How to Be Happy Now

I’ve heard lots of people say they just want 2020 to be over and that 2020 has been a bad year. It’s definitely been a very different and difficult year. I’m right there with you – virtual school, no childcare, not seeing family or friends, and doing three jobs because everyone in our office is working virtually. And part of being powerful is creating fun and choosing happiness regardless of the circumstances.

Here are some ideas for creating fun and happiness, regardless of the circumstances. If you read last week’s blog, some of this will sound familiar.

Connect with people you haven’t talked to in a while. Call, texting isn’t the same.

• Past coworkers
• Friends from high school, college, and graduate school
• Cousins and siblings
• Neighbors
• Out-of-town friends
• Local friends

Here are a few ways to take care of yourself during the workday:

• Listen to music.
• Eat breakfast or lunch instead of skipping a meal.
• Text a friend when you have down time.
• Walk outside to take a break.

Catch the last of your city’s holiday activities. Do things five-year-old’s think are fun. They’re fun for adults too.

• Is your city’s Zoo lit up for the holidays? Bring hot chocolate and go.
• Are your city’s botanic gardens or downtown lit up? Are there drive-through light shows?
• Find a place to toast marsh mellows and make s’mores. Hotels are often lit up and have outdoor fire pits.
• Drive or walk and see your neighbor’s lights.
• Decorate cookies, cupcakes and gingerbread houses. Seriously, it’s fun! If you email me, I’ll send you photos of our masterpieces. If you have kids, give up what the gingerbread house is ‘supposed to look like’ and let the kids do their thing (this is challenging for me).

Do something you enjoy every day. Keep it simple and cheap. Here are a few from my life:

• Listen to music. Maybe go crazy and have a spontaneous dance party.
• Order food from a favorite restaurant. I’ll admit that sometimes we have breakfast delivered.
• Go for a walk or hike.
• Do something you’ve never done. We’re trying snowmobiling this week.
• Drive someplace beautiful.
• Watch a movie you haven’t seen.

Lastly, what’s a bad habit you can stop doing, for one day. Don’t over commit. Mine are below:

• Opening emails, promising I’ll reply, only to have the email get buried and forgotten.
• Surfing Facebook and the internet at night.
• Eating whatever my kid doesn’t finish.
• Checking my phone (way more than necessary).

There are lots of ways to have fun regardless of the circumstances – from seeing lights, to reconnecting with old friends, to taking care of ourselves, and stopping a bad habit, just for one day.

Have a wonderful rest of the year! We are grateful for the many organizations that invested in virtual training and keynote speaking this year. We’ve loved working with all of you and hope to see you virtually or in person next year.

We wish you a Happy New Year and powerful start to 2021!

Want More Innovation In the Workplace? Make It Safe to Tell the Truth

You’ve either seen the video or heard about the group think that happened before NASA’s Challenger exploded in 1986. One engineer felt strongly that there was a defect in the Challenger’s design. He spoke up, others disagreed. He continued to speak up, until it became very uncomfortable to do so.

Most employees don’t even get that far. Many employees are afraid to speak up at all, feeling that it’s not ok to have a counter point of view, and that those who disagree with ‘management’ are eventually fired. I honestly am not sure where this comes from. It hasn’t been my experience, and yet the fear of speaking up is pervasive. I hear it in almost every organization with which I work.

If it’s not ok to express different opinions, your organization will deliver the same-old products and services you always have. If staying the same works in your industry, great. But stagnation is a killer to most organizations.

If you want more innovation in the workplace, you have to make it safe to speak up and offer a different point of view. Saying new, different, and even controversial things must be encourage and rewarded.

Five Ways to Encourage Innovation In the Workplace:

1. Ask for new ideas and different points of view.
2. Wait until you get both. Don’t allow a meeting or discussion to move on until you get new, opposing, and different points of view.
3. Positively acknowledge people who risk and say something new or different from the norm.
4. Ensure people with new ideas and different points of view are allowed to finish speaking before they’re interrupted or before someone else tries to negate their ideas.
5. Create a few new awards in your organization and announce winners publicly and with great fanfare. You get what you reward.

Create Awards to Encourage Innovation In the Workplace:

1. Acknowledge the person who fails massively trying something new.
2. Award the person who brings new ideas to the table, regardless of what happens to those ideas.
3. Celebrate the person who willingly gives you the worst news.

The fear of speaking up and saying something new or different will kill your innovation efforts. It will also kill your employees’ ambition and ability to be creative. Make it safe to tell the truth, even when the truth is hard to understand or unpopular, and see what happens to innovation, creativity, and employee productivity and morale.