Happy MBA

There's something about being in nature that helps us reset our nervous systems. Maybe it's the wonder and awe it can create in ourselves. Carlos likes to think, particularly when around mountains, the awe of being near such massive and ancient structures drowns out the noise of our everyday lives. And without that noise we can start to think differently and more clearly. Every year, before the pa...

What is stopping you from doing what you’d love to do? When Chris Packe quit his well paid job he was told that he was in a privileged position and that it was all down to luck of circumstance. But he believes it’s also down to choices and priorities. He’s noticed that people often deny that they have the power to change things, saying their lives are out of their control. However, unless you are...

If you're like me (or the me 10 years ago) you believe in mind over matter. As a hyper rational human I used think that thinking was all there was. My body was just a vehicle through which my mind would navigate life. I always lived in my head and ignored the signals that came from my body (other than pleasure, pain and hunger). Because of that I was very much cut off and unaware of my feelings. I...

As a leader of a business it’s up to you to tell everyone where you’re going. It’s your responsibility to create a clear vision for everyone to buy into and have clarity as to the direction and relevance of their work. However, in an ever-changing world what happens when you don’t have all the answers. How do you balance the vulnerability of not knowing with the need for a clear vision of the futu...

Shamash Alidina is a mindfulness and ACT trainer. And is also the author of mindfulness for dummies. ACT stands for acceptance and commitment therapy and in this episode of the podcast Shamash shares some of the principles of ACT and how they can help us cultivate more resilience and self-compassion in our lives. In summary the key principles of ACT are: Be present Open up Do what matters By follo...

"Think Different" is the famous slogan used by Apple to differentiate themselves from the grey PC boxes that IBM were churning out in the 80s and 90s. However, what if you think differently at a fundamental level? You see the world differently. You process the world differently. And you engage with the world differently. On this episode, Carlos and Laurence talk with Matthew Bellringer - coach, co...

Marianne is training as a Purpose Guide™ and on this Friday Fireside we're going to explore with her what it means to discover our true purpose. It's easy to beat yourself up because you haven't started living your life's purpose yet. But purpose may not be a process of searching outside of you. Maybe it's about looking inside and sensing. If you'd like to feel your way to purpose rather than forc...

What's your 10 year plan? What's you 5 year plan? What are your goals for next year? WTF are you actually going to do tomorrow? In business people are obsessed with plans and strategy. But what happens if you don't really know what you want? And what happens if you change your mind? What happens if the world changes along the way? Carlos loves plans, and hates uncertainty. But he's learned about t...

How do we put down our armour of self-sufficiency and competence? While it protects us from challenges and shields us from criticism, it also cuts us off from deep connection and essential support. We think that we need the armour to “hold ourselves together” because if we “let go”, we might not be able to pull ourselves together again. Holding it all in affects our ability to be creative, make he...

Writing a book takes time and effort. And life's too short to write a book that no one will read. On this episode, we invited someone to help us understand how to minimise the risk of writing books that aren't actually useful or reach their audience. His name is  Rob Fitzpatrick  and he's the author of Write Useful Books , The  Workshop Survival Guide  and one that we've been r...

We’re joined by  Tad Hargrave , founder of Marketing for Hippies , who shares his thoughts on how to market well so that sales becomes effortless. We talk about purpose, problems, premise and promise. Our obsession with selling tactics is actually compensation for our poor marketing. When we’re having to work hard to “convince” people of the value of our work then we’re probably talking to th...

Most creative and purpose-driven entrepreneurs love coming up with new ideas and working with their customers and clients. But they hate sales, marketing and working on finances and spreadsheets. They also complain about cashflow, profitability and burnout. Their wheels are spinning because they focus on a narrow aspect of their business (delivery and ideas). And they ignore all the other bits tha...

How do we realise worthwhile ideas in the world? Define a goal, create a plan, build a great team? That's how we're told to do it. How about instead, we listen to what we're really called to do? Tom Nixon is an entrepreneur, founder of org-chart startup Maptio , and the author of the book Work with Source , which introduces a new perspective on being a founder, based on research conducted by Peter...

What if you don’t agree with mainstream definitions of success? What if, when looking at what everyone seems to value and strive for, you start to feel like “do I actually belong here?” You see the well trodden path to success The one validated by the hundreds of thousands that have gone before you. Each of their steps deepening the footprints of those that went before. As if this is the only way....

Are you a company of one? From Paul Jarvis’ book of the same name a company of one is a founder who does not believe in growth for growth’s sake. Their goal is to build a company that is focused on being better rather than bigger. In this episode of the podcast I talk to one of our Happy Startup members who’s taken the company of one mission to heart. From this conversation you’ll hear about why F...

How can we challenge the idea that in business only the unkind and ruthless rise to the top while the caring and compassionate get overlooked. In this beautiful conversation with Christina Kisley and Graham Allcott we explore why we need to find more kindness in business and why we’re less likely to hear about kind leaders than unkind ones. In actual fact there are more kind leaders than we think...

This episode of the podcast is a recording from our Friday Fireside way back in November last year. We were joined by our good friend Ole Kassow, an inspiration to us ever since we started The Happy Startup School back in 2012. He’s the founder of  Cycling Without Age , a movement on a mission to create a world where the elderly remain an active part of society and the local community. Since...

Eiji Han Shimizu is a purpose driven filmmaker and creative entrepreneur who discovered the many different ways we find happiness by making the movie Happy. During this conversation we find out about his pursuit of happiness and how he got greedy for it. Having ticked off all the different paths to happiness the last one on his bucket list was to find meaning. He says that we all have different el...

This episode of the podcast is another window into our community where you get to know our members and what they do. Today I’m talking to Simon Batchelar, cofounder of Pallant Digital and the Marketing Success Club. He shares his journey from running a digital marketing agency for large clients to now offering courses and coaching to founder run businesses that he believes can make a difference. S...

Will and Joel are friends from university who went into business together. They put all their enthusiasm and energy into it and it grew. They worked hard and they got their rewards. However, at some point it stopped working so well. It went from simple to complex. It went from being exciting and rewarding to just feeling like a job. The spark had gone and they weren’t sure why. They’d focused thei...

This episode of the podcast is another recording from our weekly Friday Fireside show. It was recorded on October 2nd and features our good friend Kees Klomp, whom we lovingly think of as the buddhist businessman. Kees is now Professor of Applied Science at Rotterdam University and founding partner of Thrive Institute a think tank looking to reinvent business and society. According to him the busi...

In this episode of the podcast we shine a light on one of our members, share their work and find out what it’s been like to be part of the Happy Startup School. If you’re launching a business for the first time and are looking for support and guidance during those initial uncertain months then check out our community at http://happystartups.co. We provide mentorship, masterclasses, training and ne...

If you ever find yourself pitching to a VC or for any kind of funding it’s important to know how to tell a compelling story. When it comes to pitching VC’s Haje Kamps, pitch coach, author of Pitch Perfect and CEO of Konf (a virtual conferencing platform), says the three elements you need to remember are: define the problem; say why you’ve got the perfect team; and demonstrate how you’ve got some t...

This episode of the podcast is another recording from our live Friday Fireside webinar. On this week’s show we were joined by Eleanor Tweddell. Eleanor is the founder of Another Door, a community that supports people through redundancy, and author of the book “Why losing your job could be the best thing that ever happened to you”. During our conversation we hear about Eleanor’s journey from corpor...

Will Lyth Working for yourself for the first time can seem like a scary step. You go from the safety of a regular pay check to the uncertainty of not knowing where the next job might come from. But some us aren’t built for the 9 to 5 and we crave the autonomy and freedom of being our own boss and so we accept the uncertainty and take control of how we work. In this conversation with freelance copy...