The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

  • Breaking barriers

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    I have spent this weekend breaking barriers at the DSN course held by the art of living. The DSN course is for people who want to create a better society. These people need to be able to rise above their own limitations, and to willingly go into situations that are unknown, uncertain, frustrating or scary.

    And after three days of non-stop activity (every day the course lasted from 6 in the morning til 11 at night) I can safely say that my comfort zone has been expanded vastly. My biggest realization at the course was, that for me the fear is not in the doing – it’s in the hesitation. As long as I’m procrastinating, wondering “Should I do it? Will it work?” I’m afraid. As soon as I start actually doing it (whatever “it” is), the fear is gone. I’m already applying this in my daily work, and this makes some things easier.

  • Quote

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    Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

    – Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

  • YES: I’m in Fast Company

    I was visiting my new friend Nicolai when I glanced through his July issue of Fast Company, and whaddayaknow: I’m in it! Fast Company is an extremely cool magazine. Okay, they’ve been marked by the dismal economic trends too, and their cool factor is slipping slightly, but they’re still light years in front of any other business magazine I know.

    And I’m in the july issue! Well… it’s only a letter to the magazine, but still. I wrote a comment to an article that says that we need to reconstruct business to be less vulnerable to terrorist attacks. I argue, that it’s probably better to meet your enemies with understanding and empathy than with duct tape. So now that I’ve been in the mag, I have to choose a new ambition… hmmm… Oh yeah: To get on the cover of Fast Company.

    And in a totally unrelated but equally ego-flattering development, I’m now a top1000 reviewer at Amazon; I’m actually number 599, set to break into the top500 soon. Check out some of my reviews here, here and here. You know Amazon have a good thing going, when this actually means something to me. Now: Are they very clever, or am I just a pushover?

  • Book review: Crossings

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    This book by Richard A. Heckler, subtitled “A New Psychology of the Unexpected”, is about change in a big way. It’s about those events that have the powert to totally transform your life. The events can be big or small, trivial or life-threatening, mystical or practical, but they fundamentally alter the people to whom they happen.

    The strongest feature of the book is quite simply actual stories of this happening. Told partially in the words of the people involved and partially by the author, these stories are downright gripping. From Karl, a former drug dealer turned minister, to Rebecca who discovers her strengths and leadership abilities on board a small boat close to sinking in a ferocious storm.
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  • How to make your own luck

    Fast Company have an article on how to court lady luck. And interestingly, the article claims that the key is openness, and that lucky people are simply open to the fortunate events that occur around all of us.

  • What’s your world view

    Everybody has a world view. It’s the glasses through which you look at the world. Your world view will help you see some things clearly, but may also distort other things. One thing that is important though, is to know the assumptions inherent in your world view. When you think what you think, what assumptions is this based on?

    I do not claim to have the Answers (notice the capital A), but here’s some of the questions. These questions are totally basic, and can be found at the foundation of most world views. Most of these questions can probably not be answered conclusively, but which ever answer you choose to believe, will hold some implications for your world view.

    Obviously I did not come up with these questions. Many of them have been hotly debated for thousands of years; this is just a list of the ones I could think of. Let me know what you think, did I leave some questions out, and where do you stand on the answers?
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  • More things I enjoyed about Reboot6

    Hey, I forgot:
    * Seeing Collaboraid (started by my good friend Lars Pind) win the Reboot award for startup of the year
    * Helping Lars brainstorm for his wedding speech over a beer

    Collaboraid is a very worthy winner, and here’s a story that shows one of the reasons why. I’m glad to know that you can succeed and have fun working with openness and generosity, and I congratulate all the guys at Collaboraid. Share on!

  • Things I enjoyed about Reboot6

    Reboot6 is now over, and I’m totally beat from being the Open Space host. It’s the first time I’ve hosted this many people in Open Space, but it went very well (if I do say so my self).

    Here’s what I enjoyed most about Reboot6:
    * The excellent speakers
    * Cory Doctorow’s armoured T-shirt – possibly the coolest T-shirt in existence
    * Marc Canter singing
    * Reboot posts totally dominating blogbot this weekend
    * The first beer after the conference – man it tasted good
    * The excellent mood and energy even 10 or 12 hours into the conference
    * Thomas‘ hosting
    * Microsoft showing up with 20 people, 3 X-boxes and a big screen TV and being cool abut being semi-slammed at the conference
    * The barbecue
    * The openness that went into both the planning and the execution of the conference
    * The Honorary Reboot Award Winner, the guy who singe-handedly brought the internet to Denmark (or is that brought Denmark to the internet) in 1982. A quote from him: “I did say back then, that this thing might even become bigger than the fax”.

  • Warming up for Reboot

    I warmed up for the Reboot conference tomorrow by watching this clip of Douglas Rushkoffs talk from Reboot4, from which stems the following quote: “If a new technology doesn’t help you meet people or get laid – why bother”.

  • Acts of hope

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    One of my new friends, Filiz from Turkey, sent me a link to a very interesting article on activism. The main point that the article makes is that activism is for the long term. You can’t expect immediate results that clearly follow from your actions. You need to look at long term results,

    Also, you’re not saving the world. Here’s my favourite quote from the article:

    History is like weather, not like checkers. A game of checkers ends. The weather never does. That’s why you can’t save anything. Saving is the wrong word. Jesus saves and so do banks: they set things aside from the flux of earthly change. We never did save the whales, though we might’ve prevented them from becoming extinct. We will have to continue to prevent that as long as they continue not to be extinct.

    Brilliant stuff, read it!

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