July 2023 - Lisbon / Bethlehem, PA / Schaffhausen / India
Are you successful?
Are you happy?
If yes, why?
If not, why not?
Since humans exist, we measure and calculate to survive.
Will these berries be sufficient to feed a family?
Will this mammoth feed my family? Or will I end up as a meal for that mammoth?
Measure what matters
In organizations, goals, and salaries are often distributed based on two versions of success:
Input metrics: such as # of customers contacted, # of employees reached with an initiative
Output metrics: such as sales in USD / CHF, # of products successfully launched
Driven by several streams, OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) have been added to the vocabulary of many companies. Ideally, we link goals and targets to the tasks at hand. And ideally, we closely align and make them transparent within an organization to ensure those often quoted "silos "work together.
Measure happiness
Besides success, another objective of humanity often lies in happiness.
We seek to love and affection, recognition, and self-efficacy. We want to maximize joy and minimize pain. We want to have a happy life.
Mo Gawdat wrote a beautiful book, "Solve for Happy", applying his engineering background and experience as a manager at Google to develop a simple equation:
In a nutshell, the fewer expectations you have of anything that happens in your life, the happier you will be. (Read the book, there is much more to it)
How do we measure the impact of Yuanfen?
I've combined both thoughts to reflect on my personal and professional life:
If I truly believe in Yuanfen and actively seek opportunities to expose myself to Yuanfen (Story #21)
If I maximize my natural tendency to bring people together and create resonance through my doing for the greater good (Story #22)
If I do all of this and expect nothing in return (besides a salary to survive, the love of my partner, and so on)
Does it mean I'm the happiest person in the world?
Ripples, many, many ripples
Probably not.
However, a few moments in the last few weeks gave me a remarkable AHA to this question.
In some situations, I created a "moment meant to be" without expecting any immediate return on investment.
And yes, that has also triggered some fundamental conversations at work, especially in times of a difficult business environment and lay-offs of beloved colleagues.
Yet, in some cases (both at work and in private), these interventions created a ripple effect beyond my knowledge.
The appreciation shower from back in 2021 brought Kira and Greg together, two wonderful individuals that, together with the 2023 Global Village cohort, are bringing more positive change into the world that I, as an individual, could ever dream of.
My wonderful colleague Conny created a monthly 30-minute Coffee and Learning session. Last week, it was my turn to share some of my hidden talents with the organization. Around 130 colleagues from Europe to India participated in a "Meditate to Collaborate and Innovate" session.
All voluntary.
The energy in the room, the tears and smiles of joy and acceptance, the shiver I felt all over my body for 30 minutes straight.
It was a success because the moment was beyond magic, and I had zero expectations of what might happen afterward.
If it was a nice break and made a few more people breathe consciously for a few minutes, great.
If that intervention creates a ripple somewhere, sometime, with someone, as it happened with Kira and Greg two years into our time spent together in 2021, even better.
I might never know what good happens after those Yuanfen moments.
It's like giving a little random act of kindness and walking away without expecting anything in return (Story #20).
Yet, some of these stories, like with Greg and Kira, do get back to me.
In that very moment when Greg‘s message arrived on my mobile phone, it was there:
it's that pleasant shiver down my back
that warm feeling in my belly
that smile on my lips
and my breath slowing down.
And that feeling of happiness and success in that fleeting moment is so much bigger than any number or formula could possibly describe.