My story ... why happiness is so important to me.

My pursuit of happiness started one afternoon at secondary school.

I remember the day well. I had to meet with a careers guidance counsellor who was helping me decide what subjects to take the following year. Picture the scene. I was sat at a desk in the front row of an empty classroom and he was perched on the corner of his table in that jaunty, cool teacher kind of way.

He looked at me and asked me a question that seemed inconsequential at the time but would ultimately change the course of my life.

“What do you think is the most important thing to consider when choosing a career?”

I was 15 at the time and pretty naive. I had my life planned out: I’d finish school, go to university and get a job wearing a suit in London. I’d drive a nice car and live in a big house. So, obviously, in answer to his question, I said “money”. 

“Now”, he said, “tell me your hobby”. So I told him I loved playing sport.

He continued … “If you think money is the most important thing you need to consider when choosing a job, let me ask you a different question … ”

“Which job would you prefer: working in a sewer from 8am to 8pm, every day of the week, fishing out the things people should not have flushed down the toilet and stinking of sewer water the whole time even when you aren’t at work. But … earning so much money you could live in a massive mansion and drive your Porsche 911 to work every day, or, playing football and earning enough to have a comfortable and simple life, and driving to work in a Vauxhall Astra, like me?”

He paused for effect.

“Money IS important,” he said, “of course it is. No-one wants to go hungry. But once you have enough for your family to be comfortable, is it the MOST important thing?”

And he left it at that.

From that moment on, whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said I didn’t know, I just wanted to be happy. 

The problem was, I didn’t know what would make me happy. I thought I did, but in retrospect I had no idea.

So, when I had finished university and was in the process of deciding what I would do for my first job, I thought long and hard about what would make me the happiest. At that age I had no concept of purpose or stability. I thought happiness meant fun. So when I asked myself what I enjoyed doing most, the answer wasn’t saving the world or doing something worthy, it was going on holiday. So consequently, and much to my parents’ despair, I got a job as a barman in Turkey. 

Turkey 1997-1998

I earned £40 a week, with a bonus of £20 if I lasted until the end of the season. Even in the late nineties that was a laughable salary. However, I was following my career advisor’s guidance and doing something I loved. Full board in a hotel, cheap beer and not a care in the world. I was fully living in the moment and had the best time of my life. I made lifelong friends and even met my wife. Surely I’d found the secret to happiness? 

Australia and Asia 1999-2000

Two years later I packed it in and went travelling the world. I lived on a pittance and funded my travels working in bars and on farms. Life couldn’t have been better. Wanting to become the full cliche, I even bleached my hair blond, wore a shark’s tooth necklace and toured Australia in a 1973 VW Camper. Life was great, I didn’t wash my clothes as regularly as I should have and I drank wine straight from a 5-litre box. 

The UK 2000-2001

After four years away, though, the novelty wore off, the excitement faded, and I started craving a routine and some kind of future, and, after never having any money to buy anything, I wanted a bit of that too. So I came back to the UK, bought myself a suit and became a Project Logistics Controller for a mega telecommunications firm. It sounds boring. It was. I’d forgotten my career advisor's advice, I’d forgotten that happiness was the most important thing. It took many years before I remembered it again.

Gran Canaria 2001-2014

In 2001 I moved to Gran Canaria in search of the sun and spent the next thirteen years drifting between jobs and starting marginally successful businesses. I was a teacher, I imported cider, I made websites, I even installed blinds. I was lost, without knowing it.

Then in 2013 I read two books, Start With Why and Let My People Go Surfing, and everything changed. 

Start With Why taught me that I needed a purpose, some higher goal in life that was more than just earning money.

Let My People Go Surfing showed me that it was possible to build a successful company whose main goal was not financially based. A company could thrive if it focused on just doing the right thing.

Secret Source 2014 - 2021

After forty-five countries, countless jobs, and fifteen years of drifting, I realised that what made me the happiest was helping others and making them happy. So in 2014, after I’d met Ted, my friend and cofounder, we set up Secret Source, an IT company. Our main goal? to make people happy - our team, our clients and anyone we got to work with.

The problem was, we had no idea how to make people happy. We thought we did as we’d seen what all the companies in Silicon Valley were doing. So, we built a great office with games and sofas, held raucous parties and gave away free food and drink. How wrong we were. It just didn’t work, our team hated our clients and our clients were never happy. We weren’t succeeding.

Then I discovered psychological safety and the science of happiness. It was a lightbulb moment; everything suddenly made sense. I now understood why free fruit is inconsequential but eating lunch together is critical. I now saw why the fancy sofa wasn’t as important as the 1:1s we used them for. I now understood what made people happy.

I now just had to work out how to do it.

So I immersed myself in academic research on workplace wellbeing, happiness and performance. I read books, blogs and academic papers and applied my findings to our company.

We worked like a startup, trialling ideas weekly. Some worked, some failed spectacularly, but every time we learnt something new.

Nine years on, we still don’t have all the answers. There are still days when some team members are not happy, but now we understand why, and we know what to do to solve it. We know how to build a happy company and how to make a happy workforce. 

Do we succeed all the time? No, not all the time, but a lot more often than not!

By 2021, the company was doing well. Our team was growing and our client list was expanding, but, most importantly, I felt my vision was now firmly embedded in our culture. Everyone understood why happiness was the key to our success and it was showing itself in everything we did. I felt the time had come to move on and leave the company to grow by itself. So, in December 2021 I stepped aside and handed over the running of the company to our COO Rachel.

Teaching the world how to build happy companies 2022 - …

So what do I do now? I share our story and teach other companies how to inject a bit more happiness into their teams. I speak, I coach and I occasionally write too.

My goal for 2024 is to share my knowledge more widely, and show as many people as possible just how easy it is to make your team a little happier.

Improving team happiness does not have to be difficult. There are hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, changes you can make in your team that together will transform your teams and your company forever.

So, starting in January, each week I will share one tiny change you can make in your team to improve the happiness of your teams

Curious?

You know what to do … just hit that subscribe button and I’ll send you one small, actionable piece of advice each week. 

See you in 2024.

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