Carry on Loving

I thought I’d start boldly and then gradually retreat.

At the creation level, we didn’t come into this world, we came out of it. We’re all made of stardust. That big universe out there, the one in the night sky, that goes on as far as infinity and beyond, you are made of that.

It’s worth letting that one sink in for a sec.

You actually are that.

That’s a #BigThought that’s both humbling and depressing at the same time. Depressing because the universe is gargantuan. Unimaginably so. Stars, planets, galaxies, black holes, dark matter, asteroids, moons, The Clangers …
you are but a tiny pinprick of energy in the solar system. In universal time your life is lived in less time than it takes for your mouth to even begin to form the ‘b’ of ‘blink of an eye’.

But in human time your 4000 weeks is the perfectly crafted amount of time it takes to make a huge difference to the people around you. I might not be able to start a colony on Mars, but I can let someone out in the traffic in Rochdale.

Hence your ‘significance’ depends on your vantage point.

I’m rather drawn to ‘Terror Management Theory’,¹ in which the authors posit that humans are merely transient animals groping to survive in a meaningless universe, destined only to die and decay. Their rib-tickling punchline is that our lives have no more significance than a pineapple chunk.

On a galaxial level, they’re right. Looking back at earth from another solar system you are matter that probably doesn’t matter. Even if you jump up and down and wave – hellooo, it’s meeee – nobody up there is going to notice.

But from the viewpoint of your friends, work colleagues, and customers, you’re of vast significance.

And in the eyes of your children, you are THE MOST SIGNIFICANT THING IN THEIR LIVES. (Sorry to get all shouty. It’s my passion boiling over.)

You are shaping their world, but in order to shape it beautifully, you need to start with your own. And that’s where the problems start! I can see how everyone else needs to improve – it’s obvious!

But myself?

To be fair, on a personal level, most of us know what we need to do. That’s the easy bit. But the ‘doing it’ bit? That’s a different ball game. You’ve spent a lifetime crafting a version of you that fits in. Your egg, it’s beautifully decorated and, quite frankly, nice and comfy.

And now you’re asking me to change all that? To hatch?

The really short answer to that: yes I am.

If I take myself as an example: my first three and a half decades were perfectly fine. I had a steady job, lovely family, and all the trappings of the modern Western world (family car, central heating, four-slice toaster, enough food in my belly, a couple of warm holidays per year …). Looking around, I matched up pretty well against my peer group.

And yet?

There was still something not quite right. If I dared take a closer look and ask deeper questions, it’s safe to say I was an egg-dweller, a norm, a fair-to-middling, a ‘mustn’t grumble’ whose life’s purpose was only to remain within the accepted parameters of ordinariness. I was working incredibly hard but there was no escaping the fact that I had become a corporate drone, an acceptable husband, an okay son, a bog standard dad with a life like my middle-class lawn; mean, median, and mowed.

In order to be a more alive version of me, I had to up my game. For me that meant a cessation of drinking from the cup of bland and, instead, to start supping from the tankard of enthusiasm. Simple but crucial changes ensued – setting some huge goals, a rekindling of my learning, saying ‘yes’ more than I said ‘no’ and slowly but surely I began to chip away at the egg shell.

I learned that hatching takes time and effort. There’s also a risk in creating a ‘new improved’ version of yourself – the risk being that your family and friends quite liked the old you. The more alive version of me? People might think I was bonkers, weird, or fake.

Remember, I’ve spent 12 years toiling for a PhD in Happiness. It’d be rather wasteful to write it up but not apply the principles to my own life. So rather than take a quick sip from the tankard of enthusiasm, I decided to drink deeply – glug – and accept the highs and the lows as a price worth paying for a life worth living.

That, dear reader, is the drinking game we’re about to play. Tankards charged. I propose a toast: to you. Throw yourself at the eggshell walls. Chip away until there’s a gap big enough to squeeze through. Step outside.

I’ll drink to the superhero version of you that you’ve been hiding all these years.

To the superhero version of you. Cheers!

By the way, the liquor in that tankard is potent. Heady stuff. Elixir. It’ll fuel you for this section of the book, in which we translate the science of wellbeing into positive actionable things to do, at work and at home. Think of it as rocket fuel for our lives.

‘Deciding whether or not to have a family is a choice between being irritated or lonely.’

Nigel Marsh

This next part is about home. Family stuff. Hence no swanky words or clever metaphors. It’s got one ingredient; L. O. V. E. Love.

You can stop reading right now if you want. That’s all there is. Page after page of the same top tip. Lashings and lashings of love. The Beatles were right, love is all you need.

If you want proof, as well as a few quick wins, carry on turning the pages …

Love is All You Need

Ignaz Semmelweis was a Hungarian medic, circa a lot of years ago, who had the bonkers idea that washing your hands before performing surgery would stop people dying.² Because, at the time (as recently as the mid-nineteenth century), the thinking was that people got ill from smells. So, if you had a fever, your mum would put a nice vase of fresh flowers in your room, to take away the stench and to make sure your smell didn’t infect the family.

Around 1850, Ignaz’s theory that these invisible germ thingies were killing people was, well, laughable. It’s a sad story because they banged the poor bloke up in an asylum and, get this, he died of septicaemia at age 47, which, in a macabre twist of the ironic knife, could have been avoided if the doctors had just washed their hands.

Twitter hadn’t been invented, otherwise I’m pretty sure Ignaz’s deathbed Tweet would have been a simple #FFS!

Beliefs change. Olde-worlde thinking about bad smells was wafted away and new-worlde thinking about germs crept in. Doctors took it deadly seriously. They put huge effort into establishing antiseptic environments in children’s hospital wards where, as a paediatrician in New York wrote in 1942, ‘masked, hooded, and scrubbed nurses and physicians move about cautiously so as not to stir up bacteria. Visiting parents are strictly excluded, and the infants receive a minimum of handling by the staff.’

They also advised parents to minimize the amount of affection they gave to their children at home. Kissing, touching, hugging –
all were ways to spread germs and therefore discouraged for the sake of the child’s health.

Remember, this made sense at that time according to the knowledge they had.

Alongside germ warfare, behavioural psychology was coming on-stream, and academic psychologists began turning their attention to child-rearing. In 1928, John Watson, a former president of the American Psychological Association, published an important new book called Psychological Care of Infant and Child in which he warned against the ‘dangers of too much mother love’. Showering a child with affection, he said, will spoil his character by breeding ‘weaknesses, reserves, fears, cautions and inferiorities’.

The prevailing thinking was that hugging and kissing your children would spread germs, while letting them sit on your lap, holding hands, and all that bedtime story nonsense would make them weak of character. Too much love was a dangerous thing.

It’s worth remembering that this was not a niche point of view. Watson was a best-selling author, the parenting expert of his time.

These super-hygienic, no hugging, ‘speak when you’re spoken to’ environments were also applied to orphanages which, at that time, were legion. Remember, this was the 1920s. It was common for your mum and dad to have expired well before 30 or that they couldn’t afford to feed you so you were wrapped in swaddling clothes and deposited on an orphanage doorstep.

Digging around in history, you find the orphanage mortality rate was close to 100%. Yes, you read that correctly. In some orphanages, almost every single child died before they were two years old.

It’s too upsetting to paint a vivid scene, so I’ll sketch it. Orphanages had established conditions of complete sterility and cleanliness. The tiles were scrubbed to shining. Each infant’s bed was a safe distance from the next, and each crib covered with mosquito netting. Each baby was touched only when absolutely necessary, which is to say hardly ever. Nappy change, feed, and then back in your sterilized crib for 23 hours a day.

So, on the one hand, these children had the best possible start; a pristine environment, sufficient food, safe shelter, and as much protection from communicable diseases as possible.

But they were dying, en masse.

Enter René Spitz, a Nazi escapee who, in 1945, published the results of a seminal study on the critical role that love plays in the healthy development of a child. (I was picturing her as Nanny McPhee but Google has clarified that Spitz was indeed a man.)

Spitz compared two groups of disadvantaged children – infants who lived in an orphanage, and infants who attended a nursery at a prison in upstate New York. The children in the orphanage, all younger than three years old, were kept in a state of solitary confinement, the noble aim being to prevent the spread of germs.

Of the 88 children in the orphanage, where human contact was avoided, 23 had died by the end of his study whereas none of the children in the nursery had died. The finding exploded the idea that the children in the orphanages were dying simply because of exposure to germs. Rather, Spitz argued, they were dying from a lack of love, which compromised their health.

If you want to upset yourself, get along to YouTube and enter ‘Grief: A Peril in Infancy’ and you’ll see a grainy black and white film of Spitz’s work. It’s the kind of experiment modern ethics no longer allows, a harrowing seven minutes that shows the decline of baby ‘Jane’ from a happy child to a blank-eyed wailing child. Her lack of human contact is as close to a child dying of a broken heart as you will ever see.

In fact I advise that you don’t see it (I’ve got tears typing these words) and, instead, do the opposite. Love your children, even when they haven’t earned it. Hold their little hand in yours. Read the best bedtime stories. Snuggle. Laugh. Be silly. Kiss. Rub noses. Build dens. Blow raspberries on their tummies, yes, even when they’re 19.

In times when you haven’t really got time, make some. It starts with kids but it’s not just about kids. All the people in your life, young and old alike, need more than food and shelter to live full and healthy lives. They need love, hugs, and care.

Oodles and oodles of it.

Case proven, let’s move onto the how bit …

A Potted History of You

I don’t want to gross you out but in order for you to exist, your mum and dad must have had sex at least once. Hopefully, it was just a one-off, and you can now get the image out of your head. The gross bit is the number of sperm in a single shot which Google has just informed me, is about 500 million. And out of 500 million, you were the sperm that got to the egg first. WooHoo! You are already amazingly successful, the gold medallist sperm front-crawler. Or breast-stroker?

Or Man from Atlantis wriggler?

Whatever.

You burrowed into your mum’s egg and, ping, you became a single-cell creature. Instead of being the ‘potential to exist’, you actually existed. The cells got busy multiplying and about nine months later you made a grand entrance into the blinding light of a birthing unit or, if you’re like my niece, the reception area of Doncaster hospital.

Someone smacks your backside (nice welcome and first lesson learned!), you suck some air into your fledgling lungs, and begin absorbing the world around you. You have a certain genetic make-up but, other than that, you’re a blank canvas, ready to be imprinted upon.

Your first day’s a bit blurry. Hopefully you start to get into some sort of routine; eat, shit, sleep. That kind of thing. You might still be in a similar holding pattern?

Brains are much more active developmentally in childhood. Your first two years are characterized by crazy growth. By age two, you had over one hundred trillion brain synapses – double the number you have now. Yes, you bloomed at two! Your brain was alive with possibilities but figured it would never be able to use them all so from two onwards it stopped creating more connections and set about pruning the ones you already had.

So basically, at age two you could have been anything and anyone. Your brain was zinging with unlimited potential. From then on you started to become who you were going to be for the rest of life.

There was another massive spurt of development during adolescence, plus you grew some hairs and male or female bits and bobs. During your teenage years you experienced an overwhelming desire to be part of a gang, team, band, friendship group – your desire to fit in meant you started to dress the same as your chums. You had the same haircuts, listened to the same music, and watched the same things on TV. You thought you were super-cool but checking back through those photos, the truth is revealed!

Then from late teenage-hood your brain progressively solidified with your mature brain in place by your mid-20 s.

Hopefully you get to enjoy some awesome decades of maximum brain capacity and then, without wanting to get too upsetting, the whole thing can go into decline. The wonders of medical science mean that our bodies can be kept alive beyond our brain’s ability to stay in the game. The decline of your memory and personality can be heartbreaking. Enough said.

Let me be clear. Your early years were crucial. Your children’s and grandchildren’s early years still are critical!

In summary, brain growth occurs in such a way that it develops a stupid amount of axons, dendrites, and connections. Up until the age of about seven, you are a universe of possibilities. And, gradually, depending on your early years’ experiences, these possibilities get narrowed down.

For me, there are two standout points here:

1. Although the rate of development slows, your brain never stops changing. It is a relentless shapeshifter, constantly rewriting its own circuitry.
2. The process of becoming who you are is less to do with what pathways grow in your brain and much more about what pathways get lopped off.

Bus Pass Barbie

Barbie’s 60 and if a man is still allowed to pass comment on the looks of females, she’s a bit plasticky, but is wearing her years pretty well.

Modern Barbie is worldly wise, saying things such as ‘Get your sparkle on. Show this world where you belong’ and ‘Be a leader. Don’t let anyone’s actions influence you so much that you forget who you are.’

Go Barbie!

She’s come a long way because one her stock phrases 60 years ago was ‘Math class is tough’.

This political incorrectness has been deleted but if you’ll allow me to continue in a mild politically incorrect vein, I’d like to point out that males and females are different.

I know! Imagine?

Males are endowed with physical strength. We were designed to chase and wrestle with warthogs, drag the carcass home, and, crucially, know which way was home. Females can do those things too, but with smaller warthogs, and the way home might be less clear. Sometimes left and right get confused.

But evolution has compensated by giving the female of the species a whole load of emotional superpowers. Generally speaking, females have less physical strength but a finely honed ability to ‘tune in’ to emotions as well as mastery of the dark art of understanding the meaning of what hasn’t been said.

What the Lord gaveth the hog wrestler in strength, he tooketh away in emotional intelligence.

Sure, the modern world has loosened the roles a little but the point remains valid.

Deferring to Daniel Goleman³ (the doyen of Emotional Intelligence), women and men differ in areas of self-awareness, managing our emotions, empathy, and social skill. We can pretend that males and females are the same, but they’re actually not. There are many tests of emotional intelligence, with most showing that women tend to have an edge over men in this particular superpower.

The biggest difference between women and men is in the area of emotional empathy. If someone is upset, or the emotions are disturbing, women’s brains tend to stay with those feelings. But men’s brains do something else: they sense the feelings for a moment, then tune out of the emotions and switch to other brain areas that try to solve the problem that’s creating the disturbance.

Therefore, women’s complaint that men are tuned out emotionally is most probably true. But please bear in mind, it’s not that we don’t care, it’s just that our brains are looking to seek a solution, rather than get mired in the emotion.

There are advantages to both. The male tune-out works well when there’s a need to insulate yourself against distress so you can stay calm, keep a clear head, and make a rational decision. This partly explains why, according to the stereotype, men are calm, rational, and rarely swayed by emotion. In times gone by, this stolid patriarchal, ‘wait till your father gets home’ approach meant that the dad acted as disciplinarian. So, emotional detachment was the way things were. It’s what men saw other men doing and the stereotype was passed down through the generations. Please note, I’m not trawling through history from the year dot – this is fairly recent stuff.

The female tendency to stay tuned in helps to nurture and support others in emotionally trying circumstances. It’s part of the ‘tend-and-befriend’ response to stress.

The result of this emotional jiggery-pokery is that 35% of daughters say dads meet their emotional needs, as compared to 72% for mums.⁴ Damn those bosomed humans with their emotional steroids.

So, if this was a school report, dads would find ‘Must do better!’ stamped on pretty much every page. In healthy family functioning, it’s the fathers who deviate most from the norm. Let me say this as simply as I can: pretty much across the board, mums are superheroes. In the happiest families, it is the dad that also steps up to the plate.

Therefore, although this advice applies to both males and females, I’m aiming it more at males because they are the ones who need to pull their parenting socks up the most.

For sharing, possibly pinning on the family corkboard:

10 things that require zero talent:

Emotional Soup and the Four-Minute Rule

Wouldn’t it be a shame to have a wonderful life and not notice?

A lot of people do. Have a wonderful life, that is. And not notice. They grumble about their wonderful life instead.

Reflect back on first thing this morning. Did you rise and shine, or rise and whine?

Exactly!

The ‘rise and whine’ thing. It’s a very easy habit to get into, hence why nearly everyone does. But you’re not ‘everyone’. You’re you. You’re going to be extinct in the next 50 years. You’re the last one of your kind left in the wild. You owe it to your species to be lively, interested, and positive.

It’s worth noting that what you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.

Daniel Goleman talks about ‘emotional soup’, the concept that, in any social situation, everyone is adding a certain ‘flavour’ to the atmosphere, none more so than at home.

Two things spring to mind: first, dare to ask yourself what flavour you are adding to your family soup. Are you coming through the door with joy and enthusiasm or are you poisoning the family atmosphere with toxicity? And, second, not all family members are equal. Yes, everyone is adding something to the emotional soup but, as a parent, you are adding the most. For ‘parent’ read ‘leader without a title’ – your emotional contagion is massive.

For the record, I am not pontificating about you finding your impact or experimenting with it; I am screaming that you are already having it. This is a less than gentle reminder for you to wield your existing impact in a positive way.

Steve McDermott’s four-minute rule is total genius.⁵ Coming under the parenting heading of ‘small change, big impact’, it works because it’s both. If we do away with the science of ‘it is a proven thing that you have data for?’ and cut to the chase, it’s this: it takes about four minutes for those around you to truly catch your emotional state.

Same thing said the other way around: you cannot NOT have an impact on other people.

How refreshing is that? Chill, in terms of the science from earlier, you haven’t got to be a 2%er all day. Just the first four minutes will do. That’s the first four minutes of coming into the office (happy, energetic, enthusiastic), going home, meal times, a business meeting – get the first four minutes right and everyone will have almost no choice but to catch your enthusiasm.

It’s the smallest change that’s had the biggest impact on my life.

In a bizarre tradition, many families go through a ritual of offloading all their emotional detritus on the ones they love most in life. Saving all your rubbish up to brag about seems like a strange thing to do but, nevertheless, it’s very often what happens. I did it for years. If this habit occurs day after day, it has a cumulative effect on family well-being.

It’s worth asking yourself have I had a bad day or just a bad five minutes that I’ve milked all day?

For me, the four-minute rule started with a question that I’d ask myself as I drove home from work – how would the best dad in the world go through the door? The answer was obvious, yet weirdly, I hadn’t been doing it. So, that night, instead of coming through the door and going through the motions of ‘How was school?

‘Boooring.’

‘What did you learn?’

‘Can’t remember.’

I decided that the change needed to start with me because, after all, it’s not my kids’ fault that their dad’s asking such a shit question. One epic evening I came through the door and I nailed them with four minutes of being the best dad in the world. They were six and three at the time, so I pounced on them for some hugs and then asked, with genuine wide-eyed enthusiasm, ‘How was your day? Was it good, fantastic or brilliant?’

And oh my gosh, what a different coming home experience I’d created. The kids picked out the highlights of their day (Ollie, age three, ‘We had chips!’) and their enthusiasm bubbled over though teatime, bath time, and all the way to bedtime. The first four minutes was like lighting a firework. All I had to do was step back and watch them sparkle.

So next day I did it again. And again. And again, until eventually it became grooved in as a family habit. We ended up shortening it from ‘Good, fantastic, or brilliant?’ to ‘G, F, or B?’

And get this, eventually my kids ended up asking me about what was G, F, or B about my day at work. Look, I don’t want to over-egg the point. Our household is not The Waltons. It’s not hearty pumpkin pie and a cheery ‘Night Jim-Bob’ ringing out at lights out. I’m alluding to a small change in me that had a significant impact on my family. I got a chance to shape the ‘coming home’ experience, and I did.

Changing your wordage from ‘how was your day?’ to ‘tell me about the highlight of your day?’ is subtle. It’s not a big change but, for me, it was a very big deal.

It became a habit. As with all the ideas in this chapter, it’s the stickability that’s crucial because in positive psychology practice makes permanent!

Added Interest

We’ve done ‘new’, ‘borrowed’, and ‘blue’ so it’s about time I brought you some old, classic self-help advice from the 1930s. Harking back to Dale Carnegie’s classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, his top tips are:

1. Be genuinely interested in the people around you.

   Obvious? Kind of.

   Easy to do as you’re hurtling through life trying to get things ticked off your to-do list? Not very.

   Carnegie’s wisdom is to be genuinely interested, not lip-service interested. And being genuinely interested in people takes time, effort, and a considerable amount of emotional energy. For instance, there’s no point in bouncing through the door and asking your kids about the highlight of their day if, while they’re telling you, you’re scrolling through your emails.

   And Mr Carnegie’s other belter from the 1930s that still holds true today:

2. Say nice things about people behind their back.

   I’d maybe go a bit further and advocate that you say nice things about them to their face as well, but Carnegie’s tip is a sure-fire winner on two levels. Firstly, if you say nice things about your family, friends, or work colleagues, it’s likely that the grapevine will whisper it back to them. And how morale-boosting is it to hear that someone is saying nice things about you when you’re not even there? Whoosh! The flames of a relationship are burning brightly.

   The second point is more technical. In psychology there is something that boffins call ‘spontaneous trait transference’ which basically means that if you are saying nice things about someone, the person to whom you’re saying nice things attributes those qualities to you. This is all done at a subconscious level but I promise you that makes it more powerful rather than less.

   Carnegie hit on the fact that human transactions work in the exact opposite way to financial transactions. In banking you put rewards in and you get interest out whereas in relationships you put ‘interest’ in and you’ll get rewards out. In fact the more ‘interest’ you put in, the more you’ll get out.

   It’s worth passing this information on to your children … have a guess what’s the number one thing you can do to be popular at school? Is it to be drop dead gorgeous, or have a rich mum, or be a brain box? Nope. The number one factor is to like people. The more people you genuinely like the more people will rate you as likeable.

   Hence a weird sounding top tip to pass on to your kids is ‘just like people’.

Praise Be

A child’s readiness for school depends less on what they already know and more on whether they have figured out how to learn. Pam Schiller reports there are seven key ingredients, all linked to emotional intelligence: confidence, curiosity, intentionality (the wish and capacity to have an impact), self-control, relatedness, capacity to communicate, and cooperativeness.

That’s a bit jargony so let me drop it into the real world. Teachers are reporting that, increasingly, children are coming to school unable to learn and, in some cases, unable to speak. To clarify, they’re not mute. They can speak, but have heard so little conversation that they haven’t learned.

It’s a heartbreaker. At age four and a half these children can scroll, swipe, and click, but they can’t write. They can grab a slice of pizza and stuff it in, but a knife and fork is alien.

So speak. A lot. And listen, even more. But be genuinely interested, more than anything.

‘Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.’

Stephen Covey

Child development fads come and go but one that’s here to stay is Carol Dweck’s ‘growth mindset’. Sure, there’s a steady stream of academics dissing her work (remember, that’s what they do) but, for me, Dweck’s conclusions are common sense. I’m less bothered about ‘proof’.

Briefly, one of her experiments involved setting a group of children a really difficult exam after which one group was praised for intelligence (‘You are sooo clever!’) and the other for effort (‘You’ve worked reaaally hard!’).

Next, she did something rather harsh, setting a test that was impossible for them to complete and, guess what, the first group (praised for being clever) soon capitulated, figuring that they weren’t clever enough. The second group (praised for effort) stuck at it and outperformed the others by 30%. Dweck’s advice is that if your child accomplishes something, don’t say, ‘Well done, you are such a little genius!’ But rather, ‘Awesome, you put the effort in and got the reward.’

Applied to families, always praise effort rather than talent. If your daughter scores a goal at football, don’t high-five her and say, ‘Holy moly, total genius. You were born to play football.’ According to Growth Mindset research (and common sense) you’d be better off saying, ‘Amazing goal! That’s what practice and hard work gets ya!’ And ruffle her hair in a chummy fashion.

Or when your lad wins an award for writing stories? Rather than ‘Crikey dude, you are destined to be the next Roald Dahl’ try ‘Amazing result mate, that’s what you get for all those hours of hard work and for reading all those books.’

In the same vein, Shelly Gable suggests that how we celebrate is a strong predictor of relationship strength.⁶ Marty Seligman (who is pretty much the godfather of positive psychology) agrees that how we behave in a moment of triumph and joy makes a huge difference in either building or undermining relationships and that there are four types of response when you hear some good news.

For example, at the dinner table, your child announces that they’ve got down to the final three in the auditions for the lead role in the school play. Here are the four responses in table form:

I’m hoping you are already avoiding the passive/destructive!

Once again, the aim here is to raise your levels of enthusiasm whilst retaining your authenticity. I’m not suggesting an over-the-top punching-of-the-air celebration for every smidgeon of good news, but a raising of your levels of enthusiasm means that you won’t miss out on so many glorious relationship-building opportunities. My old responses were along the lines of ‘Nice one! I’m proud of you’, which sat firmly in the realms of ‘passive constructive’. I meant it and it was heartfelt, but on reflection it was born out of busyness and being preoccupied with the contents of my own life. So I’ve experimented with upping my levels of enthusiasm from ‘lukewarm’ to ‘seriously hot’. The ‘active constructive’ reaction is completely brilliant on all sorts of levels.

Rather than spelling it out, I’ll let you experiment by celebrating success and good news in your own consciously uplifted way. Ultimately, it’s not about your thoughts and feelings, it’s about helping others revel in theirs.

Your active constructive response means that they know you’re proud. Best of all, you’ve engineered it so you know they know you’re proud. The result is that everyone feels great and they will want to repeat that behaviour.

The Matthew Effect

Here’s my thought for the day: ‘For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away’ (Matthew 25:29).

The little known but oh-so-powerful ‘Matthew Effect’ is when an initial success in something leads to even greater success. And, conversely, if we are unsuccessful, we’re likely to become even more unsuccessful. It explains why the rich get richer and the poor poorer, but it also applies to parenting.

Let’s take the example of reading – children who start off reading well will get better and better compared to their peers, because they will read even more broadly and quickly. The more words they learn the easier and more enjoyable reading becomes. On the other hand, it’s very hard for poor readers to catch up because, for them, the spiral goes downwards. Thus the gap between those who read well and those who read poorly grows even bigger rather than smaller.

According to the Matthew Effect success snowballs, but so does failure.

Dads and grandads, I don’t want you to think I’m having a pop at you but the biggest single factor in your son/grandson reading books is if he sees a male role model reading books. That, good sir, is YOU! (If you’re a female reading this book, please find a male and read this page to them, starting with ‘The Lord Giveth’ and finishing with the next sentence …)

So even if you can’t read, pretend!

The Matthew Effect shows up everywhere. Ben Zander talks about the transformation that happens when a young person learns to love music. For most, the early days are a chore. If you’ve ever suffered Three Blind Mice on a recorder, or caterwauling scales on the clarinet, you have my sympathy. The early days of learning a musical instrument are classic Eric Morecambe territory: ‘they’re hitting all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order’.

As a parent you have to hang in there and pretend you’re enjoying it. Even then, some kids will quit.

But some ride through the storm. These kids lean forward and begin to play. They engage, either with the teacher or with the music. They achieve some early breakthroughs, maybe playing a piece that they recognize. As they connect they lift themselves off the piano seat, suddenly becoming what Zander calls ‘one-buttock players’. They’re lifted by passion and engagement. And from here on in, they experience giant leaps of learning.

If I’m allowed to stretch Zander’s wonderful analogy beyond music and reading, if you want your children to find their passion (sport, maths, cooking, science, stand-up comedy; it doesn’t matter what) the Matthew Effect says that some early wins are crucial in your child powering ahead.

The biggest thing you can do to facilitate that is to live it too. So, reading-wise, if the biggest thing a dad can do is to be seen reading, then it extends to all those other activities too. Put yourself out there. If you child is learning the violin, challenge yourself to learn it too. Play together. Paint together. Laugh together.

Trampolining. Bounce together.

Baking. Make cakes together.

Art. Draw together.

Stand-up comedy. Tell jokes together.

Science. Dissect frogs together. On reflection, that’s messy. Go to the science museum together instead.

Football, kickabout together.

Spellings, learn them together.

Drama, go to the theatre together.

Join them. Add your buttock to their buttock. Live a one-buttock life together because two buttocks are better than one.

Following the buttock theme, you might need to sit down for this one. Oh, and there are no laughs at all. Quite the opposite in fact.

There’s a saying: you only live once. And it’s 100% wrong. You only die once. You live every single day. Admittedly, it can be a grind so you don’t always feel like you’re truly living, but ‘aliveness’ is a feeling that can be learned.

‘If at first you don’t succeed then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.’

Steven Wright

Sometimes, the best way for people to wake up to the magnificence of being alive is to jolt them awake. Consider this next bit your defibrillator treatment.

Electrodes attached.

Clear?

Bzzzzt! …

Here’s a true story, which makes it all the more compelling. A doctor decided to ask her patients what they enjoyed in life, and what gave it meaning. All well and good, except this doctor happened to work with terminally ill children. ‘Terminal’ is just the worst word. In an airport a terminal is where your journey ends and in a children’s hospital, that journey is life. Their short journey is ending. They’re not going to get to experience the pleasures of being an adult and their parents aren’t going to enjoy the joys of parenting.

Gulp!

Here are some of the children’s responses.

First: none said they wished they’d watched more TV, zero said they wished they’d spent more time on Facebook, zilch said they enjoyed fighting with others, and not one of them enjoyed hospital.

Interestingly, lots mentioned their pets and almost all mentioned their parents, often expressing worry or concern such as, ‘I Hope mum will be OK. She seems sad’, and ‘Dad mustn’t worry. He’ll see me again one day in heaven maybe.’

Double gulp!

All of them loved ice cream. Fact! Also, they all loved books or being told stories, especially by their parents.

Many wished they had spent less time worrying about what others thought of them, and valued people who just treated them ‘normally’. For example, ‘My real friends didn’t care when my hair fell out.’

Many of them loved swimming, and the beach. Almost all of them valued kindness above most other virtues: ‘Jonno gave me half his sandwich when I didn’t eat mine. That was nice,’ and ‘I like it when that kind nurse is here. She’s gentle. She doesn’t rush. And it hurts less.’

All of them loved people who made them laugh: ‘The boy in the next bed farted! Hahaha!’ (laughter relieves pain).

And finally, they ALL valued time with their family. Nothing was more important. ‘Mum and dad are the best!’ ‘My sister always hugs me tight.’ ‘No one loves me like mummy loves me!’

Triple gulp!

Look here, dear reader, these are very big messages indeed. If you can’t be bothered to listen to anything else in this book, then please listen to children who are arriving at the final destination of their very short lives.

If I’m allowed to summarize, it’d be something like this: Be kind. Read more bedtime stories (and read them like you want to), spend time with your family, crack jokes, lighten up, fart in bed, go to the beach, hug your kids. Love, love, and more love.

Oh … and eat ice cream.

Often.

‘Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by 
our tears once in a while so that we can 
see life with a clearer view again.’

Alex Tan

Anti-Social Media

For the record, I adore technology and the modern world. Ditto teachers, schools, kids, and education. The really good schools are places where imaginations really do run wild. It has very little to do with funding. It’s about culture – a spine-tingling feeling you get when you walk through the door.

Sometimes that tingle is offset by a nagging feeling that we’re stuck in an education system from a bygone era when Britannia ruled the waves. Mass education began in Victorian times when children were taught via chalkboards and school bells mimicked the factory bells that heralded a change of shift.

The chalkboards have been replaced with iPads and the bell is a buzzer, but the system is the same even though that rigid external world is gone.

‘In our offices and classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you through the day but only the latter will get you through the nights.’

Dan Pink

The modern world craves novelty, creativity, resilience, and new ideas. This exists at age seven but is sometimes extinguished by 14.

Example? I gave a group of primary school children the task of rewriting the story of the Three Little Pigs from the wolf’s perspective. It was truly heart-warming. Turns out he wasn’t bad at all. Wolfie had endured a troubled upbringing, what with being born into a littler of nine, plus he had allergies to straw and wood. Suddenly, all that huffing and puffing makes perfect sense.

The same challenge to 14-year-olds and, guess what, they can’t be arsed.

Young people go through a developmental stage whereby, for the first time, they begin to clock that other people have opinions of them. Add in their desire to fit into a social grouping and you get a heady dose of self-consciousness. The modern world has exacerbated the problem so whereas teenagers have always gone through a phase of being overly embarrassed, the modern world has added to their pressures. We’ve reached the point where ‘not being bovvered’ has an air of social coolness. It’s the new black.

I can’t do a chapter on ‘positive grand/parenting/aunty/uncling’ without addressing the biggest issue facing families today. Technology. Particularly social media and access to wifi.

There’s a slew of published papers that are addressing these issues and I won’t pretend to be an expert. However, if the biggest factor in well-being is ‘relationships’ then herein lies a splurge of my thinking and possible ways forward with regards to the contentious issue of family wifi.

I asked a lecture theatre of 15-year-olds what they do with their phone while they sleep. Nearly all slept with their phone, putting it under their pillow, on the mattress, or at the very least within arm’s reach of the bed. They checked social media right before they went to sleep, and reached for their phone as soon as they woke up in the morning. Their phone was the last thing they saw before they went to sleep and the first thing they saw when they woke up. If they woke in the middle of the night, they often ended up looking at their phone. Some used the language of addiction. ‘I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t help it.’

It may be a comfort, but the smartphone is cutting into teens’ sleep. Many now sleep less than seven hours most nights. Sleep experts say that teens should get about nine hours of sleep a night; a teen who is getting less than seven hours a night is significantly sleep deprived.

Adolescence is a key time for developing social skills; as teens spend less time with their friends face-to-face, they have fewer opportunities to practise them. What’s at stake isn’t just how kids experience adolescence. The constant presence of smartphones is likely to affect them well into adulthood.

In the next decade, we may see more adults who know just the right emoji for a situation, but not the right facial expression.

My generation has been the first to raise kids who are born into the age of mobile technology, and we are completely underqualified, having had no personal experience of what it is like to grow up with technology.

What do the experts say?

Well there aren’t any! That’s the whole point. The ‘experts’ in growing up as digital natives are currently age 11. The babes with iPads in arms.

I think there might be some simple ground rules gleaned from proper science as well as the tried and tested science of the bleedin’ obvious. Note, with all household ‘rules’ they might be simple to introduce but they’re not easy to enforce.

For example, I’m 99.9% sure that it’s a great idea to delay technology use until your child reaches double figures. An iPad at age two or a smartphone at seven? Easy to do and, once you’ve done it, there’s no putting the lid back onto Pandora’s Box.

In the US there’s a campaign called ‘Wait until 8th’, urging parents to pledge not to give their kids a smartphone until the 8th grade (or around 14 years of age). To me, it feels intuitively right. Imagine, if everyone in your community did the same, your children would know no different, skipping to school, chatting, flirting with proper eye-to-eye contact, focusing on their learning, making daisy chains, playing hopscotch at playtime …

But I have both feet planted in the real world. Getting your entire community to withhold smartphones until 14 is a romanticized ideal of the perfectly wholesome Little House on the Prairie school setting.

Recalling Deresiewicz’s point about humans being the world’s most excellent sheep, all the other parents have given their kids a smartphone for their seventh birthday, so you feel compelled to do the same. After all, it’s only your old hand-me-down phone. It’s only going to sit in the drawer with the other eight fossil phones. It’s a rubbish phone but it’ll make your child’s day.

The pressure is immense.

Think again.

What you’re basically saying in that scenario is ‘All the other parents are lazy. It’s rank bad parenting. I know it’s the wrong thing to do and I’m robbing my kids of social intelligence by joining in with the smartphone thing but if the other parents are doing it, I have to do it as well.’

Read that sentence back to yourself.

And again.

Baaaaa.

Then stick to your fucking guns. You’ll need fortitude and a big dose of pluck, so here are a few paragraphs to help.

Assuming you campaigned for ‘Wait till 8th’ you’d probably have dogshit smeared on your door handle from the group of bolshie parents who insist that their kid has a mobile phone at age six in case there’s an emergency. ‘What if something happens to my little darling?’ That brigade.

That’s an easy one to rebuff. I’m old enough to cast my mind back to pre-mobile phone times. When something happened to you at school, what happened? Or if your mum desperately needed to get a message to you what did she do?

Do that. It worked.

Counter-intuitively, not only do children need to learn how to use technology appropriately, they also need to learn how to not use technology. I hear a lot of parents say, ‘I had to get my son a smartphone because he has a 45-minute bus ride to school, and what else is he going to do?’

What, apart from stare out of the window, make eyes at the sexiest girl in the year above, chat with his buddies, tell jokes, give each other Chinese burns, or pick his nose and examine it really closely? If we teach our kids to turn to technology to fill every moment of boredom or discomfort, this strategy will stay with them their entire life. In doing so, we strip them of the opportunity to learn how to be alone with their thoughts, how to manage their own emotions, and how to be creative in figuring out what to do, or how to connect with those around them.

Technology is a great tool, and it’s nice to have, but it always comes at some sacrifice. Sometimes, it’s better to let kids be bored.

The bigger issue is this: will your child hate you for withholding technology? Yes, occasionally. But later in life when they can hold a conversation and make small talk, tune into the feelings in the room, and create strong and lasting relationships, they’ll think that less screen time was great parenting. And because they’ll have developed empathy and appreciation, one day they’ll actually thank you.

My 99.9% certainty above tallies with your 0.1% hesitation that your child will get left behind in the rush to colonize cyberspace. I doubt that will happen. Technology is getting easier and more intuitive to use, so it’s not as though kids need a ‘head start’ on figuring it out. Besides, all schools have iPads and classroom technology. Your kids will fly in these lessons.

Still not convinced? Here’s the clincher: remember, catching up with tech is easy. Catching up socially is impossible.

Now to the really tricky bit!

In exactly the same way that a boy will be influenced to read by seeing his dad with his head in a book, your children will be influenced by your use of technology. If you’re logged on, scrolling, swiping, texting, and emailing guess what your children will do?

And guess what you’re not doing? While you’re swiping, scrolling, and retweeting, you’re NOT chatting or making eye contact.

It’s hard to find clear guidelines for ‘healthy’ technology use. The platforms are changing so rapidly, we don’t really know what is healthy. Here are The American Academy of Paediatrics guidelines, with a bit of my spice added:

Under 18 months	No screen time
18 to 24 months	Very limited time. High quality programming, with parents
2 to 5 years	1 hour per day (max). High quality programming, with parents
6 to 12 years	90 mins per day (max). Never after 8pm
13+	Negotiate reasonable weekly limit. At least one day media-free. Never at mealtimes. Never have tech in bedrooms. Bed-room, the clue’s in the name
All ages	Never at mealtimes. Get a new fruit bowl that becomes a phone bowl. On entry into the house each phone goes into the bowl. That’s where it’ll be if you need it. Stand there, do your thing if you have to, replace it in the phone bowl, crack on with chatting
Parents	As little as possible when the kids are around. They are your priority and they need to know they’re your priority

Other households will have more liberal access. Most will have no rules whatsoever. Yes, your teenager might grumble but that’s what teenagers do. Relax, those next door with unfettered wifi access, and the ability to watch porn till 4am, will also be whingeing. It also transpires that they will be asleep in class the next day, they will be unable to sustain meaningful relationships when they’re 25, and their sons, when age 40, will have watched so much porn that they’re unable to get an erection in a normal loving relationship.

You are the parent. You’re in charge. The climate in your house is your responsibility.

Do what’s right, not what’s easiest.

Thank you. From me, and also on behalf of your children and grandchildren 30 years hence.

Stop Faking It

If at first you don’t succeed, congratulations, you’re normal.

If you feel anxious, rejected, sad, or hurt, welcome to the human race. We all experience these feelings. They’re what makes life so amazing. The trick is to not feel them too often.

We need to get comfortable with our kids not being okay. We need to allow them to feel sad, to realize that it’s normal, and nothing to be afraid of. The solution to sad is most likely not to wallow on social media saying how sad you are, it’s more likely a walk in the woods, a bike ride, or for dad to tell one of his rubbish jokes.

Ditto yourself. You too are allowed to have a bad day.

‘I love you like a fat kid loves cake.’

50cent

Part 4 of this book is devoted to feelings, so no plot spoilers but a quick heads up; negative feelings – if you peek behind the magician’s curtain, you’ll see that it’s not a whole lot of smoke and mirrors, it’s just thought. If you’re feeling anxious, it’s because you’re thinking about something that makes you feel anxious. Ditto rejected, sad, and hurt. Ditto happiness, joy, and pride. And every other feeling you’ve ever experienced.

I’m a serial bike-faller-offer. I’ve got a route, an off-road forest path that I delight in taking a bit faster than necessary. Most times, I’m off, but up and back on in a jiffy, scratched, bruised, and pride dented. Except the last time. That was a proper hurty fall off. It was dusk, I failed to see the fallen tree and next thing I knew I was in a bush, with my bike on top of me. As well as having a handlebar in my ear I also had a scratched back, bleeding knees, swollen ankle, mortified mojo. That kind of thing.

There was nothing to do except limp home and have a couple of steady non-cycling weeks. By some miracle, with no instruction from me, my wounds healed.

Your body is self-correcting and this is how your mind works too, but only if you let it …

There are times when life will be unspeakably dreadful. For those times, the solution is simple. It’s called ‘time’. It really does heal. It’s okay to feel awful. In fact it’s inevitable. It’s part of being human.

However, there are far too many people feeling awful about the wrong things. There are a lot of things you can fake in life (ahem!) but the one we’ve mastered is the art of winding ourselves up and creating fake stress. Chasing someone across town because they’ve cut you up in the traffic, getting angry because there are teaspoons in the sink, shouting at the TV news, grumbling that your laptop has chosen this very moment to upgrade itself, these are examples of Vipasanna Vendetta, the magnification of tiny irritations into full blown anger.

We’re the greatest of magicians, illusionists of reality, but instead of pulling rabbits from hats we’re pulling big buck-toothed turds. Magicking shit out of nothing is, I have to say, quite a trick of the mind.

Examples abound. I was speaking at a conference yesterday and at break time the coffees hadn’t arrived – cue total panic and arm flapping from the organizer along the lines of ‘Oh my gosh, no coffee, this is my worst nightmare’.

To repeat, so it sinks in: the late arrival of coffee is her worst nightmare.

If your ‘worst nightmare’ is late coffee, you are living a charmed life. I’d suggest visiting war-torn Syria, being crammed aboard a refugee boat setting sail from Tripoli to Europe, or spending some time in a children’s hospice.

The fact that you’re reading this sentence means that you’re richer and more educated than 99.5% of people in human history. Assuming that you’re in the Western world, then you currently live in the most free and tolerant society that has ever existed. Your family may frustrate you, but over a third of the world’s population has only one parent and 143 million children are growing up with no parents at all.

If you’ve been to university, you are part of the lucky 7% worldwide elite. You’re unlikely to ever live at a subsistence level like almost 60% of the world’s population and you surely won’t ever be starving like almost 25% of the world population.

For decades, research has tied gratefulness and appreciation to happiness. People who are happier tend to be more grateful and appreciative for what they have. But it also works the other way around: consciously practising gratitude makes you happier. It makes you appreciate what you have and remain in the present moment.

If you write down ten things that you appreciate but take for granted, you’ll be amazed at what crops up on your list. This isn’t to say you must ignore what’s wrong or broken with the world. I’m all for getting passionate and upset, but about the right things.

I’m one for going against the grain, so for those who say ‘But surely Doc, a problem shared is a problem halved’, I’d respectfully suggest that, no, you have in fact doubled it. To soothe the naysayers, I’m talking about letting go of the trivia, the 95% of your hand-flapping that comes from stressing about next to nothing. The habitual low-level self-created angst that puts you on edge all day every day. Big stuff, fine. Flap all you like. Get angry with the world if the world deserves it. But coming into the office tutting about the lack of car parking, or going through your front door chuntering about the traffic … let it go. Switch to the positives, if only for four minutes, and you’ll feel better. The wonderful side effect is so will those closest to you.

Three years ago I ran a workshop for a newly formed group of deaf women in Derbyshire. Astonishing women, all of them. One young woman had a T-shirt emblazoned with ‘Stay positive’, which I thought was pretty cool. We did a selfie at the end and she confided that she didn’t mind being deaf; it was her brain tumour that was causing her more grief.

Check out your list of ten and remember to shut up and be grateful.

Cease your pointless flapping and get a perspective.

By the way, in the conference example, the coffee arrived 45 seconds later.

Snuggle Up

The Danish concept of hygge (pronounced ‘hoo-gah’) has gained traction in the UK, largely because of the Danes’ lofty world happiness league position. While the Brits languish at number 19, Denmark consistently ranks in the top three happiest nations on the planet, taking the coveted #1 slot for eight years on the bounce. They are to world happiness what Bryan Adams’ Everything I Do is to chart topping.

So, interest piqued, let’s have a look at Danish culture. The images we see tend to be filtered through the lens of interiors magazines, which represent hygge as a soft take on Scandi home design – with unlimited tea lights, a cosy throw draped over a sofa, and a brimming mug of hot choc.

Hygge is all of those things but, as I’ve discovered, it’s also a whole lot more. Indeed, it’s less about stylish living and more about living better; at home, at work, and within a community.

So what the heck is it?

Hygge is more than just a word. It’s a concept that also has equivalencies in Sweden (Mysa: to be engaged in a pleasant or comfortable activity; to be content or comfortable; to get cosy; to snuggle up) and Norway (Peiskos: fireplace cosiness, sitting in front of a crackling fireplace enjoying the warmth).

Danish hygge is about cosiness, warmth, and being enveloped in snuggliness.

Hygge is more than a word, it’s a philosophy. I love hygge because it’s primitive and basic and, even better, you can’t buy the right atmosphere and sense of togetherness. Neither can you hurry it.

Hygge starts with three principles: pleasure, presence, and participation. It’s often associated with eating or drinking, but the more it counteracts consumption, the more hygge it becomes. In fact, the more money and prestige is associated with something, the less hygge it is! How wonderful is that? Drinking tea is more hygge than drinking champers. Playing board games is more hygge than playing computer games. Hygge is easier to obtain in Blackpool than Mauritius. Home-cooked cake is more hygge than bought.

In Denmark you can hyggesnak (hygge-chat) in the corner shop; enjoy hyggeaften (a hygge evening) with chums, and wish your children ‘Hygdig!’ (have Hygge) as they come home from school.

There’s an element of mindfulness in hygge; the idea that we are engaged in the present.

‘Hygge is uncomplicated noticing; joie de vivre,’ says Thomsen Brits. ‘We enter wholeheartedly into the moment and taste all that it has to offer.’ Your winter porridge, your autumnal walk, sitting on a British beach freezing your bits off, fresh coffee (from your favourite mug), Sunday brunch, cottage pie, fresh flowers in a vase, snuggling up and sharing a box of Maltesers …

Hygge is a brief moment of pause, solace from the craziness, the smallest of moments that make a big difference to how we live, feel, and interact.

If it works for the happiest country on the planet, it’ll work for me. And if I can do it, so can you. Hygge is a wonderfully simple concept to introduce at home. Become hygge spotters.

Turns out that almost the same thing exists much closer to home, in Wales. Cwtch, to get cosy. To hug/cuddle; a sanctuary; a safe, welcoming place.

Hygge, Mysa, Peiskos, Cwtch … shout out your moments and amplify the snuggliness and love. It works for me.

The Squirts

And so to business … briefly, because it’s a big deal but not as important as home stuff.

Fact – the humble sea squirt paddles around until it finds a rock, attaches itself, gets comfy, and then eats its own brain. Its brain is useful in finding something to attach to but, once that bit’s done, it doesn’t need to think any more so it scoffs it, thus providing a bit of sustenance so it can hang on for the rest of its dear life.

I think there might be a human equivalent, people who have settled on their rock, being bombarded against the tide, and who stay put. Even though there might be a better rock, a bit higher where the sun makes life more pleasant and the waves are less intense. But, metaphorically, they’ve eaten their own brains.

Some businesses have also eaten their own brains.

There’s a very good chance that staff numbers have been butchered to the point that there is no slack in the system, everyone is at full throttle and ‘feeling amazing at work’ is something the old ones remember, misty eyed, from back in 1983. Those ‘good old days’ when we used to go to the pub at lunchtime …

‘I hate my supervisor. Behind her desk it says. ‘You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps.’ ‘Mind you, she’s written it in her own shit.’

Alan Carr

Dolly Parton was lucky, she only worked 9 to 5. Nowadays, that classes Dolly as a part timer. She was also keen that you pour yourself a cup of ambition, so here’s a brief tour through how to shine at work. Obviously, all the previous points about family still hold true for the workplace: four-minute rule, say nice things about people behind their back, praise effort rather than talent and suchlike.

First of all, context. Businesses are mad keen on measuring stuff. Schools do it, hospitals do it, your boss does it. The birds and bees probably do it too, who knows?

So we set up complex systems to record customer feedback, or exam results, or numbers of hip operations per week. The lady on the supermarket checkout is monitored by the speed with which she bleeps your items through. And we measure these things because they tell us how efficient we’re being. These measurements give data, which we can look at, which will help us do things faster and better. We don’t half like a hefty wedge of ‘big data’.

But it’s my belief that most of the most important things in a business can’t really be measured. Try measuring creativity, excitement, commitment, buzz, happiness, confidence, team spirit, or love. I’d argue that, in business, it’s the things that can’t be counted that really count.

There’s plenty of evidence that employee engagement is positively related to well-being, attendance, profit, staff turnover, customer satisfaction, shareholder return, business growth, and success. All heady stuff. So why is it that only 18% of employees are actually engaged in their work?

Of course, it’s easier to feel great if you’re doing a job you love. Whether you’re engaged in your work depends on whether you view it as a job, a career, or a calling.

If you’re doing a ‘job’, you’ll feel it in the pit of your stomach. Going to work will be a chore. You’re doing it because it pays the bills and you get that feeling of angst when the alarm goes off at stupid o’clock.

A ‘career’ is a necessity but you see opportunities for success and advancement. It’s up the evolutionary scale from a ‘job’ and you’re likely to feel you’re moving in the right direction. You’re invested in your work and want to do well.

A ‘calling’ is where the work is the end in itself. You feel fulfilled and have a sense of contribution to the greater good. Work is likely to draw on your personal strengths and gives your life meaning and purpose. And, whisper it quietly, you’d probably do it for free.

Whether you’re engaged in a job, career, or calling has less to do with your work than you might imagine. A calling orientation can have just as much to do with your mindset as it does with the actual work being done. Please let me remind you of the modern-day classic; a man was sweeping the floor at NASA and when someone asked him what his job was, he replied, ‘I’m helping put a man on the moon.’

Turning a janitor’s job into a ‘calling’ is very powerful indeed, both for the individual and the organization.

Business leaders have attempted it by doing what the consultants have been telling them, working stupidly hard to create an environment where employees can feel satisfied at work. Indeed, for a hundred years or so ‘job satisfaction’ has been what we’ve been aiming at.

But is it the bullseye or just bullshit?

Just for a sentence or two, let’s unpick ‘satisfaction’. What does it actually mean? If you come back from holiday and report that it was ‘satisfactory’, what are you really saying? Or a satisfactory meal out. Or, dare I say, that post-coital warm glow when your lover asks ‘how was it for you?’ and you puff on your cigar and pronounce it to have been ‘satisfactory’.

Satisfactory is a low bar. I’ve just synonymed ‘satisfactory’ and this is what I got: adequate, all right, acceptable, sufficient, passable, quite good, average, competent, not bad …

So for a hundred years we’ve been aiming to create organizations in which people feel fair-to-middling.

Employee satisfaction’s all well and good if you’re striving for mediocrity.

Recently we’ve seen the rise and rise of engagement, a much higher workplace bar, connoted by absorption, immersion, enthrallment, and captivation. This sense of engrossment stimulates a state of higher energy. Being enraptured at work is akin to the psychological state of flow, when time flies and you’re being challenged in just the way you like to be challenged. You are uber-productive, super-creative, and you feel energized rather than depleted.

This is your organization’s competitive advantage because your customers catch it too. After dealing with your team, your customers are going home and talking about their experience. In the modern world they will be sharing it online, a mass of raving fans driving customers to your door.

I’m delighted to say that engagement is what I’ve been studying. I’ve been up to my welly-tops, trudging through workplaces, picking out the best of the best. In no way am I looking to diminish the superb work that many organizations have already done. There are a lot of mouth-watering, open-plan, coffee-machined, pool-tabled workplaces where leaders have truly empowered their employees to take control of their days and think for themselves.

And yet even in these jaw-dropping environments there are still employees who fail to engage. I worked with a superb organization, I’d say the best of the best, and the boss was rolling his eyes because someone was complaining about the wrong kind of free Coke in the free fridge in the free kitchen next to the free table tennis table and the free comfy seats. Apparently ‘diet’ and ‘original’ are okay, but ‘zero’ is his drink of choice.

This links to a deeper rooted workplace problem, that employee engagement, the feeling of aliveness, zest, and vigour, is in the head of each individual employee. A workplace that’s been carefully crafted to be better than home is amazing, and worthwhile, but it’s only half the engagement story.

Engagement, you see, is partly an internal construct.

The Leadership Multiplier Effect

The quickest route to employee engagement is via a rethinking of leadership. And in case you think you’re not in a leadership position, you are. Robin Sharma nails it with his concept of LWT, leading without a title.

The quickest route to employee engagement is via a rethinking of leadership.

In my work with organizations I keep coming up against the same questions:

• How can we motivate our people (and keep them motivated)?
• How can we change the culture?
• How can we make our customers go ‘wow’?
• How can we get people to take responsibility?
• How can we get staff to change?
• How can we improve teamwork?
• How can we break down silos?
• How can we engender trust and build a no-blame culture?

And I’ve noticed that they’re all about how we can change other people. This typifies how normal organizations approach management: the person in charge learns how to manipulate the thinking and behaviours of those in their teams. So we go round in circles of manipulation.

Leadership courses are about things you can do to get other people to cooperate and/or work harder. All the courses you’ve ever been on are additive.

I’m coming from the other end of the spectrum, the subtractive ‘what do we need to stop doing?’ end; the number 1 leadership point being STOP GETTING IN THE WAY OF YOUR PEOPLE!

There’s a term I came across in my research – ‘entropy’ – which is basically a law of physics that was originally about machines. In simple terms it states that any machine, if left alone, will lose energy. It just seeps away. Therefore new energy has to be applied. Entropy is this ‘new energy’.

The simplest example is a family experience from 1974. My dad went out and purchased a brand new Austin Maxi, green with vinyl roof. If you’re under 40, it’s worth Googling. The Maxi, along with its sister car, the square-steering-wheeled Allegro (I swear this is true) were so bad that they actually signalled the end of British motor manufacturing.

In those days you had to run an engine in for the first 5000 miles, which meant, in practical terms, you were restricted to a maximum of 40 mph. I remember a family holiday to Cornwall that involved a three-day drive to get there, a quick pasty on the beach, and three days home.

I digress.

My dad never managed to sell his existing Vauxhall Viva. He put a couple of ads in the Derby Evening Telegraph but, alas, no takers stepped forth. The Viva sat on our drive all winter, unused, rusting, losing its lustre. It started out red and gradually turned pinky orange. The tyres went flat. It even developed a dent in its bumper, all of its own accord (looking back, I wonder whether it was self-harming?) My dad’s Viva was the principle of entropy in action. It wasn’t going anywhere. Its energy just seeped away. It became more and more knackered.

In the end the scrap man gave my dad a fiver and towed it away. It will have had a happy ending, acting as a donor, providing body parts for other cars who needed a transplant.

Entropy also applies to people and organizations. ‘Corporate entropy’ is when organizations and teams run out of energy. Literally.

Check out the following list, warning signs that energy is leaking away:

• There is no longer time for celebration.
• Problem-makers outnumber problem-solvers.
• Politics. Having to fight against the system.
• Back biting and low-level grumbling about other teams and other departments.
• Teams ‘over-communicate’ and ‘under-converse’ (you email the person sitting next to you, and copy 85 people in to cover your backside).
• The pressures of day-to-day operations push aside our concern for vision and creativity.
• Too many people have that ‘here we go again’ feeling.
• People speak of customers as impositions on their time rather than opportunities to serve.
• The focus is on getting through the week. Surviving rather than thriving.
• Celebrating the end of the week with ‘dress down Friday’ or doughnuts or a cheeky early finish.
• Staff come alive at 5.

Tick the ones you’re guilty of. All are energy leakages which can be plugged by mixing with staff who have a spring in their step. That comes from purpose, as well as mixing with other staff who have a spring in their step.

Kim Cameron’s work on organizational vitality examines four types of energy: physical, mental, psychological, and relational. The first three are depleted throughout the day. Physical energy is diminished by calorie burning, psychological energy by mental concentration, and emotional energy is sapped by long meetings.

But the last one, relational, is renewable. In contrast to the other three, relational energy increases as it is exercised. Cameron describes relational energy as uplifting, invigorating, and rejuvenating, concluding it to be ‘life-giving rather than life-depleting’ (p. 51).

And where does ‘relational energy’ come from? People, that’s where.

And we come full circle. Cutting to the chase, physical, psychological, and emotional energy are depleted during the day. The only way to renew your energy is to mix with 2%ers. Putting bright, optimistic, smiley people in key communication nodes – that’s an obvious quick win.

Yet businesses are not doing it!

This week, it was my fifth trip to a wonderful organization and, having learned from trips 1 to 4, I already knew what to expect. For some reason they have chosen the most miserable person in the entire organization and given her the job of receptionist.

No matter how great you feel as you stride across the car park to sign in, you will feel suicidal by the time you’ve got your badge. I’ve had five visits and tried five different tactics; I’ve bounced in, smiled my way in, bantered in, consoled my way in, and frowned back. Nothing. Not a glimmer of the merest hint of upturned lips.

And of course, it’s not just visitors. Every single member of staff who comes through those revolving doors must feel like revolving right back out again. They’re met by a rusting Vauxhall Viva, right there on reception, with moss growing on the inside of her windows. It’s serious organizational energy leakage.

I’m not having a go at this lady. I’m sure she’s a perfectly warm human being who loves her family and does some nice things for her church. She’s symptomatic of the system; wrong person for that particular job. I would imagine that she cracks a smile at 5pm on a Friday but sticking her on reception is both unfair on her and unfair on the staff.

Put a 2%er into that role and you’d achieve a rapid change in culture. It’s beyond obvious. And yet it’s not been done. Equally importantly, find that lady a job that plays to her strengths (smiling isn’t one, but she will have something tucked away somewhere, ‘champion milk curdler’ maybe?) and she’ll come alive.

To be clear, I’m not advocating a no-holds-barred, gung-ho cadre of unwarranted positivity. There’s an art to standing out. You can stand out for being a jerk, or a bully, the office gossip, or the arse licker. I’m not talking about any of that nonsense. Remember, jazz hands and zip-a-dee-doo-dahing your way into the office on a drizzly November morning is ‘village idiot’ category.

My 2%ers have been percolated through the filter paper of being nominated as ‘who in your workplace makes you feel great?’ I dare you to ask yourself, honestly, whether your name would crop up on that list. And I mean asking with brutal honestly. No kidding yourself.

If your name would crop up, this chapter’s been a reminder to keep doing whatever it is you’re doing.

If not, those socks? You need some garters.

Jimmy’s Diary

To round off this family/business section, here’s a story that I used to kick off the original Art of Being Brilliant book. No apologies for the repeat. No explanation required. It still gets me.

Here it is, word for word …

He hadn’t been up there for years. Probably decades! In the faint light of the attic, the old man shuffled across to a pile of boxes that lay near one of the cobwebbed windows. Brushing aside the dust, he began to lift out one old photo album after another.

His search began with the fond recollection of the love of his life – long gone. He knew that somewhere in these albums was the photo he was looking for. It was the black and white one, when she had that smile. Patiently opening the long lost treasures he was soon lost in a sea of memories. The old man wiped away one or two happy tears. Although the world had not stopped spinning when his wife left it, the past was more alive than his present emptiness.

Setting aside one of the dusty albums, he pulled from the box what appeared to be a diary from his son’s childhood. He couldn’t recall ever having seen it before – or even the fact that his son had kept a diary. Opening the yellowed pages, he glanced over the entries and his lips turned up at the corners in an unconscious smile. His eyes shone and he chuckled aloud. He realized he wasn’t just reading the words … he could hear them, spoken by his young son who’d grown up far too fast in this very house. In the utter silence of the attic, the earnest words of a six-year-old worked their magic and the old man was carried back to a time almost forgotten. The spidery handwriting reflected on important issues for a six-year-old – school, football, holidays, arguments with his big sister – entry after entry stirred a sentimental hunger in the old man’s heart. But it was accompanied by a painful memory that his son’s simple recollections of those days didn’t tally with his own. The old man’s wrinkles became more deeply etched.

He remembered that he’d kept a business diary. He closed his son’s journal and turned to leave, having forgotten the cherished photo that had triggered his initial search. Hunched over to keep from bumping his head on the beams, the old man stepped down the wooden stairway to his office. He wasn’t sure what creaked most, the stairs or his knees!

He opened a glass cabinet door, reached in and sought his business diary. He placed the journals side by side. His was leather bound, his name embossed in gold. His son’s was tatty and frayed with a hand-drawn picture on the front. The old man ran a bony finger across the name ‘Jimmy’ scribbled on the cover.

He opened his business journal and read some of the entries. There were notes from meetings, often very detailed. Every single day was crammed with business appointments. Sometimes the evenings too. He remembered back to those times … he sure was driven in his career. It was for the love of his family that he’d chased success so hard.

The old man was drawn to an entry much shorter than the rest. In his own neat handwriting were these words, ‘Wasted a whole day fishing with Jimmy. Didn’t catch a thing!’

With a deep sigh and a shaking hand he took Jimmy’s journal and found the boy’s entry for the same day, June 4th. Large scrawling letters pressed deep into the paper read, ‘Went fishing with my dad. Best day of my life.’