Here’s a video of my presentation at last year’s Reboot conference in Copenhagen:

For a long time, I’d been wanting to do a speech in shorts and flip-flops and since Reboot is a) held in the summer and b) mostly attended by IT geeks, this was the perfect venue to do it :o)

The theme of the presentation is action. My point is simple: A bias for action is good for you because stuff happens when you act. But mostly I talk about how you get to action.

Your take

What about you? What helps you act? When do you get up and do stuff and when do you prefer to think, analyze and plan? What happens when you act?

I got an email from Red in the Philippines, who took a major step towards happiness at work last week:

Red writes:

I have been your follower and i really admire your writing style. In fact, I have adapted your style in my report writing.

I just talked with my boss this morning (after reading your article on fear about being fired – now what vs. so what) and told him that I have reached my quitting point and I am resigning effective March 31, 2010. You know what, I felt a sense of relief deep inside and it was really great.

Though I dont have a job lined up, I believe that it is worth resigning from this suckie job. It has sucked my life out of me. I do not want corporate world anymore after March 31. I am pushing through with my passion: weight training, teaching wellness in High School, and blogging.

That’s fantastic and this is what more people need to do: Leave jobs that are slowly sucking the life out of them instead of making excuses for why quitting is impossible right now.

I’ve talked to many people who have quit bad jobs and almost all say “it was the right thing to do and I only wish I’d done it sooner.”

On the other hand, I’ve never heard a single solitary person say “I quit a bad job last year – I only wish I’d waited 6 more months to do it.”

Of course, the current state of the economy makes this choice more difficult. But no less necessary.

Related posts

• Top 10 bad excuses for staying in a crappy job.
• How to know it’s time to quit.
• Top 10 signs you’re not happy at work.
• Google loves Denmark.

One of the highlights of our 2009 conference on happiness at work in Copenhagen was Dr. Srikumar S. Rao’s wonderfully inspiring and funny presentation.

His presentation focused specifically on two traps you must avoid, that keep us from becoming happy. You can watch the entire speech here (18 minutes):

Dr. Rao is the man behind the pioneering course Creativity and Personal Mastery. This is the only business school course that has its own alumni association and it has been extensively covered in the media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the London Times, the Independent, Time, the Financial Times, Fortune, the Guardian, Business Week and dozens of other publications.

The inimitable Alan Watts tells us why we should not approach work as work – but as play. Take 20 minutes out of your day, get comfortable and watch this.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Someone sent me an email asking what my main message for 2010 would be. So here it is:

2010 is the year for companies, leaders and employees to show whether or not they’re serious about happiness.

Some people only value happiness in good times when jobs are easy to find and there’s a “war for talent”.

Others value happiness at work in and of itself and know, that happy, motivated, productive employees are even more important in tough times.

2010 is the year where we find out who falls into which camp. I’ll be in the “happy camp”. What about you?

What’s your 2010 core message?

There is little doubt that happiness at work is linked to the bottom line, and many studies confirm this. But how does it work? How much of an effect does it have? How can you boost it? What factors matter and which don’t?

To answer these questions better, I’d like to gather a list of quality resources (books, articles, studies, statistics, case stories) that examine this link and this is where I need your help. I’m not trying to assemble every study ever done – I just want some good ones.

Just to give you an idea, here are some that I’ve been using:

• Wharton: Employee Satisfaction Contributes to the Bottom Line.
• WSJ: Why Employee Satisfaction Bolsters Profitability.
• Book: Linking Customer and Employee Satisfaction to the Bottom Line.
• Book: The Service Profit Chain.

Do you know any other good evidence-based resources that look at how happiness at work improves the bottom line? I’d also like to see any studies that don’t find any effect!