There was only one way I could possibly make both gigs. This is it:

Yep: A friggin’ helicopter.

I finished my presentation at a convention center in Odense at 4:45, took a taxi to a nearby field where the helicopter was waiting. I got on, and an hour later I was in Elsinore – just in time for my second gig.

Here I am on the chopper, just before takeoff:

In case you want to see more, here we are coming in to land in front of LO-Skolen in Elsinore:

I gotta tell ya – being dropped off at the second venue and the walking right in to start my presentation made me feel like a VIP. I could get used to this :o)

The concept for the intensive version is simple: The class starts on a Tuesday and runs daily until Saturday. You get to develop a five minute set and perform your material in front of the rest of the class AND you get private one on one writing sessions with Stephen Rosenfeld (who teaches the class) to go over and refine your material. For your graduation you perform live on stage at a New York comedy club in front of a paying audience.

I love to challenge myself to do activities that let me learn new skills and scare me silly, and few activities have accomplished this as thoroughly as this class :o)

So without further ado, here’s my stand-up comedy debut, filmed on June 21 2008 at The Gotham Comedy Club in New York. It may not be entirely safe to watch at work.

I’m thinking this was so scary and so much fun that I need to do it some more. There are open mike nights every Wednesday at The Comedy Zoo here in Copenhagen. I may have to create a set in Danish and try it out there.

I highly recommend the class that The American Comedy Institute offers – you can read all about it here.

This year’s WorldBlu Live conference has just opened for registration. It takes place on October 16-17 in New York.

This event is about democratic workplaces and you will:

• Learn best practices and leadership lessons from the CEOs of some cool democratic organizations.
• Discover how running a business democratically is a key to being happy at work AND making more money.

For me, this is THE conference event of the year and I really look forward to both speaking and participating.

The last WorldBlu conference in Washington DC was one of the most inspiring business conferences I have ever attended – I have never seen so many cool, fascinating and fun people gathered in one place.

Read more about the event here and register here. If you register before May 1st, you save a cool $300.

I admire the way they do business and I’d love to get a chance to speak at the happiest company in the US.

I know they have these Authors@Google talks all the time, and I’ve been told by my new pal Alan Gregerman who gave one recently, that the way you get to do one is by having a Google employee sponsor you.

I just happen to be an author myself so if you work at Google, or know someone who does, why not get me over there.

Hey – this approach got me to India. In May 2007 I wrote this post about how I’d love to go to India and speak. Regular reader S. Nand happened to know some of the right people and in December I spoke at a management conference in Indore and gave two workshops to leaders at Tata, India’s biggest corporation.

So… next stop Mountain View?

I am proud to announce one of my most exciting projects ever: I’m teaming up with HP to make small and medium sized companies in the UK happy at work.

The project is officially launching today, and up till now I’ve been under strict orders not to reveal anything. Finally, I can blog about it!!

From the press release (pdf):

As part of its ongoing ‘Happy People’ marketing campaign, HP will be providing free consultancy to UK businesses on how to improve ‘happiness’ within the office through the use of HP mobility technology.

At the same time, HP has launched a nationwide competition for small to medium-sized businesses, giving them the chance to win a £10,000 office makeover – including HP products, ‘happiness’ workshops and free consultancy from an independent expert and an HP team of experts.
…
“We’re absolutely thrilled to be working with Alexander, one of the world’s leading experts on happiness in the workforce,” said David Wright, vice president and general manager of HP Personal Systems Group, UK & Ireland. “Over the coming months, HP will be addressing the areas where technology can help make some offices throughout the UK happier places to work.”

The idea is that HP’s mobile products (laptops and mobile phones) allow us to work more flexibly – and flexibility, ie. having more choice over when and where to work, makes us happier at work.

The main elements of the campaign are:

• A campaign website with tips on how to make yourself and your workplace happy
• Appearances in UK media by yours truly
• A staff satisfaction survey
• A contest for small UK-based companies

I’m especially excited about the contest. UK-based companies with 100 employees or less can sign up and the grand prize is an office makeover by HP and a full-day happiness workshop with yours truly! Four other companies get the runner up prize: Full-day workshops with me.

So if you’re working in a small UK business and you’d like a little more happiness at work, go to the campaign website and sign your workplace up. Right now!

I’m incredidbly happy to be a part of this project. First of all because it gels so well with my take on happiness at work; giving employees their freedom is a prerequisite for happiness at work, as I also wrote in my book.

Secondly, my talks with HP have convinced me that they are genuinely committed to happiness at work. This is not just a PR exercise for them – this is about creating more happiness and thus more success for HP’s customers.

And finally, this gives me a great opportunity to work with some UK companies for the first time. It’s funny that I’ve been hired by companies in America, Estonia, Croatia and India (just to mention a few of the places I’ve gone recently) – but none in the UK so far…

So all in all, a great project with the potential to create a lot of happiness at work.

Full disclosure: HP are paying me to participate in media activities related to this project and to do the workshops for the winning companies.

Related:

• Is flexibility at work good or bad?
• Best Buy introduces ROWE – the Results Only Work Environment
• The world’s most flexible workplace: Semco – where employees set their own work times and choose their own salary

Making people happy at work in India

I’m back. I’m beat. And no wonder – in 11 days I went Copenhagen – Chicago – London – Bombay – Indore – Bombay – London – Copenhagen.

India, especially, was great. Going there was an absolutely amazing experience. I don’t hesitate to call it life-changing.

I went with one big question on my mind: Will my stuff work in India? Will they like the idea of happiness at work? Will my style go over well with Indians? Will my tools and methods work in Indian workplaces? Will Indian managers see the business sense in making their employees happy?

Another happy Indian

I seriously had no idea. I’ve done my thing in many western corporations, but Indian business culture is obviously very different.

Well, my stuff works in India! Boy, does it ever work. In fact, in India, I’m a rock star :o)

The stage for the Indore Management Association annual convention. The place was humongous!

First I spoke at the Indore Management Association’s annual conference where my presentation was a huge hit. People absolutely loved it as you can see from these comments.

The next day it was on to Dewas which is a short drive from Indore where Tata has a plant that makes leather for the fashion industry. Tata is India’s biggest company, responsible for 2.8% of Indias GDP. That’s huge.

Making people happy at work in India

I did one workshop for the 20 senior managers at the factory which went very well and the next day I did another full-day workshop for 45 entry-level managers which went even better. Again, people loved the message, the tools and my presentation style.

Making people happy at work in India

And then to cap it off, I was taken to Indore again where I gave a presentation to the Indore Management Marshals, a group that meets monthly to discuss management. This group consisted of the member and their wives, most of whom are housewives, so I was asked to also speak about happiness in the family.

That was a fun request, and it made me realize that about 90% of my message actually applies equally well at work and at home. And, again, I was a hit :o)

It was a long trip home (about 24 hours) but I spent the whole time feeling quietly elated – a feeling that persists now that I’m back.

Street life in Indore

And finally a great big thank you to:

• The students who took such great care of me in Indore, especially Nancy.
• Everyone at IMA. What a great event you put on.
• Everyone at Tata Dewas. Thanks for spending so much time on my workshops and for being so positive about them.
• The Management Marshals of Indore for a lovely evening.
• James Pal for showing me around Indore and introducing me to Indian street cuisine – which is amazing!
• S Nand for making it all possible by reacting to my original blog post where I said that I’d love to do some work in India.
• Vijay Kumar Bhalla for arranging the whole thing so efficiently
• To every single person I met while there. I must have met hundreds of people and everyone was happy, smiling, gracious, positive and open. Thanks!

You can see many more pictures from Indore here.

As I said, I do believe that India has a unique chance right now to become not only prosperous but happy – and that means creating lots of happiness at work.

I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and questions so please write a comment here.

Click here to download my presentation.

The message of happiness at work was very well received, and one lady even came up after the presentation and told me that a few years ago she was a high-powered executive for a huge company in Turkey with a high salary and a sports car. Unfortunately, she also cried in the car every morning on her way to work. She then quit her job, finished her phd and started a company together with some friends – and she is now very happy at work. Which just tells me that people all over the world face many of the samme choices in their work lives.

At the conference I also had the pleasure of meeting fellow speaker and author Alan Gregerman who’s written a fantastic book called Surrounded by Geniuses. Alan claims that most businesses contain many, many people capable of genius – but that workplaces rarely allow people to shine. His book is about how to let them shine.

And after one day at home, I’m now flying to Chicago where I’ll be at 1-800-CEO-Read’s Author Pow-Wow – a sort of unconference for business writers. I’m really excited about that and about meeting some fellow business bloggers that I’ve been in virtual contact with already, specifically Phil Gerbyshak and Sally Hogshead.

And right after that event ends I’m going to London for a day of meetings and then straight on to Indore, India where I’m speaking at the Indore Management Association’s annual conference and giving two workshops for executives at Tata.

Whew!

And then home to Copenhagen for some well-deserved R&R :o) I’ll try to blog along the way and I will make sure to upload some pictures to my account on 23.

I kick it up on stage at a recent presentation

I’ve been doing a huge number of speaking and consulting gigs here in Denmark this year (even though I recently raised my rates significantly), and now it seems that the international part of my speaking business is REALLY taking off too. Just these next couple of months I’ll be speaking at conferences and companies in Sweden, Turkey, India and the US. Wooo-HOOOO :o)

Some of these events are open to the public, so if you’re in one of these countries, please consider attending. I’d love to see you there!

Stockholm, November 6: The Power of Passion
A really cool event arranged by the great people at 4good. I’ll be speaking about passion at work – how to find your passion and how to inspire it in others.

Istanbul, November 28: The 9th Performance Management Summit
I’m giving a keynote presentation at this conference for HR professionals on how happiness at work is the only reliable way to great performance at work.

Indore, December 9: Indore Management Association – Unshackling Leadership
I’ll be presenting on “How to lead with happiness,” ie. how leaders can be happy at work and how they can make their employees happy.

You can read more about my gigs here.

Me on stage at last Friday’s excellent event

Do you feel you have the right goals in life and at work? What do your goals do to you? Are you always chasing goals other people set for you? Are you one of the people who never seem to reach their goals? Or do you reach them – but forget to enjoy it?

Last Friday (Oct. 5) Christian Ørsted and I arranged an event here in Copenhagen which was all about goals:

• Nicolai Moltke-Leth (one of Denmark’s most famous business speakers) spoke about finding your mission in life
• I spoke about goals at work and how your main goal should always be to be happy at work (duh!)
• Christian spoke about finding the energy you need for reaching your goals
• Stephen Shapiro spoke about Goal-Free Living – how to have goals but not be a slave to them

Raise your hand if…

The event was a smash hit and fully sold out – no mean feat considering that we planned, promoted and executed the whole thing in less than 2 weeks. We rock :o)

Gareth Garvey took some amazing pictures of the event. Below are some of my favorites – click here to see Gareth’s entire photo set.

Stephen Shapiro

Me

Nicolai Moltke-Leth

Christian Ørsted

Happy participants

Happy participants

Happy participants

More great events to follow. The next one is on November 1st, it’s about happiness-at-work-coaching and it’s free! Read all about it.