Alrighty – my book about happiness at work is aaaaaaalmost there. Now I could really use your opinion and feedback.

I’m doing my final write-through this week and I’m incredibly happy with it. Either this is a friggin’ great book or I’m seriously deluded. But why don’t you tell me which it is :o)

UPDATE: I’m totally blown away here, and I think over 40 people giving feedback is probably as many as I can handle, so I’ve closed the sign-up. Thank you to everyone who’s signed up to give feedback. I’m really excited about showing you the book and to hear what you think!

This monday my wonderful girlfriend and I are leaving for a short vacation in London. If you’d like to review this release candidate (nerd humor, I apologize) of the book, write a comment on this post. That way I get your email adress (don’t worry, it won’t appear on the site).

Then we’ll do it like this:

1. On monday November 6 I’ll email an electronic version of the book to all the people who’ve signed up.
2. You pick the one chapter that you find the most interesting and read it and give me feedback on it. You’re more than welcome to read the entire thing of course, but focus on one chapter so you can give me some thorough feedback on it.
3. Forget all about spelling, grammar, typos and punctuation, I’m going to get some pros to fix all of that.
4. Focus on the contents of one chapter, and please answer the following questions for me:
   • What do you really like about this chapter?
   • What could be better? Are there any holes in the contents or the arguments in the chapter? Something I need to focus more on? Some point I should elaborate more on?
   • Does anything seem redundant? Something I can safely cut out?
   • What is your overall impression? Is this chapter ready to go into the book?
   • If you were to write a three-line review of the book based on what you’ve read, what would it say?
5. Be honest. If you love it, say so. If you think it sucks, say you love it anyway :o) Just kidding – if you absolutely hate it or see something you don’t like, tell me – I’m a big boy, I can take it.
6. Write your feedback in the text document I’ll include and mail them back to me no later than friday November 10.

I’ll then do the final rewrite that same weekend and provided that I don’t need to make too many changes, the book will go out to proofreading the monday after and to printing later that week.

Kareem Mayan emailed me to say that he couldn’t believe he’d never heard of Life Is Good, a company whose founders Bert and John Jacobs go by the respective titles chief executive optimist and chief creative optimist.

I can’t believe I haven’t either, but now that there’s a great article about them in inc magazine, I have. From the article:

Sixteen years ago they hawked $10 T-shirts featuring their own artwork from a card table on the corner, making themselves scarce whenever the cops swung past. “It’s a one-way street so one of us could always keep watch,” says Bert Jacobs, who is now 41, the older brother by three years. “We had a folding table so we could pack up quickly.”

It’s great to hear the founders of a $100 million business saying things like:

“Don’t determine that you’re going to be happy when you get the new car or the big promotion or when you meet that special person,” explains John. “You can decide that you’re going to be happy today.”

John also points out that the assertion is, in fact, a modest one. “It’s important that we’re saying ‘Life is good,’ not ‘Life is great’ or ‘Life is perfect,’” he says. “There’s a big difference. We know that there are lots of bad things in the world. But overall life is good. You have to focus on the good things and help others to focus on the good things.”

I agree, life IS good :o)

According to this article, many people waste their sundays fearing their mondays.

“I never sleep on Sunday night very well because I’m worried about going to work on Monday morning,” said one worrier. “My job is very stressful and you kind of have to gear up for Monday and getting back into that.”

That’s horrible, and I can only imagine what having this experience week after week does to people.

But mostly, I’m worried that the expert quoted in the article advices people to create some calming sunday rituals ie. to watch TV, play games or talk to a friend, but doesn’t say word one about fixing your job or quitting your job. If that’s how you feel on sunday, then it’s obvious that something about your mondays needs to change.

Raise your hand if you’d rather spend your sunday totally energized and looking forward to monday morning, because work is just that much fun. That’s happiness at work right there!

A great big thank you to Tim Raines for telling me about this article.