Be Happy Where You Are

Being happy makes our life better. It makes us more productive and helps with idea creation.

How we feel about our life has mainly to do with our attitude. If we are on the pursuit of happiness we always find something wrong and it's this attitude that we need to change. We need to embrace whatever comes our way in a positive way and always reflect on the past positively.

I know this works because I've been there myself. When I was younger I used to be stressed, anxious and reached a point where I had blackouts and breathing problems. It was tough and I didn't know what to do. I thought things were out of my control and that it would be difficult to be happy and feel better. Then something changed. I had a black out while driving (this was stress related and luckily I was at a traffic signal when it happened) which opened my eyes. I realised that in order to change I had to first change my attitude and then things would follow.

I took it step by step, looking at problems with a positive attitude and reflecting on the past with a positive eye. Things slowly started to change, I felt better and happier. This led to a point where I felt happy where I was. I always have goals and always try to make things better, but I can now say that I'm happy where I am.

Start now, whenever something happens deal with it with a positive attitude. Reflect on your past and realise how bad things that happened led to better ones. Make it a practice and slowly your attitude will change.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Are You Making Our Lives Better?

If your company or brand disappeared overnight, would anybody notice? Would they miss you? In most cases, the answer to these questions is no.

Even huge brands no longer have an important connection with their customers. The situation is that people now want to know what you are doing to make their and everyone's lives better. You need to be responsible and show how you are improving their lives. The latter doesn't have to be a full-blown CSR campaign. Apple may not have been your typically charitable company, but its contribution to making our personal and work lives better has a positive impact on its image. If they disappeared we would notice.

Focus on how you can make an impact on people's lives. How does your work make lives better? If it doesn't then you need to change how you do things, so you make an important impact. Don't try to be another mediocre, bland brand. Be unique, focused and thoughtful.

When it comes to telling the stories of how you are improving lives, be authentic. If you aren't doing much, it's better to not say anything than lie. People have learnt to not trust brands so you have a big fight ahead of you. Be responsible, authentic and make lives better!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Life is a Journey, not a Destination

This is a guest post from Henry Chapman, an accountant by experience and an adventurer by hobby. Henry approached me a few days ago with his idea for a blog post and his determination (the fact that he had already written the post) showed me that I had to pass it on. Enjoy his musings.

We as human beings enjoy setting and working towards goals. Be this a promotion at work, to lose weight or just learn something new.

But we very often make the mistake of thinking that once we have reached a goal, we will feel happy, satisfied and content. In my experience I always found that once I reach a goal, the satisfaction which comes from it fades very quickly and I am soon working towards the next goal I have set for myself.

I soon began to realise the momentary sense of achievement one feels from achieving a goal is not enough to work towards it - one needs to be enjoying the process as well. The process is where the real value lies in working towards goals. It is where one develops, learns and grows. The process shouldn’t be easy, but it should be enjoyable and rewarding. If it isn’t, then you are either approaching the process incorrectly or working towards the wrong goal.

So ask yourself the following question : “Am I enjoying the process of my day to day life?”. Make sure you do, because ultimately life is all about the journey, not the destination. 

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Live, Don't Work

We all know how important life/work balance is. Yet most of us work long hours and overload ourselves, thinking that this way we are getting more done and that there is no other way.

Thankfully there is a way. Set limits to your work life. The first thing to do is set strict working hours, it can be 9-5, 10-6 or 12-5. Don't go beyond 6 in the summer and 5 in the winter. At first you will feel more stressed as the clock is ticking and the time is approaching. As you get used to your new routine, you will get either the same or more done in less time. This is the biggest misconception we have, we think that more working hours result in greater results. This is hardly ever the case, more wrking hours lead to tiredness and anger.

Learn your limits and enjoy life. Don't overwork and overload yourself. Find the most effective ways to get things done during your working hours and spend the rest of the day with the people you love being with.

Have a great weekend!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

You Have Everything

We are always looking for reasons and inspiration in order to do something. What we don't realise is that we have everything we need, no matter what our situation, in order to produce great work and achieve happiness.

Even if you are in the worst situation at the moment, realising that you are still here, that you are still alive can help you look at things differently. 

Once you stop measuring achievement by purchasing power and start measuring it by what really matters to you, you will be able to feel complete and that you achieve a lot every day.

Have a great week!

Posted by Harry Mylonadis 

Life is 50/50

People usually hesitate to take the next step. Taking a risk is always avoided since people want the security of what they are used to. When talking with people about what they should do next I always tell them that in the end, life is 50/50.

This might be a very simplistic view of the world, since a lot of variables can come into play that will move the scale towards the one or the other, but in the end something will happen or it won't.

This perspective is very useful when thinking about doing something. It is not something that will help you analyse all possible outcomes but it can shake you up into doing something.

To give you some examples of this perspective:

• You will fail or you will succeed
• You will find a new client or you won't
• You will create the next amazing product or you won't
• Users will love your web-app or they won't
• Your campaign will have amazing results or it won't 
• Tomorrow you are alive or sleeping forever

When I give the last example to people I talk to they sometimes look at me puzzled. The reality though is that tomorrow you are either alive or dead (even hear there are other possibilities but mainly it's these two cases). So what are you waiting for? Go out and do something instead of thinking about doing it, because life is 50/50.

Posted by Harry Mylonadis