Moving to new format

Hi guys,

I'm making a few changes to my 'social media' and marketing strategies that I wanted to tell you about.  I've been redeveloping my website and refining my service offering.  The positive psych and happiness stuff is still there but it's now interwoven with my work on improving employee engagement.

I've got two main communications strategies that I'll be using and I'd like to invite you to either of them.

Firstly, if you like the informal but more frequent approach to keeping in touch, my Facebook Business Page is a good starting point.  You can view the page by clicking the image below.  If you like the page, click 'Like' to stay in touch.

Click to view Sean's Facebook Business Page.

I'll still be blogging about all sorts of things related to employee engagement.  You can subscribe to that as a newsletter but not just yet, not until the site is finalised.  It should be in the next couple of days.

I'll put a link to the Blog's on Facebook too, so either way you won't miss out on a Blog style update from me.

Thanks for your support so far guys.  I'd love it if you continued to support me and my endeavours to make work a more rewarding, enjoyable and meaningful activity for Australian Workers.

Till next time...

Be Happy.

Narcisist?

Hi.

I've been struggling with something all my life.  I had a wonderful childhood.  Truly loving and supportive parents who were great role models.  Lot's of experiences and opportunities and the freedom to explore who I was in order to become who I was 'meant' destined to be.

But....

I heard or read the other day a throw away comment that struck a chord and reminded me of something that's been getting in my way.  I'll share that in a tic.

As you may know I struggle to reconcile my potential with my actual.  I live a pretty good life and am reasonably successful at whatever I attempt to do.  That was my rationale voice speaking there.  I still however strive for better.  Leaner.  Fitter.  Faster.  More successful.  Healthier.  More productive.  More responsible.  More socially aware.  etc etc.  When I'm not doing things that contribute to those 'mores'  I often feel bad about myself and start 'shoulding' myself.  I should do more.  I should be more.  I should be healthier, cleaner, more productive or whatever.  This means I don't take pleasure from the things I DO do and rather focus on the things I DON'T do.  Not good.

Here's the comment.

"more people are fucked up as a result of being told they are better, great or have more potential than there are who are fucked up because they're told they are crap, shit and no good."

It got me to wondering.  Now there is probably a scale of 'fuct' up at play here (and that's not a referenced or even valid source) and I'm definitely not one to say my problems are more serious than anyone else's.  In fact, the reality of anyone's problems is purely subjective.  The rich kid worrying about his relationship with his peers is as real as the kid worrying about his next meal.  To them anyway.  You, me and many others may actually rate those worries differently.  The point is that the worry is real to the individual.  ANyway, I digress.  I think I fit that statement.  I was told many positive things which account for many wonderful things, and yet I feel fucked up.  I was thinking about the deeply held belief (or is it just an expectation external or otherwise), instilled and reinforced by devoted, loving parents, that I was wonderful, intelligent, bound for success etc that has placed a pressure on me (or I have placed it on myself, either way its there) to be exactly that.  So, when I seem to fall into (what by those grandiose expectations) seems to be a normal existence, I feel bad.    Part of me recognises that this 'angst' for betterment is what drives me forward and another part recognises that it stops me from living in the now, appreciating the moment and (as many of my friends would say, indeed have said) lightening up on myself.

Truth be told.  I'm no longer sure what to think.  Should I strive for betterment or be content with who I am?  How do I enjoy the moment if it's not where I think I should be?  How do I relax and be still when there's work to be done?  How do I turn off those friggen voices that raise these questions?

I was running a workshop today and in a vulnerability exercise several participants expressed their greatest childhood challenge (which in all cases transferred to their adult experience) was that of purpose. Meaning.  Why am I here?  Two things happened. 1) I realised I'm not alone in asking that question. 2) It exacerbated the experience for me by making my own situation 'real'.

I'm gunna post this right away as if I edit it I may chicken out of sharing it.

To give some context, I've had a few drinks and have been battling with these issues for several days now.  I need to get this off my chest.  I hope I haven't dragged you into my mire.

Till next time,

Be happy.

oh yeah  Before I go.  What's this got to do with Narcism... (have a quick read and I'll get back to you)

Campbell and Foster (2007) review the literature on narcissism. They argue that narcissists possess the following "basic ingredients":

• Positive: Narcissists think they are better than others.^[15]
• Inflated: Narcissists' views tend to be contrary to reality. In measures that compare self-report to objective measures, narcissists' self-views tend to be greatly exaggerated.^[16]
• Agentic: Narcissists’ views tend to be most exaggerated in the agentic domain, relative to the communion domain.^[15][16]
• Special: Narcissists perceive themselves to be unique and special people.^[17]
• Selfish: Research upon narcissists’ behaviour in resource dilemmas supports the case for narcissists as being selfish.^[18]
• Oriented toward success: Narcissists are oriented towards success by being, for example, approach oriented.^[1

Ok, so what does all of this have to do with me?  Thankfully, very little actually.  There is healthy and unhealthy narcism.  While I think I may, from time to time, display some of the above characteristics (I do sometimes think I'm better than others, although I don't express that - except just now; I have been called selfish and would sometimes describe my behaviour that way and I am definitely oriented towards success).  I'm not looking for reassurance about my potential for narcism or not.  I was hopeful that there was a 'diagnosis' for my state.  Unfortunately, I have come to the conclusion that my state is what is otherwise known as 'the human condition'.

Nite all.

I'm baa-aack

Hi guys,

In case you've been wondering where I've been I'm now back from holidays.  Quite an interesting experience actually.  I was in Japan for the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear melt-down (never in any real danger but there nonetheless) and then in Thailand for a wedding and was stranded by unseasonal typhoons that cancelled ferries, ruined airports, caused landslides and resulted in an aircraft carrier being despatched by the Thai Govt to evacuate stranded travellers.  Fun times.

It was an interesting demonstration of resilience and I enjoyed watching how my various friends coped with adversity, uncertainty and the challenges associated with communicating in a foreign country.  It was also interesting too to see how the locals, who were much more seriously affected than we were (I mean we could eventually go home) responded.  I've no doubt they must've thought us Westerners to be rather precious.

Hey, have any of you had a near death experience?  I've often been a little envious of the characters you hear about who have such an experience and then go on to make radical transformations in their lives.  I've often enviously thought "if only that could happen to me, then I could finally make those changes stick"  pffst!  Now I know the stupidity of that thought.  I now think that the change they made and the effort required to make would still be just as hard as it is for the rest of us on any normal day.  Maybe their motivation is different, I don't know?   Anyway I tell you about mine.   When our 12th floor Tokyo hotel room was caught in an aftershock and the building was creaking and groaning and the curtains swinging like crazy I seriously thought I was going to die.  Seriously.  I was shitting myself.  Grabbed my passport and all I wanted to do was get the hell out of dodge!!!  The feeling of helplessness when I realised that I couldn't was pretty confronting.  To cut a long story short, my near death (in actual fact I was never in any danger at all but I didn't know that at the time) experience hasn't really changed my perspective on things, or my ability to make changes so I guess I can stop wishing for some external bolt of lightening to make changes for me and take some responsibility for making the changes myself.  Now, if I can just work out what changes I want to make....

I am however refreshed after my holiday and keen to get back into some regular training.  It looks like work is picking up too which is great.  I can't begin to tell you how depressing it has been to be selling services that no-one wants.  Particularly when the service is you (me).   And just to clarify.... I'm not a gigalo.  I'm a facilitator and work predominantly in the public sector.  First the GFC then a recent spate of natural disasters has seriously slowed my business down.  I haven't really talked about it much.  Two reasons really.  One,  I didn't want to give voice to my more negative thoughts and two, my rationale brain (yes I do have some rationale in there somewhere) knew that things would turn around.... eventually.

Ok.  Bye for now.  Next time I'm going to talk about something that's been really messing with my head.  Why am I here?

Be Happy

Are you getting enough?

Sleep that is.   I woke this morning feeling a little better and got to thinking about the importance of sleep on a happy brain.  Turns out it's kinda fundamental.  Scientists are now recommending 7-8hrs a night for an adult is optimal.  How much do you get?  I know I live on about 6hrs.  I'm going to try getting some more zzzzz's.


40 FACTS ABOUT SLEEP YOU PROBABLY DIDN'T KNOW... (OR WERE TOO TIRED TO THINK ABOUT)

1. The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon.  The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.
2. It's impossible to tell if someone is really awake without close medical supervision.  People can take cat naps with their eyes open without even being aware of it.
3. Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you're sleep deprived.  The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you're still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.
4. A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year.
5. One of the best predictors of insomnia later in life is the development of bad habits from having sleep disturbed by young children.
6. The continuous brain recordings that led to the discovery of REM (rapid eye-movement) sleep were not done until 1953, partly because the scientists involved were concerned about wasting paper.
7. REM sleep occurs in bursts totalling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep.
8. Dreams, once thought to occur only during REM sleep, also occur (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases.  It's possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.
9. REM dreams are characterised by bizarre plots, but non-REM dreams are repetitive and thought-like, with little imagery - obsessively returning to a suspicion you left your mobile phone somewhere, for example.
10. Certain types of eye movements during REM sleep correspond to specific movements in dreams, suggesting at least part of the dreaming process is analagous to watching a film
11. No-one knows for sure if other species dream but some do have sleep cycles similar to humans.
12. Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep, but lie down for REM sleep.
13. Some scientists believe we dream to fix experiences in long-term memory, that is, we dream about things worth remembering.  Others reckon we dream about things worth forgetting - to eliminate overlapping memories that would otherwise clog up our brains.
14. Dreams may not serve any purpose at all but be merely a meaningless byproduct of two evolutionary adaptations - sleep and consciousness.
15. REM sleep may help developing brains mature.  Premature babies have 75 per cent REM sleep, 10 per cent more than full-term bubs.  Similarly, a newborn kitten puppy rat or hampster experiences only REM sleep, while a newborn guinea pig (which is much more developed at birth) has almost no REM sleep at all.
16. Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain's sleep-wake clock.
17. British Ministry of Defence researchers have been able to reset soldiers' body clocks so they can go without sleep for up to 36 hrs.  Tiny optical fibres embedded in special spectacles project a ring of bright white light (with a spectrum identical to a sunrise) around the edge of soldiers' retinas, fooling them into thinking they have just woken up.  The system was first used on US pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.
18. Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.
19. The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.
20. The NRMA estimates fatigue is involved in one in 6 fatal road accidents.
21. Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake.  Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.
22. The "natural alarm clock" which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin.  Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.
23. Some sleeping tablets, such as barbiturates suppress REM sleep, which can be harmful over a long period.
24. In insomnia following bereavement, sleeping pills can disrupt grieving.
25. Tiny luminous rays from a digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you do not fully wake.  The light turns off a "neural switch" in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.
26. To drop off we must cool off; body temperature and the brain's sleep-wake cycle are closely linked.  That's why hot summer nights can cause a restless sleep.  The blood flow mechanism that transfers core body heat to the skin works best between 18 and 30 degrees.  But later in life, the comfort zone shrinks to between 23 and 25 degrees - one reason why older people have more sleep disorders.
27. A night on the grog will help you get to sleep but it will be a light slumber and you won't dream much.
28. After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you've slept enough.
29. Humans sleep on average around three hours less than other primates like chimps, rhesus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and baboons, all of whom sleep for 10 hours.
30. Ducks at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.
31. Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.
32. Snoring occurs only in non-REM sleep
33. Teenagers need as much sleep as small children (about 10 hrs) while those over 65 need the least of all (about six hours).  For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal
34. Some studies suggest women need up to an hour's extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.
35. Feeling tired can feel normal after a short time.  Those deliberately deprived of sleep for research initially noticed greatly the effects on their alertness, mood and physical performance, but the awareness dropped off after the first few days.
36. Diaries from the pre-electric-light-globe Victorian era show adults slept nine to 10 hours a night with periods of rest changing with the seasons in line with sunrise and sunsets.
37. Most of what we know about sleep we've learned in the past 25 years.
38. As a group, 18 to 24 year-olds deprived of sleep suffer more from impaired performance than older adults.
39. Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.
40. The extra-hour of sleep received when clocks are put back at the start of daylight in Canada has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.

The Three Keys to Happiness

Pleasure, Challenge & Meaning

Each on their own is insufficient to create enduring happiness but together, or even better, combined, they do have capacity to aid in our happiness.

Pleasure - is about creating immediate, positive sensations.  Sensory things like a nice bath, a massage, a glass of wine do this.  Emotional triggers can also produce pleasure - like laughing at a joke.  These pleasures are often short lived but highly enjoyable at the time.

Challenge - these are the things that stretch us, that expand our capability.  Interestingly enough, the things that challenge us may often not give us sensory pleasure at the time but will produce a sense of accomplishment after the event.  The sorts of things that challenge us may include:

• doing something we are skilled at or that uses our strengths
• learning new skills
• solving something difficult or challenging
• persisting when the outcome is in doubt

Meaning - this is generally the notion that our actions (be they work or play) contribute to something that we consider worthwhile.  Meaning is derived from a sense of greater purpose.  For example, a cleaner at NASA was asked what he did,

"Helping to put man on Mars" was his reply.

Now.  While each of these things are good in their own right the magic really happens when these things are combined.  The diagram shows the overlapping areas, if you can combine two or even three things the theory suggests you're going to get great satisfaction from it.

So.  How does knowing that help me?  Unfortunately, it doesn't much right now.  I'm in a bit of a funk as I lost another chunk of work the other day that I could scarcely afford to lose.  I s'pose it helps to make sense why I get pleasure from doing things that when doing them, I'm wondering why in the heck I'm actually doing it (challenge).  It also raises the question "what the hell do I take meaning from?" and as for pleasure, I'm finding it hard to feel like I deserve to do things that are 'pleasurable' so that's off the radar for now.  :-(

I guess what I've got to do is slap myself, sit down and think about what my life is meant to be about.  I think the meaning aspect is the bit that's really missing for me.  I used to think my work was meaningful but the seed of doubt has been well and truly sown when clients keep cancelling.  Although its not really their fault, GFC's floods and cyclones ARE a little unpredictable, but still if my services are so quickly dropped, then it's hard to convince myself they see it as valuable. 

On a positive note.  I literally dragged myself to Crossfit tonight, still feeling a little sick (flu) and managed to punch out a really good session.  Funny that, the times you really don't want to go or think you can't often turn out to be the best workouts.  Is that a fact or is it more about low expectations?  You tell me.

Till next time.

Be Happy.

Do not open, please call the police.

I heard a bang.  We both noticed it.

I thought it was a fellow moving furniture that I had seen earlier and thought nothing of it.  We did nothing.

Turns out my next door neighbour had locked himself in his garage and taken his own life.  He left a sign on the garage door saying

Caution, do not open.  

Please call the police.  

George (not his real name) was always considerate of others and regularly worried to me about the noise he made tinkering on his carvings in his garage.  I never heard a thing, not a peep.   He never complained when we had parties and stayed up late, or when my dog barked at stuff.  He never just took his own bin out, he did everyones in the unit block.  He bought me a rock he'd found on a river walk.  Thought I might like rocks.  Turns out I did.

We had a beer together one Christmas time too.  That's when I found out he liked to carve ancient coins out of wood.

George was dying of cancer.   When he told me several months ago and I said how shit that was he replied with "What's the worst that can happen?"  I nearly fell over, knowing that what WAS going to happen was that he would die.  And probably suffer along the way too.  According to his wife he was always making jokes about his situation.

I'm not sure what the turning point was for George but he obviously felt that what was left of his life was not worth living.  I'm sure he didn't take that decision lightly.  We'd noticed a rapid deterioration in his health and mobility over the past few weeks and had been expecting the inevitable.  But not this way.

It's made me think about my own situation.  Sometimes I wish 'it would all end' thinking that it would be easier if I didn't have to worry about all the shit that consumes one's (my) existence on the planet.  It's not something I'd ever actually contemplate, despite sometimes feeling this way.   Now being faced with the reality of it (suicide and our mortality) I feel like a selfish, spoiled child for thinking this.

I don't judge George for his choice of actions.  I suspect he calculated the burden this would place on his wife and weighed it against the burden of her watching and nursing his slow and painful decline and chose for this option (I'm sure she would've chosen different).  It would be nice if he had the opportunity to euthanise himself in a planned and controlled manner.  Surrounded by his loved ones in a place he felt comfortable, where the final choice could be exercised in a manner more human than a gun, and where his partner had immediate access to the support she now so dearly needs.

I'm welling up writing this, not even sure why I am writing it suffice to say that in his passing George has given me the strength to move forward with conviction, to savour what I have, and to live life fully.  You never know which day will be your last.

Tell someone special what they mean to you today.  I never got to say goodbye to George....

:-(

The Phone Always Rings...

To say it's been an up and down 12 months would be a huge understatement.  My business had been directly affected by the GFC and flow on effects.  It seems people development was not high on the priority list for many of my prospective and existing clients.  During this time it's been very stressful not knowing where the next job was coming from and wondering how I was going to cover my overheads like rent.  The irony for me is that as That Happy Guy, I haven't been very happy.  Hindsight is a beautiful thing and I can see the errors I've made, in fact often I can see them as I'm making them.  Things like hopeless thinking, and then not actually doing anything because I think its a foregone (hopeless) conclusion.  Not great and I'm not proud of it but there it is.

Well anyway, I had a piece of good news yesterday which has allowed me to reflect and think a little more positively.  I had initially secured a range of workshops to be delivered for Dept of Communities in Feb and April and beyond.  A nice little earner and a good program to deliver.  With the recent floods the Departments priorities and focus shifted (and rightly so) to their role supporting the community through disaster management and recovery.  This meant my workshops were cancelled.  I'm not the only one to suffer so this is not sour grapes, just an unfortunate and unpredictable incident.  This means that I've not worked solidly or consistently since November.  It's hard to maintain a healthy mindset when you feel like what you've got is not wanted or needed.  Things were spiralling out of control.

Yesterday I secured a small piece of work for Feb that will help to keep the wolves at bay.  Great outcome and it reminded me of something that I thought I'd learned several years ago.  Focus on the things you can control and the phone will always ring (eventually).  It did ring and again I was reminded of this truism.  However I think I was lucky.  Usually luck is related to the effort you put in, I was fortunately rewarded despite not putting any effort in.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I had laid the foundations for this project in November.  I just hadn't really done much else.

If I had remembered to be more of an optimist (good things will come) I might have weathered the storm a little more stoically.  Oh well, lesson learned.  Next time I'll get a chance to be better... that's me being an optimalist, not a perfectionist (I should've got it right the first time).

I suspect a great many people will be suffering both directly and indirectly form the flood.  The second group are vulnerable as there is less focus and support provided to this group.  If you or anyone you know finds themselves in a position where their happiness is being affected by these events I'd like to remind them that even dark clouds have silver linings, and the true measure of a person is not whether they get knocked down or not, but what they do when they do get knocked down.

Till next time,

Be Happy.
:-)