The counterintuitive way to get more done
Happy summertime!
It’s interesting – FUN has been coming up a lot lately. I received an email from somebody asking, ‘Should business be fun?’ This company takes six figure people and brings them into the seven figure realm…and they were asking the FUN question. There are loads of reasons why fun is so poorly considered, and they generally come from our upbringing.
You might hear, in your head:
“You must work hard and it must be difficult.”
“You must sit for that exam.”
“You must have your nose to the grindstone.”
However, when you sit back and you take a look at the true success, in all the way (not just money and prestige from the outside), what do you see? Do you see a person who is happy inside and out, and you want to be him or her? I doubt it.
For example, look at students in Korea – look at their happiness levels and their success on their terms. Sure- they’re more successful perhaps in their grades in an overall way, but are they happy? What’s their mental health like? Consider then those living in Sweden, where the children are allowed to play – there’s more flexible schedules and parents have more time to be with them because of the social safety nets that there are. Those folks- generally speaking- are more happy. I believe that if we’re unhappy, it’s really impossible to be successful, truly successful (depending on your definition of success).
I define success as being fully aligned with who we are in the world and how we want to show up in the world and we’re able to do, be and have the things that are important to us.
Watch the video
It’s true in our business, and it’s true in our lives.
The above argument shows that having fun is NOT bad for you. In fact, it will help you get more done. Please absorb these 3 points about fun and getting things done, and why they’re important. Then take some action on at least one of them. Hit reply and tell me what transpired 🙂
- FUN is embedded in the 3 pillars of success from my dear friend Susan Cowan: MOTIVATION, CHALLENGE, AND NOVELTY. Fun is so important in all of those, and particularly in motivation. If it is not fun for you, the motivation is going to be almost nil. It’s therefore very important that your task, dream, or desire is fun for you in some way.
- Fun is embedded in our culture. We live in an entertainment culture. People like to play games. Children like to play games; adults like to play games. There’s “words with friends” that folks play remotely. For people that are scattered, maybe they have AD/HD, games are really important. They raise our dopamine level. Dopamine is a feel good hormone. AD/HD has lower dopamine levels so therefore it’s really important to have that.
- We are in a fun deficit in 2023. 2020 had a low level of fun. 2021 the same thing. In 2022 we started emerging and started to have some fun. But we’ve got two and a half years of fun not happening. Now, people are back integrating. We’re having a lot of fun. Slowly but surely the cloud of unfun is lifting and we are finally saying “You know what? We get to have fun because you know what we do?” I’s important to have fun because when we have fun, we get it done.
Yesterday I was on a free webinar regarding a new software I was checking out, and the woman who was giving the webinar, the leader of this new software, said ‘Flowi is fun’. In other words, “the technology (Flowi) that I’m showing you won’t just be another burden.”
So I ask you this, how can you make your life fun?
I try to do it every single day. That’s why I made my productivity success signature system into a cake – because guess what? When’s the last time you frowned while eating a piece of cake?
Go and have so much fun. Have your cake and eat it too.
Go, go dance in the sunshine.
Pretend you’re a little kid again, at least for five minutes. Raise up your hands and scream and be so happy.
You’re going to be more of a magnet to the people that you want to have magnetized around you.
Your stress levels are going to decrease.
Your health is going to increase.
….. and it’s free.
It’s free to have fun. People want to be around you. You’re going to get more done. You’re going to enjoy it more. You’re going to be more in alignment. At the end of the day, you’re going to be more successful.
So don’t forget the fun.
And hit reply to let me know, how are you going to have fun today?