1,130 words of content including 8 SuperPowers you’ve forgotten and 6 Leadership Tips. Approximate reading time: 4.52 minutes. And isn't your Happiness worth it?

This newsletter speaks to Leadership, Happiness, and Coaching in your life and work.

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1. Secret Life Hacks That Three-Year-Olds Do Better Than You!
2. Tidbits
3. In The Workplace: Act Like a Kid, Lead Better
4. The Executive Happiness Coach®

Hack (hak) noun Informal. a tip, trick, or efficient method for doing or managing something: hacks for holiday entertaining, life hacks

I am helping raise three of my grandchildren (who live next door). When raising my own four kids, I was caught up in all the stresses of life as a thirty-something overachiever/parent. As a grandparent, I have more time and space to study my grandchildren. I observe what they do, how they learn, and how they experience life.

The more I watch (they are currently six, three, and nearly a year old), the more I become convinced that we are all born with SuperPowers that we’ve forgotten as we age.

The American educational system still operates from a 1910 model designed to produce compliant factory workers (look it up). Very early in your academic career you were taught that, in most cases, asking "why" would get you into trouble. Just sit still and absorb. While some people escape from this Tyranny of Compliance**, most of us enter adulthood having been trained to follow instructions, not create chaos.

**Note: this is not a knock on teachers. It’s about the system, the mindset of education. See this fascinating video (2:30) that challenges the nature of teaching. Warning: radical shift!

Before formal education begins, our brain and body already know how to learn. Here are some of the life hacks used by toddlers that you should revisit as adults:

1. Risk. Go to the edge and look. Climb to the top. Pick it up and let it crawl on you. Touch it. Taste it. Poke and pull it. We often over dramatize the dangers of being children, while forgetting that interaction with the world is the way we learn/learned/will learn best.
2. Experiment. Try. Fail. Try again. Adapt. Fail again. Learn. Apply. Eventually succeed. Repeat what works, and build on it. It’s called the scientific method, but with falling and spills. Imagine how few of you could walk if you needed to be right the first time.
3. Say No. A stubborn three-year-old is a wonder to behold. One cannot use logic to solve the situation. The "no" uttered by a toddler is their first testing how to set personal boundaries, intellectual and emotional. What many kids learn is that saying “no” is bad, and that sets up a pattern for their life. And how interesting: in my work as a coach, the inability to set appropriate boundaries (“I can’t say no!”) is the second most common breakdown clients bring to coaching.
4. Challenge the System. Understanding a corporate culture is a powerful asset. On the other hand, the fresh eyes of a newly hired employee can often "see" things that those steeped in the system cannot. Looking at things through the eyes of a three-year-old allows you to see things in a fresher way without assuming that they make sense or have to stay that way.
5. Express Emotions. Many adults are not sure what to do with other peoples emotions, especially at work, so we have built these armored walls to protect us against emotional displays – of self and others. Yet it’s vital to your health that you allow your emotions to show up at least for a while. Toddlers just let flow. As a result, even intense emotions like anger and frustration tend to be short lived. OK, that’s over. Let’s play!
6. Smile. Let’s face it: there’s so many reasons to put the baby out for the wolves. It cries, it poops, it’s incessantly hungry, and won’t let you sleep. But when a baby smiles… ah, all is right with the world. A smile disarms people, and your human reaction is to smile back. A smile changes the mood of the room, so you allow the baby to stay, just one more day. Which connects to the next life hack.
7. Take It One Day at a Time. Kids spend very little time in anxiety, until they learn it from adults. Kids live in the present moment, and anxiety only exists in the future. Tomorrow’s gonna happen, but they remain Now, and it’s a lot easier to access Happiness when you’re not making up disaster stories about an imagined future.

And finally, what does a three-year-old do incessantly?

8. Ask questions! “Who's that? What's that? What are you doing? What are my options? Why? Why not? When can I have a snack? When are we going to get there?” Offered repeatedly, questions can feel like torture for a harried parent, but when you look at them objectively they are simply learning tools. “Why is it called blue? What's her name? What does old mean? Why do I always have to say please?“ These are tools for knowledge acquisition, connection, meaning, and social skills. Great stuff!

Pick a Life Hack from the above list that you’ve not employed in a while. Try it for a day. Enjoy a sense of play as you do. Then observe what happens and capture your reflections. Perhaps you can reconnect to one of your dormant SuperPowers!

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The 13 Principles of Happiness contain many tools that describe how a three-year-old really lives – paying attention, being authentic, and focusing on today. Download a copy today and post it on your cubicle wall or fridge at home to remind you life need not be that complicated.

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I grew up on Fordwick Road, one street away from Westminister Drive. When I married we bought a home just three streets away. Thus I have driven up/down/across, or given directions to Westminister Drive probably 25,000 times in my life. One day last week I was timing a trip from a new location and GoogleMaps was open on my phone when I turned into the neighborhood. "Turn left on Westminster Drive," said Miss Google maps. "Hmm” I thought, "Google needs to fix that." Then I glanced at the street sign and was shocked to realize that Google had pronounced it correctly. Westminster. There's only one "i."

My coaching advice featured in Tips For Taking Vacation Without Losing Clients. Maybe it’s an idea you’ve heard from me, maybe it’s new, or maybe it can help you disconnect without guilt for your next vacation!

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I recently read a story about the dramatic turnaround at discount retailer Target. The CEO shared one of his success tips: seek out and surround yourself with new ideas and people who challenge you to reflect and question everything – then act quickly.

That IS the strategy of a three-year-old. Look at everything through fresh eyes, Fail, Learn, Try again.

If you want to change your business outcomes, create a questioning ecosystem built around diverse teams of people who bring a variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Then encourage them to behave like three-year-olds – and you, too!

1. Stay Curious. Lead with questions to understand, first. What do YOU think? What are our options?
2. Look for connection and patterns. Especially ones you may not have seen before.
3. Be just a little impatient. Ask, What's next? And why that? When are we going to get there?
4. Challenge the status quo. Ask – and encourage others to ask – Why and/or Why not?
5. Experiment. If someone says, “we already tried that,” challenge them to find another approach that takes advantage of the learning from the last time.
6. Start over. When a pile of blocks falls down, kids don’t hold a meeting to assign blame. They just start again. Honor questions like, What if we were building from scratch today? How would we do this? What's a different way?

Remember, Leadership is not about a title; anyone can be a Leader who constantly learns and grows and creates an environment for others to do the same.

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The Executive Happiness Coach® is a global provider of Executive Coaching and mentoring services. With clients in 27 countries and six continents, my passion is to help build a Happier world and workplace, one Leader at a time.

Want more Happiness, Leadership, and Coaching conversations in your life? Contact me today.

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Copyright © 2016, All Rights Reserved. Reproduction for publication is encouraged, with the following attribution:
"From HAPPINESS@TheSPEEDofLIFE, by Jim Smith, PCC, The Executive Happiness Coach®. For more tips on Leading with Happiness, visit www.TheExecutiveHappinessCoach.com."

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