The most complex and complicated concept can always be distilled into something simpler. Its just takes time to get it there. Its like the little kid that keeps on saying “why” – one of the main reasons we get frustrated so quickly with it, is because it forces you to pause and really give thought to your answer.
And this I believe is what Richard Branson has done with this statement, distilled his experience and all the moving parts of his successful business and found a pattern, something similar in it all – and what he saw was Happiness.
Think of it another way, you can either give the proverbial donkey a carrot or a stick. If you focus on Happiness in yourself and your employees – this in turn without a doubt has an impact on everyone around them, their behaviour and how they see the world. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots here and see that happiness will generate more happiness.
This isn’t a call to you to leave everything else in your business and only focus on happiness. This also creates an unintentional declaration – in that Happiness becomes something you need to move towards and so its outside you, and you always have to reach out to it. Another way to look at this is that Happiness is a part of you and if you can only let go of the anxiety, the anger, the fear you can allow the Happiness to flow. Sounds easy doesn’t it 😉 Well we both know it isn’t, however it is in your control and that makes all the difference.
So here is a challenge to you to take happiness with you in building your start up and share it with as many people including yourself that you can. You can even go and learn about it if you want – such as The Happy Startup School that is teaching Happiness as a Business Model (go check out http://www.thehappystartupschool.com/).
May the Happiness flow.