Tag Archives: Success

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.

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.

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.

Too old to change. Or was he really?

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As the Sales Director of the poultry plant, I also was managing our sales office in Germany. The problem with that unit was that it had not generated any new significant customer for years, and as we were growing aggressively, we needed to grow in Germany as well as we were in our other markets. Many discussions and meetings further, I came to the conclusion that the German sales office was simply useless and that we should sell to the German customers directly from our plants in The Netherlands and in Belgium. Of course, this was a very bumpy situation. My superiors trusted my judgment, but were quite afraid of losing business in Germany (our largest market), which the General Manager of the sales office was of course not missing to tell them over and over. After all his job was on the line… Anyway, the decision to shut the sales office was made and we had to figure out the next step. Most customers were very old relationships, and this was important to take that into account when deciding who to appoint as the sales person for Germany. From the whole office in Germany, we decided that we should keep only one person for sales, the nine other employees would go. There were two inside sales persons, and two sales reps. Quickly, the two inside sales persons did not make the cut and were eliminated. The 2 sales reps were very different. One was a young fellow, quite aggressive, well-connected and able to move large volumes, although quite a bit of a loose cannon, and with the tendency to yield to the customers when it came to price. Lots of volume but not much margin. The other sales rep was in his early 50’s, a very good relationship manager, but with no track record of developing new accounts for a long time. General opinion was that he would get good prices but low volumes. General thinking was also that he was to old to change and adapt to the new strategy, and would be useless to the organization. Yet, I chose the latter sales person, even though I shared the same worries as everyone else, but I knew one thing: he would listen and do as told, and he would bring a sense of continuity and trust to the existing customers. We decided to keep him, and I would spend quite some time in Germany with him, visit all existing customers and accompany him in some new prospecting activities. I presented him the sales plan, the objectives and the timelines and there we went. He simply became the best salesman we had. From a very apathetic and almost unproductive salesman, he turned into a dynamic, entrepreneurial and enthusiastic representative that brought new business, and lots of it. In the first year, our sales grew in Germany by 24%, while the industry average was only 2%. His performance was stimulating the other sales people, including me, to perform better in their respective markets. He was not too old. He just had lost passion, because he had no clear idea of what was expected from him. In the new structure, this changed, and then he could do what he was good at: selling! And he did a great job, because by then he had become happy at work!

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

The hopeless rude guy from Planning

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When I became Sales Director of the poultry processing plant, I also supervised the Inside Sales/Planning/Logistics Department. One of the employee of that department was causing quite a few conflicts with the Production Department, mostly because of very poor communication skills. Requests sounded more like barking and politeness was a scarce commodity from his side. That problem probably should have been addressed a long time ago, but OK, I had to deal with it now. All I got was criticism about his conduct and “fire him!” kind of advice. Yet, he had many years of experience and had quite a lot of knowledge. That bothered me to just take the short cut and let him go. So, I had a meeting first with him alone and later with his supervisor. In the first meeting, I addressed the problems and made him clear that I wanted to understand what caused him to act the way he did. With his supervisor, we reviewed his job description and analyzed what he liked and what he did not like about his tasks. And bingo! We discovered that he felt very uncomfortable dealing with foreign customers having to speak in languages he did not master. The stress of the phone ringing and hear someone speaking German or English was just too much for him and he reacted his stress on his colleagues. We decided to remove the customer contact from him, allocate that to another employee who actually enjoyed the sales side more than the production side, and dedicate our difficult friend more to the technical and planning side of production. Within days, I was receiving positive feedback from production people who were wondering what I had done to him, because now he was such a pleasure to work with. And for him, as he was in his late 40’s, we also avoided a painful layoff that might have had severe personal consequences. He was now doing what he liked and what he was best at. And he became very happy at work!

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

The Meaning of Life

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Some topics have the ability to keep people busy for a while. The meaning of life is one of these topics because the answer is difficult to find and it never can be verified with certainty. Depending on whether the person pondering about it is a scientist, a theologian, a philosopher or a sports fan, the way they will answer this question will vary quite substantially.

This is why this question remains mostly an intellectual exercise. It can be satisfying, but it lacks practicality. Instead of tormenting oneself with the absolute answer that no one can find, simply because there may not be such an absolute answer, it is better to deal with this topic in a much more stimulating and practical way. All that is needed is to change slightly the question, from “What is the meaning of life?” to “What meaning do I want to give to my life?”. This simple shift of scope can do wonders, and quite rightly so. It now offers you the possibility to become your own Creator, thus shifting the scope of another difficult quest for absolute truth that has kept humanity busy for eons.

There are a few simple steps and simple things can help you creating a very meaningful life.

Firstly, you need to identify which values are truly important to you. Then you need to identify what makes you feel alive.

Instead of letting your environment make the decisions that will shape your life, your life will become easier to manage once you take charge and keep the initiative. Of course, nothing comes easily, and when you meet resistance, you must persevere.

Usually, people tend to focus more on negative events than on the positive ones. It may be a natural reaction, but it is the wrong approach. It is just as easy to spot the positives, but it requires a different mindset. Whatever may happen, force yourself to see the positive signs and remaining enthusiastic.

Nothing is carved in stone. Life is in continuous evolution. If you want to improve your life, you must take any opportunity you find to learn and improve. It will take you out of your comfort zone, but you quickly will reap the rewards and realize the advantage of doing so. Do not be afraid of setbacks. They are part of life anyway. Just see them as an opportunity to beat adversity and explore your real abilities. Most people always tend to underestimate themselves. Usually, they are capable of much more than they think they do. They just need to discover their true potential.

Making decisions is the easiest and fastest way to overcome problems and to keep moving on. Most people feel stuck because they do not make any decision. This is the worst one can do. There cannot be any action and progress by keeping the status quo. Once you decide on something, things happen. Then of course, you need to keep making decision and adapt. One decision does not solve everything at once.

Giving a meaning to your life is all about pursuing fulfillment and finding gratification in your activities, as much in your personal life as well as in your professional life. However, you must build your life for yourself first, because all that counts is that your life means something to you.

The worst thing that can happen to a person is to have a meaningless life. That can happen only by waiting and not taking action. So, live, experience, try and share!

Shifting from Negativity to Positivity

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Negativity takes quite a toll on many people. It brings an array of feelings and emotions that are eventually destructive. Yet, there are simple ways of dealing with negativity and move towards a much more positive approach of life.

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Negativity is the attitude that reduces anything and everything to an almost impossibility to do and achieve anything, a systematic refusal to even consider undertaking. It is the preference of the unsatisfying status quo above the potentially riskier change. It is loaded with negative experiences, such fear of failure and fear of rejection. Negativity does not bring anything good in life. It leads to inaction, frustration, even sickness and depression.

Nonetheless, negativity is not a final condition. It can be reduced without too much difficulty. This, however, does not mean without effort… The first step is to recognize that you have landed into negativity, and that you have the desire to change the situation. Very often, this is where most people can feel “stuck”.

How can one make the switch to positivity? A very important part of turning things around is to avoid isolating oneself, which is common when people do not feel too happy about themselves. Letting the people that you trust know that you are willing to change for the best will bring you more support than you would think. There is a simple reason for that. The people who like you suffer of your negative mindset, too. They will be more than willing to help you become more positive and succeed. Do not hesitate to let your closest friends and relatives know what you are doing and have them get involved. The difference of attitude is about two choices: “Want to vs. “Have to”. It is rather easy to sort people in either one of these two groups. They have very specific and very different behaviors.

For the “Have to” people, everything seems to be a chore. They do not seem to have much fun in life and certainly even less at work. They are the ones that get up in the morning dreading going to work, they hate Mondays. They desperately long for weekends. Their heads and backs are bent under the overwhelming weight of the world they have to (of course) carry on their shoulders. On the other hand, the “Want to” people seem quite happy, they enjoy what they do (of course, since they want to). They are upbeat and do not seem to carry any heavy burden. The positivity that they exude has nothing to do with the amount of work or the lifestyle they have. All the difference is in their attitude.

The “Want to” people enjoy life more, simply because they have made choices. They have taken charge of their lives and have shaped it around what provides them with fulfillment. Unfortunately for them, the “Have to” people have not reached that point, and they tend to let their environment (boss, family, friends, TV ads, etc…) decide for them what they have to do. Indeed, living somebody else’s life can be tiring and frustrating.

Yet, making the switch is not very difficult, and the best is to start with simple things. What activities, either personal or of a more professional nature are fun to do and provide satisfaction? The best is to pick one or two activities for a start and make a habit of practicing them. The fun that carrying out these activities will generate is the best motivation to add more of them in life. All it takes is to make the first move, start gradually and persevere. It is about making choices and taking charge. There is no need and no rush to change everything at once; after all, you have your whole life to reach your goals.

Another good way to deal with negativity is to increase your level of self-awareness. Every time you realize that you have a negative thought or reaction, just say “stop!” to yourself. Then, rephrase the thought in positive language. For instance, instead of saying “that won’t work” ask yourself “how could I make this work?”. Also, have your friends participate in this and allow, even mandate them to be the ones saying “stop” and ask you what you think you should have said instead. This method can actually quickly become a very playful experience and stimulate you to do more of it. After a while, you will already realize how much better you feel and how more optimistic you have become. This exercise is like gymnastics of the mind. It brings great results.

What also works very well is to focus on the successes, and not spend too much time on failures. By celebrating the victories, you will create a dynamics of enthusiasm and success, which very quickly will by far outweigh the attempts that went wrong. This will grow your appetite for more victories, as well as your refusal to accept defeat and fight harder next time to achieve your next success. There again, support and help from trusted friends and family makes this process faster and more effective.

Life is a constant challenger of your will, of your aptitude to dare and of your knowledge and abilities. This is how people grow, feel better, and achieve fulfillment. Take on the challenge and make your life fun and exciting!

Copyright 2009 – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.

Are You Living Your Dreams?

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Dreaming your lifeFrom early childhood, we all have had our ideas and dreams about how life would be later. You know, “when I grow up, I want to…”

Yet, later in life, many people seem to have forgotten about these dreams or, worse, they have given up on them. This is sad, because there are not many things that can energize and motivate someone as the pursuit of something very dear: to be the person he/she always wanted to be.

The role of parents is quite important in the future development of individuals. Having supportive and open-minded parents who encourage their children to pursue what they really want to do, is indeed good and important. Their giving support shows the children that what they aim at is worth it. Consciously going after something meaningful is one of the most motivating things there is.

This way of parenting allows children to be aware of their personality and of their possibilities at a young age. It makes it easier for the children to decide how their lives life would be like. Knowing what one wants always helps the person to keep the course. It is a source of much satisfaction to have the privilege of living one’s childhood’s dreams. However, dreaming is not just for children. Dreaming is a work in progress. It is nice to pursue one’s childhood’s dreams, but sometimes, circumstances change or the dreams do not appear to be as realistic or sensible, as they seemed first. It is easy then to forget about them. That is not really a problem as long as you keep the ability to keep envisioning who you want to be. With age comes more experience, more self-awareness and this is why it is never too late to think and dream of what and who to be later. This process has nothing to do with a mid-life crisis. That is something else. It is not about dreaming about the future; it is the mourning of the past.

Those who have been lucky to live most of their youth’s dreams will tell you how they feed. They are happy and fulfilled people who want to make it possible for others to experience the same.

Who you want to be is the mix of what you love to do, what you do best, what your values are, where and with whom you want to make this happen. The worst thing a person can do to her/himself is to not try at all, and to regret it for the rest of his/her life.

The question that you must ask yourself is: “Are you living your dreams?” If not, what happened then? More importantly, what are you going to do about it? Can you think of better objectives today, thanks to a better knowledge of yourself? What is keeping you from trying, and how can you overcome such hurdles? It is only by trying repeatedly that one succeeds.

Copyright 2009 – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd

Success and happiness: which came first?

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I have heard and read about this question quite a few times, without getting a very clear answer, though.
Probably, this is because the question as such does not really address the core of the issue it wants to raise.
In my view, both success and happiness originate from the same, and grow in a very similar way.
In order to be successful and happy, you must start with shaping your life around your core values, and not around those that your environment imposes on you. Only by doing so, you will be able to choose and develop activities that, both professionally and personally, can bring the fulfillment and the enthusiasm that are required in any successful endeavor.

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Success can be a rather difficult concept to formalize, as its definition depends greatly on what you consider important for you in life. For some, this will be making lots of money, for others it will mean have a family, it also could be gaining a position of power or reach a certain social status; it could be becoming famous, and so on.
If you try to eliminate the subjectivity that goes together with the variety of values, a good definition of success that I have heard is that “success is to bring what you start to its completion”. I personally like this definition, because it describes very well the whole process that is necessary to reach the required satisfaction to feel successful.
What, to me, reinforces my conviction that success and happiness go in parallel is that you can write the same paragraph above, just by replacing success by happiness and the text will make just as much sense.
It is quite difficult to try to see a relation of cause and effect between the two concepts. Indeed, if you are not happy, can you feel successful? In the same line of thought, can you feel happy if you are not successful? You probably cannot.
Next to engaging in activities that match your values and working on bringing them to completion, a very important aspect for both success and happiness is to get others involved as well. Never hesitate to ask for help, for support and for feedback. You will never have enough of those. Other people’s input is very valuable to stay motivated and determined, as well as to avoid losing track.
A great way of increasing your level of happiness and success in life is to first envision what the ideal world would be. What would you do if you were the one who could make things “perfect” for yourself? Once you have defined this ideal world, you can start developing your own plan. Although in some cases, a drastic change could work, I would recommend having a step-by-step approach, as a drastic change all of a sudden could bring a lot of uncertainty and chances of failure that not everyone can handle. Set your targets to go from point A (where you are today) to point B (your ideal world). Define each step clearly and set realistic and rigorous timelines to this plan. Timelines are quite important because they will force you to keep taking action. Not doing so will always end up in inaction, because we are all very good and finding excuses to postpone what we prefer not to do. Another important part in the execution of this plan is to designate someone (friend, coach, family member, etc…) to remind you, to enforce these timelines and if needed to reprimand you, because there again, if you can get away with procrastination, chances are that you will indeed.
To sum up, the way to happiness and success requires the following: build your life around your values and choose the environment in which they can flourish. Have a plan to improve your level of fulfillment. Share the enthusiasm with others. Celebrate every success along the way. Do not forget to ask for assistance to make sure that you will not divert and give up on your plan.
This last point is actually quite important: many people feel unhappy because they have given up on their dreams.

Copyright 2009 The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.