Blaze Unlimited Pty Ltd

HR Consultancy & Career Coaching

Hi, How are you doing?

 It’s been an interesting period of reflection for me over the past couple of weeks and I’ve got something I want to share with you.

For the last 6 months, we’ve been so busy delivering work that we haven’t had any time to do any business or product development.

Here is the topic of my reflection.

Is my business actually doing any 'good'?

I don’t mean good as in business performance good. What I’m asking myself is, does the work that Blaze does do ‘good’ for the people we work with? Is it positive, does it enable change, does it produce any meaningful outcomes for people? And if not, what will?

A business guru once said that the secret to a successful business is to find out what people want, and give it to them. I think people want to be happy. What do you think?

Let me ask you some questions (by emailing me your answers you’re helping me to find out what really matters to people and I truly appreciate your time and input).

1- “Are you happy?”

2- “Do you know what makes you truly happy?”

3- “Do you know how to make changes to your thinking and approach to get more of the things that make you happy and avoid the things that don’t?”

Would you be interested if I told you I could help?

If you’ve answered yes to those three questions congratulations. Believe me, you’re one of the lucky ones! The funny thing about luck is that the harder you work, the luckier you tend to get.

 Much of the work Blaze does centres around helping an individual make informed choices about their work with a view to making it more satisfying, whether it’s a career coaching client, a line manager I’m working with or a workshop on critical thinking or work-life balance. The common element in all of our programs is the focus on improving satisfaction. I treat working with people on improving satisfaction as a bit of an honour as our happiness (satisfaction) levels are probably the intuitive gauge by which we judge our life generally. An individual's satisfaction with life is big ticket stuff so I'm humbled by clients when asked to assist.

Anyway as I've said, the common focus is improving satisfaction and what I’ve noticed over the past 6 months is that many of us are unhappy (if not all of the time, then much of the time, if not much of the time then more often than they would like). This is despite the fact that there is so much abundance around us, food on our tables, clothes on our backs, our health, our families etc. You can read, you have access to a computer and you're contemplating self-actualising topics such as happiness. I’ve also noticed a common discussion theme emerging in each of the programs I facilitate. It’s about your psychology (well not yours personally, but one's psychology generally). Other themes include how your brain works (and not always in your favour), how negative thinking actually hardwires your brain so you're tuned for negativity, how emotions and thoughts can be controlled while situations, people and events can’t be, how your perception of a given event or situation dramatically alters how you feel about it and ultimately how you respond (or not) to it.

I’ve been doing some reading on the topic of happiness and am about to put together a signature program for Blaze.

At this stage it’s tentatively called “Would you like happy with that?”. Here’s a snapshot of what we’re trying to do: 

Increase your inner happiness 

Increase your external happiness

Change the physical structure of your brain to that of a ‘happy’ brain

Give you a more positive outlook

Teach you how to let go of negative emotions

Describe simple lifestyle changes that can increase happiness

Encourage you to find happiness by being yourself

Help you to make all your relationships happier

Convince you that it’s morally right to be happy

Explain to you how to develop a happy connection with the world around you

We’ll provide a step by step process, we’ll create an environment where you can think about your happiness and make plans to improve it. We’ll provide you with education and information about your brain, how it’s wired and how you can rewire it for optimal happiness. This is not some new pop psych approach; the science is robust, has been widely accepted across many disciplines (medicine, business, health and sports to name just a few) and has been proven in numerous experiments.

Let the proof be in the pudding though I say.

I’m thinking of offering a tiered range of products that you choose depending on the level of support you require.

There will be a self-paced program manual that includes all the content and exercises for those who want to go it alone (with a little help).

We’ll offer an e-course where specific topics, exercises and tools will be emailed periodically so you can implement the changes necessary in real time and one at a time (this will avoid a great workshop manual sitting on the shelf getting dusty after an initially motivating workshop.

We’ll run an in-person group training program. Details to follow but I’m expecting this to be our ‘Corporate’ offering (happy employees are profitable employees so yes, organisations will be interested in your happiness).

It is likely that this program will be run over multiple days (not necessarily consecutively to allow implementation of strategies and review and reflection of experience barriers). We’ll also offer our individual coaching services for those clients who would like some more support in their pursuit of happiness.

I’d love your feedback on whether this is something that would appeal to you? Does that sound like something that would catch your interest, and galvanise you into taking action to bring about happy changes in your life?

Is it something that you would invest in... and I’m not just talking about money, but more importantly, your time, effort, courage, commitment and sacrifice? Here’s some initial thinking on happiness for you to ponder: Happiness is a simple concept.... but simple doesn’t always mean easy does it? Particularly when we are dealing with our own psychology. Here are ten thoughts that have been proven to make us unhappy. Theirs is better (comparing) I wnt more... and more (greed) If it’s not black it must be white (all or nothing) If it’s not perfect it’s no good (perfectionism) Why is this always happening to me? (exaggeration) I’m not going to like this (jumping to negative conclusions) I feel it, so it must be true (emotional reasoning) I’m a label, you’re a label (labelling) I should do this, you should do that (obligation and judgement) If its wrong, it must be my fault (wrongly taking responsibility) How many of those are you familiar with? A quick note. Happiness is not solved by goal setting alone. Happiness is not derived from material possessions. Or by a life of austerity. Happiness IS a state of mind. Controlling your mind IS possible. Anyone can learn how to do it. The question is. Do you really want to be happy? What will you have to let go of or embrace to make that stick?

Have a great month and stay tuned for future updates.

I’ll make sure to sprinkle in happiness tidbits for you as I come across them in my research. If you can let me know your views on the topic and the feedback I’ve sought that’d be great. If you’re too busy, that’s fine I understand and thanks for taking the time to read.

Yours in happiness, Sean