Promoting Happiness For Holistic Talent Management

I am in the middle of setting up all the components for the official launch of my new company brand - The Human Sphere. I'm really excited as it reflects the scope of who I am and what I want to offer to clients.  Also, I believe due to this approach, it will help them increase their profits and retain their best. I'll be writing more about holistic talent management and all that entails in months to come.

To me helping a company make money is helping employees be willing to do all that they can. Part of that outcome begins with any leader of a company, which of course includes my fellow HR colleagues.

So on a personal note, I'd like to suggest that each leader take a look at who they are and their relationship to themselves and in that my hope is that you are happy with what you see.  In essence, I hope you're happy.

I have determined that my happiness and my ability to mange it impacts the people around me.  And as a leader, I know that translates in what I do and my interaction with others. In my desire to impact our world for the good, I know that my happiness plays a part in that.

In the spirit of "holistic talent management" I believe our sense of well being plays apart in all we do including our professional capabilities and success. And that, ripples out to those around us. So I offer to you a post from my colleague and dear friend Alan Allard along with a resource for exploring and working with the subject of happiness - particularly through the lens of being a leader and HR professional.

Alan's Post

Do you wake up in the morning excited about the day ahead? What about when you look into the future a year from now (or beyond)--can you say your vision is like a powerful magnet drawing you towards it? 

The fact is, while most of us "like" our work and overall life, few of us are really living from a clear vision, purpose and a sense of deep happiness. If we just look at work, I would say most of us are "okay" with what we do for a living--but how many of us are really loving it?

In my book Seven Secrets to Enlightened Happiness! Living the Life You Were Meant to Live, I take a look at seven factors that we can tap into to increase our happiness in every area of life: 

• Your Perspective Creates Your Reality
• Your Vision Is Your Blueprint For Your Future
• Master Your Self-talk, Master Your Life
• Self-confidence Rocks
• There Is No Substitute For Self-love
• Gratitude Is the Great Happiness Multiplier
• Action Fuels Your Happiness

Last week I talked to four people who liked their jobs but who clearly weren't excited about them. Each one was doing well at work in terms of salary and position -- and each one rated their happiness at work at a seven. Not terrible of course -- but certainly nothing to jump up and down about.

And that's why all four felt "stuck" in their jobs--they weren't unhappy enough to seriously consider leaving--but they certainly weren't excited about their careers. We could look at other areas of their lives, but if this was the only area we looked at, this is tragic. We spend an incredible amount of our lives at work; time we can never get back.

What keeps us in a "job," relationship, financial situation or health situation where we are "okay" with it but far from passionate about it? We don't need to look any further than the seven "secrets" listed above. However, the first one is what stops most of us from dramatically changing our lives--our perspective--what we believe to be true about any given situation and what we believe to be true about ourselves and what we are really capable of.

Often our perspective is what we can be called an excuse. It's something we tell ourselves to avoid the pain we would feel if we didn't believe it. The problem with our excuses is that we end up believing them and then they become the borders of what is possible--until we come up with a more useful belief.

Happiness, well-being, fulfillment and success have to be designed and created on purpose. It never happens by accident. We have to fully own our lives and believe in self--and yes, we need to take action. A compelling life vision doesn't create itself, self-love and self-confidence don't grow on their own, our self-talk won't change until we change it and our gratitude will erode without consistent nurturing.

Just like no one can go to the gym for you or me, no one can implement the seven "secrets" for us. And that's why I call them "secrets"-- it's not that we don't know them -- it's that too few of us pay enough attention to them.

If you want to pay more attention to these life changing and life enhancing principles, you can put them up on your bathroom mirror and remind yourself of them every day. If you want to know more about them and learn some simple exercises to put them into practice, you can get the kindle version of my book at here.

Recently I had an eighty two year old reader call me and tell me that she was doing the exercises in the book and she felt like she had a renewed lease on her life. Imagine that, still learning and growing at eighty two. That made my day!

Learn more about Alan | +Alan Allard  | @alanallard