Friday March 26, 2010 was a day of gifts. First, I was so honored to see my friend and fellow entrepreneur, Margaret Walpole, launch the Metropolitan Business Council. (http://www.themetropolitanbusinesscouncil.com/). Her inaugural luncheon, which attracted an incredible crowd of leaders from the DC region, was a wonderful success.
Second, I spent a dreary, cold afternoon with some of my favorite people.
And third, I was treated to another speech by one of my favorite inpsirers and authors, Caroline Adams-Miller. (http://carolinemiller.com/).
Caroline is the author of what I call my "Happiness Bible". Her best-selling book, "Creating Your Best Life" is a research-based book on how each of us can bring greater happiness into our lives through intentional acts of gratitude, kindness, altruism, and service to others. The book includes many self-assessment tools that enable us to really get to the heart of what and who we need to live our best lives.
Caroline's book provides a roadmap that enables us to achieve authentic happiness through personal goal setting, and validates the belief that we do have substantial control over our own happiness levels, regardless of the cards we've been dealt.
For those that are committed to leading fulfilled lives, there are many strategies we can adopt to make this happen. These include:
- Practicing meditation
- Journaling and Blogging
- Knowing your top 5 strengths and using them (visit http://www.authentichappiness.org to learn your five top 5 strengths)
- Being altruistic
- Having at least 4 friends that are truly soul friends... people you could call at 3AM to help you through a crisis
- Practicing forgiveness
- Giving to others
The trait that is most closely associated with happiness is gratitude. People who can practice three expressions of gratitude to others every day are far more happier than those that struggle to find gratitude.
In addition, the happiest people carefully select those that they let into their inner circle. According to Caroline, it should be very difficult to get onto your "A Team." It should be very difficult to get close to you. We become the people that surround us, and we become the average of the 10 people that are closest to us. When did you last examine the people that make up your A Team?
The happiest people also have very clear-cut, meaningful goals, and take ownership for their outcomes. These people are closely aligned with other key people, are risk takers, have "grit," and pursue the things that are important to them.
While on their journey to pursuing their goals, the happiest people know that the essentially need to have a bubble around them that only includes people that support their goals. Non-believers, non-supporters, and sabotogers have to be kept away.
Every day, we have choices. We choose who we keep close, we choose whether we will be positive or negative. There are many ways in which we can manipulate our outcomes if we own our choices.
Happiness is within our grasp if we are willing to reach for it. But the attainment of happiness requires strong knowledge of self, strong belief in self, and willingness to perhaps make difficult choices and initiate actions that may not please those who don't share the same perspective.
Do you have the courage to be happy?
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