Management Perspectives

Your ‘Happy Place’ can be as individualised as your fingerprint. But there are some common components. These include contentment, pleasurable events, anticipation, gratitude, and fulfillment. But what is keeping you from your ‘Happy Place’?

MYTH 1: THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO BECAUSE THE WORLD IS SO STRESSFUL. 

If there is nothing else you get from this article, get this: you do not have to resign yourself to living stressed out for the rest of your life. You just need to know where your stresses are coming from, where your tools are, and how to use them effectively to tackle the stress.

When I was a young researcher at The National Institutes of Health, I wondered what more we could learn if we started studying highly successful, healthy people not just ill and dysfunctional ones. For months, this idea kept waking me up excited. But when I proposed my research project at one of our prestigious weekly conferences, my audience laughed.

Like creators around the world, I had to make a life-changing decision on the spot! Were they right that my idea was laughable, and I should abandon it? Or was I onto something BIG they just didn’t understand yet? Trusting my idea, I silently committed to devoting my career to finding answers. For the next 20 years I shadowed ‘highly successful people’ (HSPs) and discovered they were using 10 skills consistently. Next, I developed methods for teaching their skills.

When I introduced The Technology of Success in 1985, it took off! Within 10 years, I had presented over 4,000 training sessions in major corporations around the world and written two books, The Joy of Success and Success Has Gears. Next, CNN called me “America’s Premier Success and Leadership Coach” and excited CEOs begged me to write a book for parents and teachers, so parents could model these skills at home, teachers could reinforce them in school, and our children would already be using them when they entered the workplace…when they hired them! In response I wrote Our Children Are Watching: 10 Skills for Leading the Next Generation to Success. Recently, the onslaught of COVID demanded a fourth book, BLUR: Clear the Way Ahead…Even in the Worst of Times.

Let us explode a few myths.

MYTH 1: THE DEFINITION OF SUCCESS MOSTPEOPLE USE IS CORRECT. NO, ACCORDING TOHSPS, IT IS INCOMPLETE!  

Highly successful people (HPS) told me that success has three essential parts:

1. Completion: finishing plus acknowledging.
2. Deletion: knowing that when what you are doing is not working and you stop doing it.
3. Creation: birthing and nurturing new ways to achieve outcomes, and building teams of co-dreamers and co-operators to help you bring them into reality. And what is failure? Failure is simply incompletion.

When HSPs faced disagreement, how did they maintain their confidence? HSPs Success Filed … they set aside time each day to remember and acknowledge their successes. They rewound their day asking, “What was I able to complete, delete and create today? And what was my team able to complete, delete and create?

As ‘succeeders’, they acknowledged themselves. As leaders, they acknowledged their teams.

When you have created detailed plans and dreams, ‘success filing’ gives you the staying power to get there. Instead of needing ‘otherconfidence’ …other people to acknowledge you, you take responsibility for building and rebuilding your self-confidence and your team’s, at work and at home. The bottom line is, when your ‘success file’ is full, you feel ‘success-full’. When it is low, you feel dependent and needy. 

MYTH 2: IF YOU WORK LONG AND HARD; IF YOU DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD TO DO, IF YOU EARN BONUSES AND PROMOTIONS, YOU WILL FEEL SUCCESSFUL. NO! PROBABLY NOT!

If success is doing what others want you to do, the way they want you to do it, ultimately you will not feel successful! Oh yes, that is what we were taught as kids and new employees! But that approach will not work to make us fulfilled, creative, contributing adults. Instead, we will end up disappointed that we have helped others create their dreams but we have not made time to work on our own. And, our kids may be disappointed that we have no made time for them either.

MYTH 3: TO BE FAIR, WE NEED TO LEAD EVERYONE THE SAME WAY.

No! HSPs remind us that we need to succeed and lead differently at different times. Why? Because, like cars, success and leadership have gears…each with its own timing and purpose.

The ‘first gear’ is for starting, for learning to be safe and effective at a new skill. ‘First gear’ keywords are safe/dangerous, right/ wrong, good/ bad, possible/impossible, prevent/permit. Our ‘first gear’ leaders need to closely supervise our progress. Then when we are performing safely, effectively, consistently, they need to promote us, certify and graduate us. They need to gear us up.

‘Second gear’ is for producing and competing. ‘Second gear’ keywords are more/better/faster/cheaper. We all know the feel of this gear! In ‘second gear’ we discover which ‘first gear’ rules can be eliminated and develop shortcuts so we can become more productive and competitive. We need our leaders to give us projects, deadlines and evaluations and be available when we have questions. More-better-faster and more-better-faster still until there isn’t any more, any better, any faster we can do using these methods.

It is time to shift again. This time you are in charge of knowing when you have a powerful idea … an idea you want to pursue.

‘Third gear’ is for creating new approaches, for inventing products, systems and services. ‘Third gear’ keywords are aaha, realise, dream/co-dream, team, and collaborate. As ‘third gear’ leaders, instead of laughing at new ideas, we need to codream and collaborate to support their development…knowing that if we fail to do this, our employees will take their creativity to competitors or start their own businesses, instead of leading our organisation to the next level.

Are you an HSP? HSPs are able to shift into whichever gear is needed at the time… first, second, or third.

MYTH 4: ALL IDEAS ARE EQUALLY POWERFUL. NO, THEY ARE NOT, AND THE DIFFERENCE IS MEASURABLE!

In my book, The Joy of Success, I introduce Dr Karl Pribram, a Stanford University neuroscientist, who discovered that thoughts actually generate an electromagnetic forefield he was able to measure. Which thoughts are more powerful? The ones that contain more multi-sensory details. Marketers use this information to sell us their products even though they’ve probably never heard of Pribram! Think about their top ads, bright colors, jingles and frequent repetitions.

Here’s a key question: How detailed are your plans and dreams? Are you sharing your multisensory details with your team, and letting them add their details to yours? Are you heading for the same outcome? Or different ones?

MYTH 5: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NATURAL DISASTERS, ILLNESSES, DEATHS, JOB LOSSES AND DREAM LOSSES OCCUR? OR WHEN COVID DISRUPTS ALL OF OUR LIVES?

What happens is…’blur’… that muddled state that leaves us feeling confused and disoriented, without familiar plans and dreams. With low energy, reduced drive and enthusiasm.

I found myself in ‘blur’ when a tornado and hurricane hit our home, when my husband and sister died of cancer within two years. Fortunately, I was able to use the ‘10 Success’ and Leadership skills I had discovered after I was laughed at, and they pulled me through to new life and dreams! They cleared the way ahead…even in the worst of times.

When I was in the midst of ‘blur’, I told myself I did not have time to consciously use all ‘10 Success Skills’. But the truth was, I did not have time not to use them!