Elementary Happiness

At the end of 2010, I was exhausted. I was four years into building a company from the ground up. I hadn't slept more than a few hours a night all year. I hadn't talked to my family without multitasking for years. My health was suffering. I was on the verge of (and eventually reached full) burn out. Fast forward to 2013. I decided to make some big changes to bring happiness and health back into my life. I started by looking at photo albums of when I was young. "Why was I so happy?" I asked myself. I reverse engineered five key things that I was doing then that I had lost sight of. First and foremost, I put my family first again. Secondly, I overhauled my approach to my health, which came in the form of sleeping 7 - 9 hours a night, eating a balanced diet, and exercising in the form of weight lifting and fun classes. Third, I brought back curiosity, exploration, and expression in the form of running scientific experiments and using graph paper, legos, and markers. Originally presented at HubSpot's INBOUND13 conference as a Bold Talk on August 22, 2013. Presentation designed in collaboration with BeutlerInk.com and their featured artist Cami Dobrin.