Joy is the next competitive advantage! Happiness precedes success and all performance, creativity, innovation and team connection is linked to happiness at work!
The latest research in neuroscience, epigenetics, emotional intelligence and positive psychology intersect at a point I call “the joy spot’’- the sweet spot for performance.
Leaders need to make the workplace a joy spot! Parents need joy spots at home! Teachers need joy spot classrooms for better learning.
Joyful, silly states increase the number of dendrites in the brain. This makes you smarter! Neurons connect via dendrites, so the more dendrites, the more neurons are working!
Stress makes you stupid, fat and sick! We know stress either causes or contributes to all illness. The main stress hormones, adrenalin and cortisol, literally ‘eat’ brain cells and put on abdominal fat. Stress narrows our focus and diminishes performance.
Our first step to creating a joy spot at work is to bust stress and give others permission to have fun! Fear of humiliation, or FOWOT, fear of what others think, often stops people doing things that make work fun. If the leader does fun things it gives everyone else permission to do the same.
If the leader (parent or teacher) is serious and ‘professional’ all the time, no one else feels safe to break out! I believe it’s possible to be extremely professional AND have fun and be joyful at the same time. I think it’s one of the secrets of my success in each career I have had.
Your mindset matters! Focus on creating and modeling joy today!
Make the decision to be a walking ‘joy spot’ today. Give yourself and others permission to be joyful at work today and in the future.
Zooties,
Amanda
PS. You can watch more on the importance of creating joy spots here
