12 Oct Happiness & Positive Psychology in the Real World – a tale of 2 businesses
About a month ago I taught another, very successful Executive Certificate in Positive Psychology Course (click here). I love teaching these courses partly because I’m passionate about spreading the principals of positive psychology as widely as possible but also because I tend to learn as much as I teach! And in this recent course I learned a very important lesson from two separate stories I heard being told by two separate participants.
One of the attendees was from regional NSW and so while down in Sydney she thought she’d have her hair “done”. Walking into and sitting down in an unfamiliar hairdresser she was greeted rather snootily with some rather unfriendly comments about the hair product she used and how the person serving her would have to wash his hands to clense himself of this horrible substance. Not long afterwards, when she’d replaced her glasses while she was waiting for her colour to dry, he remarked rather angrily that “I told you to keep those off until AFTER I’M FINISHED!” This lovely, middle-aged woman said she hadn’t had anyone speak to her like that since the third grade!
In contrast, I noticed on the final day of the course that almost everyone in the group of 37 or so attendees was getting their coffees, during the breaks, from the same coffee shop. Now this is worth noting because it wasn’t the closest cafe (situated in the foyer of the city building in which we were running the course). When I enquired as to the reason for this I discovered something quite fascinating…
…on the first day of the course one attendee went to this cafe because she’d been there before and knew it to be very good. She then recommended it to one of the others who then recommended it to another and so on. On day three I watched as two grown women raved about how fantastically positive the experience was buying a coffee from this small cafe in which they were made to feel beautiful and encouraged to have a laugh!
In short, within our group and based on these experiences, noone will be going back to that hairdresser while hundreds will probably end up visiting the happiness cafe!!!
What can we learn from this; well how about….
- happiness and positivity are contagious
- in life and in business
- happiness and positivity are clearly good for business
- and for life
- if you do the right thing and have some fun then you’ll win….in one way or other
What do you think? Have you had great (or terrible) experiences you’d like to tell us about? Or ones from which we can learn important life lessons? If you have, please feel free to send in your stories in to us here at The Happiness Institute.