The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Book review: The DaVinci Code

    ,

    It seems like Dan Brown is trying to develop a new format: The ultra-condensed thriller. The action in his last book, Deception Point, took place over 48 hours, and most of the story in The Da Vinci Code unfolds over only 12 hours. Considering this, Brown still manages to pack an enormous amount of action into such a short time span. The book takes off within the first few pages, and it simply doesn’t let up until the (quite satisfying) conclusion. The action drives you forward, and there’s always a new event or question that you’re just burning to discover the explanation for.

    Robert Langdon (a symbologist who was also the protagonist of Angels and Demons) becomes involved in a case of murder and gruesome self-mutilation at the Louvre, and to clear himself of blame, he must find clues in the bible, in ancient organizations such as the catholic church and the Priory of Sion and in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, whose art never quite is what it seems.

    The book works wonderfully as a thriller, but it works on another level as well: The alternative view on historical facts like bible history and the art of Leonardo da Vinci is extremely thought provoking. The book would work fine without it, it’s just that it adds a wonderful depth and believability that is rarely seen in a thriller. This is one of the best suspense novelse I’ve ever read, and I recommend it highly!

  • Back in my pants

    The experiment is over. This weel Chris Corrigan and I swapped blogs, mostly just for the hell of it. Chris wrote very eloquently about his learnings here, forever changing the way I think of blogs by introducing the pants metaphor, and I summed up my experience here.

    All in all an interesting experience, and I’m glad we did it. What do you think about it?

  • Blog swap

    As an experiment, Chris Corrigan and I are swapping blogs for a week. I’ll be posting to his blog (Parking Lot), and he’ll be writing here.

    I’ve been having online conversations with Chris for a while, and I ran into him at the Practice of Peace conference outside Seattle in november. He works as a facilitator, change agent and problem solver and is a frontrunner in the use and development of Open Space Technology.

    To me, this blog swap is an experiment in writing to a different space. To go to new (virtual) surroundings and see what that brings. To play with the format, and see if it’s fun. To improvise around a set of topics that may or may not arise from the new place. To simply try something out of the ordinary. Let’s see what happens.

    Welcome Chris, take it away.

  • Quote

    ,

    Change that is deeply effective and positive presents a paradoxical challenge. On the one hand, there needs to be an appreciation and acceptance of how things are in the here and now. On the other hand, there needs to be an active intention to make things better. Nothing needs to change, and everything can improve. This is the way to avoid the two extremist traps of activist’s frustration or pessimistic complacency.

    – Patch Adams

    I’m reading Gesundheit by Patch Adams , a combination autobiography and explanation of his lifes work, the creation of the Gesundheit Institute. This is a marvellous book. I keep wanting to jump to he PC and put quotes from it online, and when I read this one I couldn’t contain myself. Patch cuts straight to one of the deepest paradoxes surrounding change in a clear, concise and well formulated way. My hat’s off to this man.

  • Gratitude

    , ,

    2003 has been a wonderful year for me. Here’s a list of some of the things that I’m really grateful for in 2003, in no particular order:
    * The company of the wonderful and innovative people at Arena. Thomas, Ole, David, Valdemar, Peter, Tine, Guan, Niels and many more. We rock!
    * Moving to an appartment on the 7th. floor. Great sunsets!
    * Meeting Traci, Justin, Christine, Mike and the other wonderful people at the World Dynamics CEO round table.
    * Seeing Seattle with Pam.
    * Seeing the happy at work project take off like it has, and being able to make people happy.
    (more…)

  • Quote

    All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill our history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great political leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill in dancing.

    – Moliere

  • About time

    As an ex-nerd, I agree completely with this PvP strip. I my opinion Scott Kurtz keeps getting funnier, and PvP is currently my favourite online comic.

  • Happy at work in 2003

    ,

    For those of you who read danish, I wrote this summary of the “Happy at work” project in 2003.

    The short version in english: It’s been one hell of a year. In january it was just me and a few loose ideas, and none of the methods had been tested. Now, there are lots of interesting, skilled and dedicated people working on it, we’ve proven that our methods work, and there are lots of exciting projects coming out of it.

    A HUGE thank you to everyone who participated. I can’t wait to see what we’ll do in 2004, I KNOW it will be wild.

  • Complaining

    ,

    I realized a while ago that if you’re against complaining, you can’t even complain about other people complaining. You can’t even complain about not being able to complain about other people complaining, and you can’t complain about that either. Oh, the agony of the positive approach :o)

  • Happiness on the set

    I just saw one of those “on the set” TV specials about the latest Lord of the rings movie and the director Peter Jackson said something very interesting about the casting for the movies. It turns out that when they were looking for actors they went by three main criteria:
    1: They wanted people who could bring the characters from the book to life, who could give you the feeling that Frodo or Gandalf had stepped out of the book.

    2: They wanted good actors, but they avoided any really big stars. For instance, Orlando Bloom who plays Legolas was hired just before he finished acting school.

    3: And then there was one final criterion, one that really interested me: Peter Jackson only wanted actors who were nice people. After all, they would be spending over a year shooting the movie, so they might as well have a good time.

    The TV show showed some of the actors interacting, and it’s obvious that they like each other and had a great time. This is also witnessed by the fact, that the nine actors comprising the “Fellowship of the ring” all went out and got tattoos of the elvish number “9”. This stands in sharp contrast to the many Hollywood stars who are known more for the extravagant demands they can make on a movie production than for their easy-going natures.

    Seen in the context of my “Happy at work” project this is very interesting, and it mirrors precisely the attitude at Rosenbluth International (one of the world largest business travel agencies) who “hire for personality and train for skill”. To them it matters more that a potential new employee be a nice person than highly qualified, as described in the book Put the customer second.

    PS.
    Please don’t watch any of those “behind the scenes” TV shows before seeing “Return of the king”, it will give away way too much of the experience.

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
Top 10 reasons why constant complaining is so toxic in the workplaceAugust 7, 2007
The movie "The Secret" is entirely fakeMarch 15, 2007
How We REALLY Stay Focused At WorkMay 26, 2025
Book Review: Any Dumbass Can Do It by Garry RidgeFebruary 11, 2025

recent Posts