One of my favorite things to do is to lecture at business schools across the US. This is the third year that I have served as guest lecturer at the WP Carey School of Business where they use my book; “Life…Don’t Miss It” as part of the business curriculum. The students are terrific and I always enjoy talking with them about how to have the greatest life and maximize the happiness in their lives and in the lives of the people they love. It is funny that schools focus primarily on affording these students skills and knowledge they need to make a living, but never focus on teaching them how to have a great life. The only reason to make a living is to have a great life. The same is true for businesses. I have seen hundreds of business training curriculums. You see things that are skill related, sales related, management & leadership related and you see training around technical and HR types of things. You never see anything around maximizing workforce happiness. Mindfulness is about as close as they get. Mindfulness, while important, is a vehicle to help people enjoy life through managing stress and providing coping skills. There is so much more to having the best life. I think showing your people exactly the actions they can take and apply instantly to enrich their whole lives and elevate their happiness at work and at home is critical for todays’ workforce. This topic cuts across all generations as everyone wants to be happy. I simply show them exactly how to do it. This is a perfect fit and is the next logical step after Mindfulness training. What a one-two punch!! Actually Harvard University has an actual class built on Happiness and is the most popular class on campus. There are long waits on the class list just to get in!!
I can tell you that my experiences delivering this message around how to have the best life and how to maximize happiness at business schools such as ASU, The Citadal, Emory University, University of Miami (Ohio), University of Georgia to name a few has been met with tremendously positive reaction by the students. My question to corporate America is…if the people you are about to hire love and want this message….why are you not giving it to them and the rest of your people? What a tremendous way to show how much you value your people. I have also delivered this message to people centric companies like Marriott, Google, Cisco Systems, Mars/Wrigley with spectacular results. I think it needs to be a standard part of all business training and development programs. The impact on the people is very powerful and the message it sends to them as employees is long lasting.
Last night a student gave me a very high compliment as he thanked me for writing my book and making it so impactful. He said he could not put it down and that it contained messages that he truly needed to hear in his life. He told the entire class that he has read it at least five times and wanted me to know how important these messages were to him in his life. What an honor!! Makes writing this book worthwhile!!!
