What’s happening in my life
I’m enjoying a week’s wonderful vacation in Greece. We’re talking warm weather, lots of sights, great beaches and time with my family and wonderful girlfriend. Wooo-hoooo!
In the meantime, why not check out the happy links collection, where you can:
There are lots of great stories on there already – and more are always welcome :o)
This week I’m snowboarding in the alps with my wonderful girlfriend, so I won’t be around to blog much. Just to keep things active around here, I’ve set up a few blog posts that will run during the week (including a very important announcement on Tuesday), but apart from that, all the action is at the Happy at work link site.
There are lots of interesting stories and links on there, and you can add your own and vote for the ones you like.
Check out the most recent stories or the highest rated stories.
Someone stole my wallet yesterday. Not in any dramatic way – I was out doing a presentation on happiness at work for a group here in Copenhagen. I’d left my coat hanging in their wardrobe, and when I left after the presentation my wallet was gone.
I immediately called to cancel my credit cards, and there was only 100 kroner in it, so, hey, no big deal.
But it did give rise to two interesting thoughts.
1: I’m not as annoyed as I thought I’d be
I really thought I’d be mad as hell at something like this. It means replacing my credit cards, drivers license and other ID, not to mention the fact that “someone took my wallet!” A few years ago, I might easily have spent a LOT of time fuming at that fact that someone stole my wallet, and at all the inconvenience that means.
But yesterday I was kinda annoyed for about five minutes, and then I shrugged and thought “Hey, so what?” Today I hardly even think about it.
Know what? That’s really, really nice. Losing my wallet even means a chance to replace my old drivers license which has a truly horrible picture of me :o)
2: One negative thought did creep in
I did the presentation yesterday for free – it’s for a group of people who do great work, but don’t have a lot of money, so I was only happy to be able to help them.
But one thought kept coming back to me after I found my wallet missing: “This is what I get for helping people out.” Or its close cousin “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Funny, isn’t it? There is absolutely no relationship between the fact that I was out helping others, and the fact that my wallet was stolen. It could have happened anywhere. And yet, my mind makes this mental connection between the two, and I can sense a distinct desire to not help others out again in that way.
It’s a good thing we’re capable of analyzing our own thoughts, and don’t have to take every single notion as fact! Have you ever noticed something similar?
Here are more phrases to avoid here. And some good phrases here that we should use more.
As the year wraps up, it’s a natural time to think back and be grateful. And I have more than ever to be grateful for.
In fact, there is one thing I want to say.
To the 500.000 people who have visited my blog this year for giving me impetus and a drive to blog more and better.
To the thousands of people who have commented on posts for giving me feedback, ideas, questions and challenges.
To the hundreds of people who have given me feedback on my book for helping me make it so good.
To my wonderful girlfriend and my amazing family for loving me.
To my clients for paying me to do what I love.
To everyone who’s read and/or bought my book for giving the book a reason to exist.
To my playmates all over the world for playing.
To everyone who’s contributed, given me advice and helped me out for confirming what we all should know: That the world is a wonderful place and people are amazingly generous.
To all of you, I want to say:
I wish you an amazingly happy 2007!
Since I released my book a mere two weeks ago a crazy amount of great stuff has happened.
Here are some of my favorites:
All of this and more in just two weeks. Things are almost happening too quickly now. I LOVE it!
I’m back from my Tony Robbins course, seminar, training, event in London this weekend and it was quite an experience.
I had some preconceived ideas about what it would be like. It would be highly american. People yelling and jumping for no reason. Rock concert atmosphere. Tony Robbins jumping wildly on stage.
It was all true.
Multiplied by 10.
And it totally, absolutely, convincingly and magnificently rocked. I can highly recommend this experience to anyone who wants to learn something about themself and get the energy and some tools to do something about it.
The thing is, I can’t tell you much about what actually happens, because if you’re not there, actively participating it just sounds really, really weird. When you’re there, doing it, pushing yourself to do it to the max, it works. And it makes total, perfect sense that it would.
I will tell you my main lessons from the event:
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I’m currently in London and have met with some amazingly cool people. Last night I met with fellow Dane Lars Plougmann for a pint and some great sushi. Lars recently went independent and consults banks, law firms and others on how to improve collaboration. Think wikis and stuff.
We then went to Umair Haque’s as yet nameless weekly wednesday meeting on innovation. It was basically just a bunch of guys drinking (a lot of) beer and shooting the breeze in a nice pub. Topics included blogging, how traditional media companies are dooming themselves to a slow painful death, how all communities need “a dude” and The Colbert Report.
Lars and I rounded of the evening in a great Lebanese restaurant on Edgware Road where we celebrated iftar (when muslims can eat again during ramadan) with kebabs and a shisha (water pipe).
Today’s highlights include blogging in London and a visit to WhatIf? Innovation – Britain’s happiest workplace in 2005.
I’m coming to London at the end of this month from september 27th to October 2nd.
If you’re in London at that time and would like to meet for a beer or cofee and a chat about happiness at work, write a comment or contact me.
Today is EuroGEL and I’m really looking forward to the whole day.
I’ve spent the last couple of days hanging with my friends from the US and Bahamas who have come to Copenhagen. Yesterday we had our pre-EuroGEL presentation which went just great. 35 people turned up for a presentation on festivals, happiness and democracy in the workplace. Thamk you to Joachim Oschlag for live-blogging it (in danish). And thank you to Thomas Davidsen of OneOpenWindow for filming it. Video from the event will follow.
We also met with Jesper Just Jensen of LEGO Serious Play, a strategic process that uses LEGOs to develop and capture people’s ideas. Later we met with Mads Kjaer, the CEO of Kjaer Group who told about his new company which aims to eradicate poverty in Africa by making it extremely easy for you and me to invest in Africa. That’s invest – not aid. I like it.
I apologize for my absence from the site these past few days. Fortunately I set up some blog posts ahead of time, so that’s what you’ve been seeing since tuesday. I’m still reading (and loving) everybody’s comments and will respond as soon as things turn a little less hectic round here.
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