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Welcome to the SOAR! Newsletter
In this issue we continue our quest to provide you with valuable insights and resources to help you and your colleagues live happier, healthier, and more productive lives. Today, we present you with a key concept that leads to highly effective organizations and teams.
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In This Issue: The Secret to Happy Employees
Every business owner and leader wants happy employees. It is no secret that happy employees are more productive, get sick less, generate more sales, and deliver outstanding service to customers. What, then, is the secret to employee happiness? Author Chalmers Brothers reveals it in his book Language and the Pursuit of Happiness. Quite simply,
Happiness = Peacefulness + Productivity.
In other words, happiness results from a combination of positive internal and external events. As human beings, we are happiest when we experience an internal state of acceptance (of what is), while externally being actively engaged in changing the world for the better.
What do we mean by "acceptance"? Consider an example: we find prevailing moods of resentment and resignation to be significant barriers to productivity in many organizations today. Linguistically, we feel resentful when we reject something that we consider to be unchangeable, such as an event from the past. Similarly, we feel resigned when we reject possibilities that are available to us in life. The requisite shift away from both of these moods is provided by acceptance: a mood that we declare into being by acknowledging our present challenging circumstances and choosing to be grateful anyway. We offer a technique for achieving this in the paragraphs below.
Acceptance does not necessarily imply agreement. We can accept a situation, be peaceful, and continue to disagree with the matter at hand. We can make more effective and significant improvements from a peaceful and centered place than from disillusionment or overwhelm. Shaking our fists in resentment at, say, prevailing high energy prices will typically lead to higher stress and anxiety. However, accepting the current state of events (while still disagreeing) allows us to relax, find our center, and then productively work toward improving our situation.
The second part of the happiness equation is productivity. Much has been written about productivity, so we won't belabor the point here. Suffice it to say that we are happiest when we're engaged in activities that employ our strengths while expressing our deepest values.
How do you help an individual or an entire organization shift from an unproductive mood of resentment or resignation into a productive mood of acceptance, and therefore peacefulness? A simple technique is to help the individual shift their attention from what they don't want to what they do want. This typically produces a temporary change in state that, when reinforced, helps create a prevailing mood of acceptance. Ascendi has perfected methods and techniques that can help an entire group achieve greater peacefulness and productivity in a relatively short - and lasting - span of time.
Can we help you do the same? Connect with us anytime - we would love to talk with you.
Warm Regards,
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