to the richest 1%. For some reason, I believe that they already have more than enough to sustain themselves. Of course, this is a bit of sarcasm but the true reason, as far as I am concerned, is that I do not need always more to be happy. I have reached a point in my life where I have about all I need and I do not feel that I should waste my time and my money in the consumerism rat race.

So let’s have a look at the always more vs. always enough question. The economic model, based on GDP, wants the economy to be about always more transactions (i.e. buying stuff). The GDP is an indicator of growth but it has no particular focus on whether the growth is quantitative or qualitative. In other words, the economy is about buying –and producing- always more, regardless of whether it creates wealth or chaos. One of the reasons is what economists call externalities, which simply put are the long-term economic costs (negative externalities) or benefits (positive externalities). For instance, if mass production means damaging the environment in such a way that health costs increase for the society, these health care costs are not factored in the cost of production and the price of the consumption goods. An interesting illustration could be the health cost of bad nutrition. Society pays for the health care costs of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and some cancers, but producers and sellers of foods that contribute to the diseases are not charged for the health care costs and thus the health cost of bad foods is not included in the price of foods. Profits are individualized and costs are socialized.

In a system that is focused on quantitative growth (always more), the externalities are something that will have to be looked at later. If we deplete resources or damage our living environment, that is not the problem of today’s GDP, and that is the core of all the difficulties to address climate change for instance. The engine behind quantitative growth is marketing, which has become the art of making you buy a whole bunch of things that you do not really need with money that you do not even need to have right now, either. These consequences will have to be addressed later. They are externalities. To push you to want always more, marketing will trigger all your insecurities and hidden fears. You might not be “cool” or not sexy or not modern or not trendy or not special enough, etc etc… you name it. Well, you cannot live like that, can you? Fortunately, somebody somewhere has exactly what you need to hide all your “flaws” and fool the rest of the world. All you need to do is to spend your money and it will be all fine… for the corporations and the stock markets.

Opposite of that never-ending race, there is the always enough strategy. Just like with always more, you must earn money to sustain such an approach. It is not free, either. The difference is that you will not need as much money as with the always more concept. You also will have to develop a thick skin against all the mind games tricks from the marketers and not mind whatever you neighbours, friends or colleagues may think of you. The thick skin has a name: happiness, and it makes you almost indestructible. Actually, the always enough philosophy rests on qualitative growth. It is about growth that does not have externalities and long-term consequences that cannot be managed. It is much healthier for your finances and it is much gentler on the planet as well. Qualitative growth is the only truly sustainable economic growth model. On the opposite, quantitative growth is not sustainable. In a closed system with finite resources, “always more” leads inevitably to “no more”. The only thing we do not know is when that day will come. That is what wondering about what world we will leave to future generations really comes down to.

Back to the thick skin I mentioned earlier. How can one grow it? Well, while always more is all about having more stuff, always enough is about covering your needs and just that. The focus is about defining yourself by what you are and what you have inside. It is about your own quality, hence the relation to qualitative growth. The model about quantitative growth wants you to define yourself by what you have, by what you buy, it comes from outside (the retailers and the producers), not from inside. If you look at it from a happiness point of view, there are simple questions with simple answers.

  • If you want always more, what is it that you are truly missing?
  • If you are happy, why do you need more?
  • If marketers and corporations decide how you should lead your life, then are you really in charge and in control of your life or are you just being played with? And can you be happy about that?

Another set of questions, looked at from the other end of the scope is

  • Is always enough about meeting your true needs and always more just about wanting instead of needing?
  • When you are truly happy, could it be that you have enough of all you need?
  • If you are happy with yourself, what does it matter what others think?

Of course, different people have different priorities and values. That is why the life plan that I present on this website is based on personal values. Regardless of these values and priorities, long-term consequences are real. Beyond individual values, collective values that shape our societies and our economic models will impact future generations. If the system needs to change, the name of the game is: planned transition. Unfortunately, when we look at economy, people and environment, the rhetoric is too often about changing the system abruptly, which creates resistance and rightly so. Everything needs time to be done well and changing our economic model is no exception to that rule. The irony is that by no giving ourselves the time for a smooth transition, we will end up with an abrupt crisis that we will not be able to postpone anymore and there will not be many happy people when that happens.

Copyright 2019 – Christophe Pelletier – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Passion, Courage and Support

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The three words from the title are quite important when it comes to happiness and success. To illustrate this, I will briefly tell the story of an 18-year old young man from France. Romain – that is his name – has had a passion for hospitality for years. When he turned 16, he decided to leave the mainstream high school system and start an apprenticeship to become a professional waiter with an eye to become a sommelier later on.

Passion is a powerful driver. It gives the ability to engage and pursue towards the objective regardless of difficulties and setbacks. It provides an almost indestructible optimism and perseverance. With regards to success, passion certainly contributes greatly to achieve what others might consider difficult or risky. Passion gives a confidence and a desire that shows others that success is possible. This is exactly what Romain has demonstrated over the past two years. His passion and motivation have helped him dare something different and so far he has achieved amazing results. Next to passion, he also has enough courage to dare into new challenges and see what he is worth.

Romain during the competitionHe decided to get out of his comfort zone and to participate in a couple of professional contests. Romain lives not too far away from Lyon and Burgundy. These regions have strong culinary traditions. Some of the greatest French chefs and restaurants are located in the Lyon area. For instance, Paul Bocuse or the Troisgros brothers made their marks from this part of France and achieved worldwide fame. Just one year in apprenticeship, he enlisted to compete in a regional hospitality contest. There were 286 candidates nationwide. He finished second. This opened him the possibility to test himself in the national contest, in which only the top 28 from the regional events were competing. He finished 17th while facing candidates with many more years of practice and experience, and quite a few twice his age. As the professional jury and observers know how to look beyond just the ranking at the event, they are able to spot potential. And Romain has plenty of it, just as well as he has the courage to put himself on the line. This serves him well because after his participation at the national level contest, he got approached by a high-end restaurant owner who wishes to keep in touch with him for later, as he would like to hire him. As another positive consequence of the contest, Romain has been awarded a 2-week training in a high-end restaurant of Parma, Italy, a culinary centre if there is one. There is no need to explain the feeling of pride and achievement for the young man. He dared to risk a disappointment and reaped the promise of an exciting career. Romain is not a mutant. He is pretty much what you could call the boy next door. He is just like most teenagers, a bit shy and still in the process of finding himself. The only difference with others may just be that he overcomes the little knot in the stomach and the clammy hand palms and takes a chance. After all, he had nothing to lose at this stage of his professional development. To succeed, and he does, it just takes a bit of courage to show courage. Of course, such a positive attitude is well-served when your direct environment is there to give the needed support.

The first level of support came from his family. We all hear about stories of people who had dreams and passions that got talked down by those around them. Arguments like “it is not for you” or “that is not a real job” or “in this family, we do not do that kind of work” are not uncommon. We all have heard such stories from successful artists who were stubborn enough to ignore and disobey in order to succeed. Opposite to that, how many people have ended up in jobs they dislike, simply because of pressure from relatives or teachers? Probably more than we think. At least, Romain’s family looked at his future happiness, bought in for his passion and did everything that was possible to find him a good school, a good apprenticeship restaurant and to make him feel that they believed in him and in his future in the professional choice he made. More support came from his teachers who understood his passion and noticed his talent for the hospitality business. That, too, gives a welcome boost to achieve success. And of course, Romain gets full support from his employers at the restaurant where he works as an apprentice. Quite early in his job, they realized his potential and on a busy day with a shortage of staff, they asked him to take charge of the gastronomic restaurant room. He executed his task with baffling effectiveness and professionalism. Romain delivers, and the restaurant patrons appreciate this young lad who shows so much maturity at serving them. It serves Romain quite well, too, as he regularly receives generous tips for his impeccable service. It serves him well with regards with his employers, as he gets even more support back in return for his good work.

So, there you have it! The right mix of passion, courage and support working together to help achieving success, fulfillment and the promise of a happy future for those who have it.

Note: One more detail about Romain: he is my nephew. Like the rest of the family, I am really impressed at what he is achieving. He would love to have an assignment abroad, ideally in New York City. Hopefully, this article will bring him some new opportunities.

Copyright 2014 – Christophe Pelletier/The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Signs of a good company culture

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You know what they say to job candidates: you have only one chance to make a good first impression! This is valid for a company, too.
Regardless of any PR work done or how well crafted their website might be, nothing compares with just the possibility of walking around and watching.

First, take a good look at the surroundings. Are they inviting? Is this a place where you would like to spend half the time that you are awake? If the place reminds you of a hospital or a prison, you probably do not want to work there, unless of course the place is a hospital or a prison.
Nothing spells sadness more than empty silent corridors with closed doors. A high-energy high performance place is alive. It is buzzing with people and communication, and generally most doors are open.
Another thing that catches my attention is the presence of those business posters on the wall. You know, the type that will celebrate the virtues of teamwork or of customer service. Unless they have been placed by the employees themselves, it might be a good indicator of the management style and communication style. Instead of leadership by walking around and frequent contacts, the company probably prefers totalitarian regime-like propaganda. Some of those posters are really pretty, though.

In Good CompanySecondly, just observe the people. In the great places to work for, people exude happiness. They will smile at you in the corridors and they will say hello. Beware of the workplaces where you will not even get eye contact, forget about a smile.
A good place to go for a quick assessment of the culture is the water cooler/kitchen/coffee machine. When you pop in, watch what happens! In a good company culture, you can be sure that the employees present will look at you and greet you with a smile. If, instead, your arrival causes the voices to turn down or simply stop, with straight faces and an awkward silence, then you can be pretty sure that the discussion topic is not about how to beat last month’s results.
A brief chat with the employees will show you the company culture. In a good company, people are genuine and enthusiastic; when they talk about their workplace, you can see their eyes and faces come alive and do not be surprise if you have the feeling that they try to convince you that you should work there, too.

In a good company culture, everyone makes sure that the workplace is friendly and inviting. The main signs of a good company culture are happiness and absence of fear! And this describe exactly the “happy” (using vicious would be inappropriate) circle. Fostering happiness and fulfillment increases the commitment of the employees and their performance. They will go the extra mile for the company without asking anything (well not much) in return. They will not watch the clock to decide when to go home. They will leave when they have that sense of completed work. The absence of fear allows the employees to be more entrepreneurial and to dare more. This increases the performance of the company, reinforces its competitiveness and, success breeding success, this creates more happiness and fulfillment in the workplace. Full circle.

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

What the Life Plan did for me

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In other parts of this website, I explained that I have developed the Life Plan simply because I did not find anything that I found usable to assess the quality of my life and where I should head from where I was. It may sound surprising considering the amount of books, methods and systems available, but it just is the way it was. I developed the Life Plan in 2005 for myself and it has delivered much good to me. Sometimes, I am asked to be more specific about what the results have been for me. As I am a private person, I do not like to disclose much. However, I think it is probably good that I give some details about what changed for me since I carried out my own assessment with my method. Thus, you can judge for yourselves. I will not go in too many details, but it should give you enough of a flavor of what to expect from the Life Plan. Here it goes.

The first time I used the Life Plan, two things came out clearly.

Firstly, the direction of my own company was not delivering me enough satisfaction, and I had to rethink what business I wanted to be in. I reflected about it and gave myself time to think thoroughly about what I was passionate about. Focusing on general business management consulting was not all that exciting for me after all. After further reflection, I identified several areas. One was the desire to make people happy, to have fulfilled lives at home as well as at work. Another one was to focus about the future and in particular how our world might look like and how to foresee things to come in order to build a prosperous future. This has resulted in reshaping my company around two main activities. One is the one featured in this website, Objective Happiness, which provides services to individuals and business to enhance happiness and fulfillment to help people set goals that will provide them and their direct environment with increased satisfaction. The other one is The Food Futurist, my other venture, which focuses on foreseeing coming changes in the sector of food and farming, and to help customers develop successful strategies that will meet future needs in these sectors. I have to say that I enjoy these two ventures very much. They are my livelihood. To that extent the conclusions of the Life Plan and the choices I made from them have delivered me quite a bit of satisfaction.

Secondly, the Life Plan showed me that I had a need for an improved personal life. Although, like many people, I did not feel unhappy at all, something was missing, but without the analytical and objective steps that the Life Plan provided me, I simply could not self-analyze myself with enough distance. Not schizophrenic enough, I suppose. Anyway, and joke aside, the result of the assessment made one thing clear. After so many years of being happily single, it appeared I had the need to share my life with someone. I develop my “action plan” and started meeting more people. In 2006, I met an interesting lady, and after seven years of living together, we got married last April. We are both very happy with our life together and, although to some seven years may sound like an eternity to decide to get married, I see the final decision mostly as the natural evolution of something that we both truly believe will last until death do us part. Just like with the Life Plan, decisions are not the result of emotions, pressure of impulse, but they are the rational evolution of what makes the most sense and about which we both feel happy.

Beyond these two major changes, there have been a number of minor ones, but the above makes the main point about how useful my method has been for me.

Since the past summer, we have started a new assessment of our lives with the Life Plan and a number of things that will make us happier have already appeared. It is still work in progress, as it takes times to reflect on the conclusions and to develop the action plan. We have already made a number of decisions that will be carried out in the next couple of years and that will lead us to improve our lives further. Here is another important element of a successful transition: it takes time. There is no reason to throw your life over board to become happier. Just work on a manageable transition. The result will be much better for you.

There you have it: two major areas of my life have changed for the (much) better thanks to my Life Plan. Would I have achieved the same without the Life Plan? Not a chance! And none of the other method I had looked at had taken me anywhere close to that result, either. The Life Plan worked for me. And it will for you, too, if you go through the whole exercise.

I want to hear laughter!

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Here is the best anti-stress medicine I know: laughter. I have applied it in my professional life as well as in my personal life and it works superbly, and there is no negative side effects known to man.

Hahaha!I have spent a long part of my career in industries dealing with perishable products. Per definition, such products cannot be stored for very long and this makes the business dynamics quite intense, and often stressful, as “everything must go” and for a profit, mind you. Therefore, my assignment to them, next to (or I should say as part of) doing the job was to make me hear some laughter. It did not matter what the reason would be, as long as there would be fun. In that line of work, we were lucky to be able to find many reasons to laugh because we were dealing with colorful characters and we could easily find the funny absurdities of the business. The head office would involuntarily also provide for much material to us as well. If my staff would not laugh frequently enough to my liking, I would pop in and bring some craziness of my own to help them out. The results were amazing. With a small team (comparatively to other units of the company or to competitors), we were able to deliver a performance second to none, we were able to solve more problems than the others were, and we were having fun. Even as we worked long hours, nobody burned out. On the contrary, success was constantly bring new and more energy to our team. Once again, the boring, unimaginative and bureaucratic HR department was wrong. Managing is getting things done by your team. Therefore, you had better take good care of your people, and the best way to do that is to have them laugh on the job. It means that they are having fun, and when you are having fun at work, it does not feel like work. Good managers know what is right for their business. Have them laugh!

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Energizing frustrated employees

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Here is one of my favorite ways to help the staff focused on work, and not get distracted for too long by the frustrations that their work sometimes causes them.

TensedThis has always been easy to do, because I rarely have left my door closed. I always have liked to be in close touch with the operational side of business and leaving the door open (as, of course walking around and interacting with the staff) is a great way to get informed really fast of any new development. So, at some point, we implemented the “venting session”. This consists of allowing the staff to in and get frustrations off their chests. Of course, this had to be structured adequately, as being regularly interrupted would not work well.

We had two main rules: 1) There had to be a good reason, as I had no interest to be disturbed for insignificant problems. After all, my staff had to be able to deal with most issues themselves. 2) They would make sure that I would be available at that very moment and, if not then, we would agree on a time to review the matter. “Can I come in and vent?” would be the password.

This technique has delivered wonders, and the funny thing about it is that in most cases I hardly had to say much at all. I just would ask a few questions about what, who, how, when or why and they would tell me all about the issue. In most cases, they would know how to solve the problem that had arisen, but they actually were looking more for support and confirmation that they had the right solution in mind.

Back to SerenityThis is just an example of how important presence and availability are in managing people. If you have done your hiring properly and brought in the right people in the right jobs, they will understand very quickly how to do what is expected from them and deliver the performance that meets, and in most cases exceeds the targets. The role of the manager in such a situation is a little comparable with a shepherd. You keep a good oversight of your troops, but if any one wanders in the wrong direction, you just bring him/her back on the right track.

Further, once people have vented, they can “breathe” normally again and they will get back to work, not only happier than before the session, but actually energized to go out there and deliver more results.

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Communication and persistence can make almost impossible assignments happen.

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Some years ago, I got the project to set up a fish processing operation in Klemtu on the central coast of British Columbia. Some agreement had been made a couple of years earlier, as the whole project started with the set up of fish farms.

For the processing, we needed to not only equip the plant, but also train the staff of this small coastal community isolated on an island with no road connection to the mainland. Therefore, the logistics were quite adverse: an isolated island with about no choice of carriers except the one that had been appointed on a sea that is often dangerous to the point that barges do not even venture on it. The risk was that the fresh fish could be stuck and not be delivered on time. Of course, that would have been unacceptable for our customers, who were located thousands of km away.

When it came to the facilities, the local community was providing for the plant, meaning a very basic building with no specific equipment for salmon processing. In the plant’s yard we had to browse through a pile of old tables and pipes to figure out something. Since volumes were starting rather low, it would not have been sensible to buy automated processing equipment, because the cost per pound of fish would have been horrendous. Further, the isolation of the place would have made any call for a technician about useless, as it would have taken him a couple of days to be on the premises. All the work was to be manual.

The equipment was probably the easiest part, though. We needed to train the staff to modern food production and educate them about to all aspects of food safety and quality, as they had never been exposed to this. Everyone who has dealt with First Nations knows that they are dealing with a number of social issues and poor physical health and condition, unfortunately the result of past colonization and the destruction of their traditional society. As such, this exercise was a great way of merging two worlds and recreating a feeling of community between this village and the international food business including large retailers and food service companies in the US and Canada.

We developed the training program covering all theoretical aspects as well as the practical realities of fish processing. A few chosen crewmembers were sent to an experienced fish plant to get exposure to modern processing. We set up an exam to have an incentive for the potential employees to study our material. As it appeared the day of the exam, half of the students did not show up and someone explained to me that some felt uncomfortable with writing. Of course, this was an awkward situation and there was a chance of losing some of the workforce, which is not good when that workforce is already limited, and replacement not easy to find. I turned this around by giving only one collective grade. After all, I had repeated so many times that this would be teamwork, what better example could I find to illustrate that than giving the team the grade, instead of individual marks?

Considering how important it is to gut and cut the fish properly, I was more interested in the quality of the work than the productivity at first. Once they would master the technique, we could think of increasing the pace of the processing line. So, we started with the equivalent of half a truck the first day, and the second half for the following day. In a normal plant, a full truck was processed in five hours in those days. I was expecting that our first half load would be done in eight hours at most. The reality came out quite differently. After two hours, the staff got physically tired and I could notice that moment when all the shoulders started to drop. After eight hours, many of the workers went back home because they were tired. We finished the first production day in thirteen hours! The second day was even worse with some people not showing up at all, and it took 23 hours! The situation looked lost. However, my sense of persistence made me refuse to give up so quickly. I re-planned the next round of harvests to be only a third of a truck per processing day. This was the magical number, and from there, our staff was able to work within normal hours, and get more productive, while producing the proper quality. Within two weeks after this, they were able to process a full truck in 9 hours! What a turn-around! As production volumes were increasing, we were able to justify for the purchase of machines to help speeding up the operation and by then we were able to process fish as quickly as any other regular plant.

As time went by, some of the locals showed capacities to take charge of more and more things, and even the original agreement was clearly that management activities had to be carried out by non-locals, we created several positions that they could fill successfully.

Yet, beyond the business case, the most valuable experience for me had been to see activity coming back in a community plagued by 80% unemployment before this project started. Getting work did not only give them money, but it helped them become healthier, with many of the employees recovering from diabetes. The most important of all was a boosted self-esteem, as they found a new purpose in their lives.

They felt successful, happy and fulfilled again!

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.