Wellbeing – Page 8 – The Consulting Artist

Half Way To The Hundred

Some of you might remember that at the beginning of December, I shared my early thoughts on my experience of #100HappyDays. 100 Happy Days is a simple commitment to share a photo of something that makes you (or in this case, me) happy, every day for 100 consecutive days. Here’s what I noticed when I first wrote, after day 14:

Happiness is indeed elusive, and when found, best left to purr quietly in the background. Don’t make a fuss or it’s likely to move on again.
Experiences trump things.
Family and friends – when they’re happy, you are more likely to be too.
Belgian Beer is lovely, but on a Monday night, maybe not so much.

Today is day 50 for me – I’m half way to the hundred. Here are a few of the photos in my collection, taken around Christmas time. If you click the image it will take you to my Instagram feed where I’m keeping the photos.

The challenge of finding something that makes you happy each and every day is proving interesting, particularly on days when I don’t feel particularly happy. For example – I had a bout of manflu in the run up to Christmas and had to resort to a photo of slippers, tissues and packets of cold remedies one day!

Having got half way to the hundred, I am now less surprised that so few (only around a quarter) of the people who start this challenge, finish it. Keeping stuff going is tough, and I know I often set out to achieve things that fall by the wayside. Do I feel happier as a result of this experiment? I feel like my mood has lightened overall across the time invested so far, and I am starting to enjoy an occasional quick flick through the photo album as well as continuing to contribute to it. I am currently mindful to turn the experiment into a hard copy photo album if I can find a suitable, inexpensive way of doing it.

I’m currently working on a number of regular, repeatable ideas with a general wellbeing theme, in support of my small things make a big difference philosophy – and this is one of them. Keep on Running is another, and although that experiment concluded on New Year’s Day when I walked my 111th mile over 36 consecutive days, it has now folded into something new, more on that soon. I’m not yet sure where all this is taking me, and I am sure that I’m learning a lot and enjoying most of it.

Happy Friday to you.

Moments Like These

It’s Friday – how’s your week been? I feel like I’ve been on a particularly mountainous stage of the Tour de France, culminating in a flat, sprint finish towards the weekend.

The Work

I love my work. Ohhhh noooo – shut up with the happy clappy crappy willya! Truthfully – I love some of my work, and I’m just like you, in order to get the love, you have to put in the hours and the effort. I’ve forced myself through to do list hell this week. Proposals, admin, marketing – the beginning through to the middle of the week was full of productive, useful slog.

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Thursday produced a welcome change of pace and direction. I was a guest of Herman Miller at one of their excellent Scenarios 2018 workshops. I’m going to write a post about what I learned soon, for now suffice to say this was an excellent session full of insight, humour and good conversation. I walked from Victoria to Aldwych to get to the workshop, and returned to Victoria on foot again afterwards. It’s great to find time to get out, walk and think.

The Recognition

Keira showed Carole and me around her class and the new library at school yesterday. It’s great seeing Keira and her work in the school environment. After we got home – Keira gave us her school report – the last one she will get at Stanley Park Junior School, as she leaves next week to start at a new school in September.

Progress: Outstanding. Well done Keira. And here’s the thing that really does it for me. Effort: Outstanding. Talent is nothing without effort. Here’s what her head teacher had to say…

‘This is an outstanding report for an outstanding student. Keira displays a sense of pride in so many areas of learning: sport, drama, music and the academics. She is also a caring and supportive member of the community. Thank you for all you have given your school. Well done Keira! Celebrate your successes and believe in yourself to achieve your dreams.’

In the evening we saw the year six production of The Trial of Mr BB Wolf, a play written, produced and performed by the whole school year. It was great fun with lots of twists and turns, and as you can see, the bulldog prosecutor was a very stern character.

Proud Dad? Yes – definitely.

The Celebration

Twenty two years ago today Carole made what many of our friends would consider a grave error of judgement. I can’t lay my hands on our wedding photos just now so whilst you miss seeing Carole’s radiant beauty – you are at least saved my car crash of a haircut!

In truth, the whole of life is like the topography I described earlier. And I’m thankful that someone as smart, kind and patient as Carole has chosen to accompany me. We are celebrating our wedding anniversary today with a visit to see Jools Holland at Kew Gardens.

Have a great weekend!

Tiffany’s Message

I was invited to speak at Morgan Lovell’s Economics of Workplace Wellbeing event last week. It was great fun and I will share some slides and thoughts from the session on here soon. For now I want to focus on one small and important thing. On the day I spoke about my belief that flow beats work life balance. Neither are achievable all the time and I think that a state of flow is preferable as it truly aids presence, your ability to be fully engaged in what you are doing, right here, right now.

One of the key ingredients for flow, is confidence. Confidence that you don’t need to be worrying about what’s happening elsewhere because you and your team have got it covered, to the extent that anyone can have. So why worry?

During the talk, I asked the audience a question, ‘How many of you take your work laptop or crackberry away with you on holiday?’ There was a gentle buzz of mildly embarrassed laughter from the crowd as we learned that 70% of the people in the room do just that. Next, I read out a beautiful example of an ‘out of office’ message I had received just a few days earlier from Tiffany:

I am out of the office on vacation. To ensure my laptop and Blackberry are not damaged by salt water, beach sand, shrimp tails and crab leg shells, they have been left at home. Therefore, I will not be checking email nor will I be answering the phone.

I return to the office Tuesday February 5 and will respond to your inquiry at my earliest opportunity.

Thank you,

Tiffany

Underneath Tiffany’s name was an email address for her team, so if you really couldn’t wait for her to get back from holiday and help, you had a simple way of making contact.

As I read Tiffany’s message, smiles broke out everywhere. Her note is engaging, funny and clear, and it subtly points the way toward further assistance should it be required. I think the main reasons for the smiles was a realisation that for most of us, Tiffany’s message could be our message if we wanted it to be. Let’s face it, in the overall scheme of things you’re really not that important. Except maybe to that group of people you’ve gone on holiday with, so why not be with them.

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