Not happiness but growth

I have a habit of posting random thoughts in my social media spaces which I have been doing for many years now and because of this, my digital accounts have built a substantial amount of following.

Some people boost their posts, others intentionally promote it in many creative ways but I just post stuff, announce my events and personally respond to people asking for advice. One of the most successful and respected international advertising agencies studied the platform and called the growth “organic.” I used to think that organic only applies to veggies and coffee beans but now this term is also applied to the digital economy, I now know what it means, and I take it as a compliment.

One day, I posted this thought on my Facebook page www.facebook.com/franciskong2: “If you cannot change your job, then do whatever you can to change how you feel about your job. Quitting a job to pursue happiness is not practical because happiness is simply a byproduct of what we do and how we feel. There is no such thing as a perfect job except the one you create. Ask me and I have tons of stories to tell.”

You would never guess what happened. The post generated 17,000 “likes” and was “shared” 4,956 times as of this writing and produced a plethora of comments, counter comments, and replies such of which is rare with the other posts I do.

And as usual there would be brash, rude and crass comments embellished with a lot of cusses and curses about how toxic their work is and how stupid my advice was. They dish out comments like, “If you are not happy with your job then quit! There are many jobs out there waiting for you…” A common comment arising from the young would be, “The chief purpose of life is to be happy.” Well it seems like these young people have been considerably influenced by clichés-mouthing “motivational speakers,” celebrities and personalities encouraging them to seek for happiness at all cost as this forms the gist of their commencement speeches. And this has formed their mindset and the young have bought it lock, stock and barrel (which is an expression of the not-so-young people like me).

But when I look at the folks who are considerably more senior in their years of work you would generally get comments like: “This is true. I have worked many years and developed a career out of it that enables me to have an honorable life and feed my family in the process… happiness is not success, it is just a state of mind…”

I learn the most when I see the comments, reactions, replies and most importantly, the questions posted by my FB folks. But this one is really strange and crazy at the same time. While they publicly posted their opposition and argument against my post and refer to it as being “stupid” and “senseless,” the same people would quietly send me a “PM” or “private message” asking me for advice as to what they should do in their jobs because the feeling they have urges them to quit and look for another job that would make them “happy,” but the uncertainty of losing their jobs and venturing out into the unknown stops them from doing so.

Do you see the duplicity of public posts and private thoughts? But to be fair, 90 percent of those who want to quit their jobs are “unhappy” not because of their jobs but because of their “toxic bosses.” And if this were a disease this would have been considered pandemic! This major cause of employee attrition would have easily been corrected if only managers, team leads, and newly appointed managers have been seriously trained in the area of leadership skills.

The fact is that there are many managers out there who jerk their people around and create such a toxic environment for their people such that everyday work for them is living hell.

Good managers are good leaders who inspire their people to bring out their potential to produce good results by inspiring them, mentoring and reproducing themselves through them. And as they grow their people, the people grow the business. And this can be done only when predicated on the condition that the leader himself grows first. In other words, good leadership is always in the growth business.

Meanwhile, this is what I tell the young every time I get to be invited to do talks, trainings and seminars. “The purpose of life is not to be happy. There are many happy losers out there whose chief end in life is to make it to “happy hour.” But what would bring happiness is the process of growth and service.

And again, without relenting to public pressure let me re-emphasize and say… “happiness is merely a byproduct…” And this time I would add… “a state of mind.”

(Ken Blanchard and John Maxwell’s accredited industry practitioners and subject matter experts join Francis Kong in an afternoon conference titled: Leadership Excellence – The Winning Edge! On March 2, 2018 at CITY CLUB at Alphaland Makati. For registration and inquiries contact Jacque at 0999 7283971 or Mary at 0917 8173736 or call Inspire-UN Leadership Consultancy Inc. 777 6038)