What does the science around creating Joy tell us about leadership

How we approach a task, the inner thoughts we hold around it, to a great extent, determine outcomes.  What it feels like.   Our attitudes, and beliefs all these things have a profound impact on the result we experience. 

Excell is about taking consistent, regular and frequent steps to move from one behavior to new ones.  Excell is designed for business owners and senior executives and is focused on their desire to get to or stay at the top of their game? 

So, back to inner thoughts and their impact on our approach.  Recently, I read some articles and research on creating habits and sustaining change (let me know if you want some of the sources).  After taking in the points of these articles and the research conducted on the impact of seemingly small actions, I decided to experience some of them.  Six months ago, I added to my meditation practice, a practice of finding 3 things about which I felt gratitude. 

I also set some, albeit subjective, measurements to determine changes.  Prior to starting the experience, I began noting how I felt at the beginning and end of each day and asked others to indicate how they experienced me.  For thirty days, I noted, each day, a plus or minus.  Then I began a daily practice of noting three things about which I felt grateful.  What I found was a substantial shift in the number of pluses noted in my calendar. 

While, not a well designed or statistically significant experiment, what I found was a substantial shift in how I approached every situation.  Personally, I am convinced and am looking to extend this practice. 

The sense of well being I feel is palpable.  OK… so why talk about this in this blog.  It is, after all, a business blog…. so, where does the business part come in?  Well, think about how resilient you are.  You lose a big customer, would it take you down?  What if you could experience a stressful moment or a big downturn with more resilience?  Would that aid you in recovering?  I sure bet it would.  I am finding that I am far better inoculated and less impacted by the stuff coming at me and I attribute the shift to the last 6 month experiment. 

I am about to undertake a second phase in which I will find an opportunity to tell at least three people each week, that I feel grateful for their part in my life and why?  I am betting that this will not only affect them and increases the strength of the relationship that I have with these various people, it will increase my resilience. 

Like communicating a vision/dream in business, telling people about dream is key to manifesting it.  Let’s see how this turns out. 

Follow along.  Let’s see what happens.  For those of you already doing well at communicating your dream, how do you do that (what are the different ways)?  How often do you tell/repeat your message?