The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Silence

    ,

    I’ve been spending the last 4 days at a yoga retreat arranged by the Art of Living. We’re talking four days of getting up REALLY early, meditation, yoga, breathing exercises, talks and various other exercises.

    And the most interesting thing was that two of those days were spent in silence. No talking, reading, music, TV, emails, phones or communicating of any kind. Just long, loooong hours spent in silence and meditation. Beautiful. And frustrating. I’ve tried it once before, and I wrote about the experience here.

  • Hugging NY

    There’s a kinda funny kinda sad story on NY Times about one Jayson Littman.

    He is a financial analyst who happens to think that New Yorkers could use a hug. So it was, a month ago, that Mr. Littman began distributing hugs – free – from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sundays in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

    “At first I thought no one would respond,” said Mr. Littman, 26, who lives in Manhattan. But on his first Sunday, standing before a giant hand-lettered sign that reads “Free Hugs,” Mr. Littman and a friend embraced 200 people in two and a half hours. “There’s a lot of war and blood in the world right now,” he said, “and this helps to even it out.”

  • Audio book status

    Here’s the current status for the Practice of Peace audio book.
    (more…)

  • Serious and silly

    I found this wonderful little tale on Bernie DeKoven’s excellent website, Deep fun.

    I asked the Oaqui if they/he/she could entertain me with a profound-seeming, instructive-like story.
    “TWO PLAYERS,” the Oaqui eventually responded, almost without hesitation.
    “There are two players in the heart: Serious and Silly,” the Oaqui began in a tone bordering on instructive glibness.
    “From time to time they play games.”
    “Which one wins?” I innocently inquired.
    “It depends,” responded the Oaqui, “on who’s keeping score.”

  • Metrics

    It’s nice to see that Fast Company agrees with me on the values and pitfalls of metrics :o)

    Here’s a current Fast Company article on the “what gets measured gets done” thinking.
    And here’s one I wrote a while back, and a more recent one.

    Fast Company:
    In fact, the jobs that are most effectively reduced to single quantities are the ones that are the most one dimensional. The broader a person’s responsibilities, the more complex and subjective the evaluation. Measures become more ambiguous. There are more stakeholders with a wider range of needs. Evaluations come at specific points in time, but there are always short-term versus long-term tradeoffs. In the face of such complexity, do you want to motivate only what is measurable?

    Me:
    And this is the whole point: In all organizations, much of the work done and much of the value created is unmeasured and maybe even unmeasureable. Let’s say a person has a great day, and spreads a good mood in his department. Can you measure that? No! Is it important? Certainly! It can have a significant impact on that departments productivity… So what get’s measured is not what get’s done. There’s so much else being done that has huge impact on your organization, which will never be measured. We must learn to live with this!

  • Eulogy

    This eulogy by John A. Byrne for his father is the most moving thing I’ve ever read on the net. An excerpt:

    He learned to be generous with himself and with his friends. My father didn’t have much, but he shared what he had with just about anyone who needed what little he had. When we closed up his house on 89 Sherman Ave. and paid his final bills two years ago, we found out that he sometimes paid the oil bills of friends and neighbors when they didn’t have the cash to pay themselves. He never spoke about these generosities, and he never expected anything in return. He was a man who knew what an honest day’s work was and delivered it without complaint or failure — ever.

    He learned to live life with optimism. Above all, my father was an optimist. He loved to laugh. He loved to please. He was rarely, if ever, critical of people. He didn’t have an unkind bone in his body. He filled his life with hope, even when there was little reason to hope.

    One of my life’s biggest ambitions, is that I may be remembered in much the same way when I’m dead (or even while I’m still here :o).

  • Zero7 live

    ,

    Last night I had the pleasure of spending an evening in the company of Zero7. There are many reasons why they’re such a great band, here’s a few of them:
    * The music. Soulful, beautiful, sometimes edgy, always great.
    * The singers. Mozez (the only guy) with his airy,light voice. Sophie with the clean, clear, perfect voice. Sia with the almost unintelligible, gravelly, but no less beautiful growl. And new danish addition Tina Dico with her amazing vocal dexterity. Each one has a distinct, excellent style, worthy of being the lead singer for some band. And zero7 has four of them. I have no idea how they do it.
    * The mood. The people on stage are having a good time, and it shows. Especially Sia Furler who was constantly giggling and doing small dances, until it came time for her to sing. Then she was 100% focused on just that.
    * The setup. Zero7 are actually just the two geeky-looking guys in the background, getting absolutely no attention during the concert. They let the singers and the other musicians take the show. This may be the only band with no ego.

    But mostly the music of course. They make wonderful, introspective, quiet ambient electronica, which it can be pretty hard to transplant to a live concert. But they did so in excellent style, taking some songs up a notch to where you can see the rock-potential in them, or even taking them down a little, to where it’s just a singer a guitar and a keyboard. Excellent!!

    You can hear some of their latest songs here. Check them out, and if you get a chance to see them live, do it!!!

  • Quote

    If you have come to help me, I don’t need your help. But if you have come because your liberation is tied to mine, come let us work together.

    – Lilla Watson

  • General recording tips

    Here are some general, non-technical tips for recording a chapter of the Practice of Peace audio book. I have absolutely no experience in this, so feel free to ignore it completely :o)
    (more…)

  • Technical recording tips

    For those involved in making the Practice of Peace audio book, here are some technical tips for recording your voice on your computer.
    (more…)

Connect

Get our newsletter

“I can’t believe it – a newsletter actually worth reading!”
– Subscriber

Over 6,000 people subscribe to our newsletter with tons of tips about happiness at work.

Get our books

“It’s very, very good. It’s incredibly well written, full of insights, and there are exercises to improve your own happiness at work. You can’t ask for more than that!”
– David Maister, author of Practice What You Preach

“What an inspiring book. Every leader should read it. This type of leadership has been integral to our success and I know it will boost your results too.“
– Garry Ridge, CEO WD-40 Company

Get Our Free Newsletter

Over 6,000 people already get our free newsletter with useful tips, videos, links and articles about happiness at work.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Top posts last week

Non-inspirational quotesOctober 22, 2003
Danish bank says forget about retention and focus on happinessMay 28, 2025
How We REALLY Stay Focused At WorkMay 26, 2025
Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplaceAugust 7, 2007
The movie "The Secret" is entirely fakeMarch 15, 2007

recent Posts