Happiness as Your Biz Model

why happiness?

welcome to the ‘me’ era

but it’s not just the millennials...

...every ‘generation’ seems to be searching for
happiness...

pampering and relaxing

leisure time and hobbies

work/life balance

world travel and adventure

health and fitness

books

movies
what movie
isn’t about
the search
for happiness?

happiness is a multi-billion dollar industry

people are very conscious of every decision they
make towards becoming happier

so, how does your business fit into this?

the sad truth is...

while this is how companies
see themselves.

this is how people talk
about them.

the craziest part of all of this is that

companies
are
run by
people

people who, like everyone else, are pursuing their
own happiness...

so, then, what makes
people happy?

what makes people happy?
• autonomy (feeling that your activities are self-chosen and
self-endorsed)
• competence (feeling that you are effective in your
activities)
• relatedness (feeling a sense of closeness with others)
• self-esteem (set-point, or the person’s natural propensity
to happiness)
from the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

autonomy

autonomy includes:
•feeling in control of one’s surroundings
•understanding one’s own resilience
•feeling of agency
•empowerment

competence

competence includes:
•confidence in one’s abilities/knowing one’s strength’s
•feedback from others on one’s performance
•learning and growing skills
•self-actualization
•doing meaningful work
•getting into flow

relatedness

relatedness includes:
•interacting with others
•connecting with people and connecting people
•giving to others/being generous
•feeling loved
•emotional security
•acknowledgement and support (mentorship)

self-esteem

self-esteem includes:
•your ‘set-point’ or natural (genetic) confidence level
•something you can work on through cognitive
behavioral therapy, meditation or medications
•not influenced from the outside world, but apparent
when triggered by events from the outside world

what are the barriers
to happiness?

barriers to happiness
• fear (anxiety of failure, ignorance, mistrust)
• confusion (noise, paradox of choice, lack of good
information)
• loneliness (isolation, disconnection from others)
• lack of control (feeling of loss of control over one’s life and
surroundings, secrecy, loss of agency)
• struggle for survival (basic needs not met)

fear

contributors to fear
•ignorance
•misinformation
•insecurity
•inexperience
•fear-mongering
•mistrust

pew internet research noted that the majority of
people ages 50+ who are not online are not online
because of the scary stories they hear.

confusion

what leads to confusion
•paradox of choice
•noise ratio
•lack of clear information
•secretiveness
•half-truths

loneliness

what causes loneliness
•isolation
•distrust of others
•fear of rejection
•lack of acceptance
•insecurity

lack of control

what leads to lack of control
•loss of control over the circumstances of one’s life
•loss of agency
•withheld information
•secrecy
•uncontrollable circumstances

struggle for survival

remember maslow’s hierarchy of needs

you
can’t
get here
without
all of
these
being
taken
care of

and your business model?

in order to be an agent of happiness, you need to
either create the environment for happiness OR
intervene in the barriers to happiness...

ideas?

http://www.slideshare.net/missrogue

About those rockin’ images
• Many of them are purchased from iStockPhoto.com (yay! iStockPhoto is an
awesome Canadian company!)
• Except for:
• book covers, movie posters (from Amazon.com)
• And the Flickr photos used from:
• Starbucks Cup: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjb/118418786/
• Starbucks Globalism: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thorinside/55362248/

Tara Hunt
tara@citizenagency.com
415.694.1951
skype: tarahunt747
www.citizenagency.com
www.horsepigcow.com (tara)