You start a conversation with a girl at the bar, and she thinks you want something from her.

You give a round at the bar, and people think you are buying friendship.

No matter how good your intentions, doing good can always bring up the wrong impressions. Jealousy, envy, misjudgment… some people are just good at being negative.

Does that make good bad? Of course not. Rose was happy. The friend of the girl at the bar did strike up a conversation. And most people at the bar enjoyed their drink. The few negative always lose from the many positive. Don’t let the good make you feel bad.

Two shirts of your favorite football club. One is worn once by the club icon. The other one is worn once by a random person. Two of exactly the same shirt. But you like the first one better.

Ratio versus emotion. The conscious mind versus the unconscious mind.

You know number one is right. But number two wins. You can choose to fight it. But you’ll lose. Better laugh at it. And then accept it.

‘The railroads are in trouble today not because the need for transportation was filled by others, but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business.’ Theodore Levitt, Harvard professor and author

What’s your purpose? Why are you here?

We all know positive emotions are good. But it does more than make you feel pleasant. That counts for business as well. Happiness researchers have found that positivity boosts profitability. ‘It is a neon sign that growth is under way, that psychological capital is accumulating’, says positive psychology professor Martin Seligman. In a research, Marcel Losada looked at the words being said in business meetings; how many were positive, and how many were negative? He found that companies with better than a 2.9:1 ratio for positive to negative statements are flourishing. Below that ratio, companies are not doing well economically.

How happy is your company?

Next step:

Read Flourish from Martin Seligman to learn to introduce happiness into your company.

On the 28th march, Simon Sinek will be in the The Netherlands to talk about marketing and leadership. On the event, we will be interviewing him about his carreer path. If you have any questions you would like us to ask him, make sure you drop a note!

Below, you find a video of one of his inspiring talks at Ted.

‘If you hire people just to do the job they work for your money. If you hire people that believe what you believe, they work for you with blood, sweat and tears.’

‘Profits and cash flow are like blood and water to a healthy body: they are absolutely essential for life, but they are not the very point of life.’ – Jim Collins

‘We need red blood cells to live (the same way a business needs profits to live), but the purpose is not to make red blood cells (the same way the purpose of business is not to exist to make profit).’ - Ed Freeman

Jay Coen Gilbert shares his vision to harness the power of business to solve society’s problems through B Corporations — a new standard labeling socially and environmentally responsible companies. B Corps helps corporations to be profitable while solving society’s problems.

Got this video via @karmakees

‘Happy? As in chocolate pudding happy? Tickle Me Elmo happy? Getting to the truth of long-term happiness, of doing real work that matters–that has to be at the heart of what we do every day. But if we fall for the false siren of short-term, selflish, marketing driven happy, we’re doomed. Bernie Madoff was happy for a while…’*

Long-term, prosocial, marketing driven happy is the key to be succesful.

First seen here.

Children have an inbuilt desire to play and get dirty. An insight the Dutch detergent brand focuses on.

Key driver for business

Making dirty clothes clean.

Real brand value:

Live how you want to live, without the boundaries (so without worrying about getting dirty).

Societal insight

Playing outside is crucial for the physical, mental and social development of children. Research showed that children spent less than 20% less time playing outside than two years before. Parents either don’t realize it’s that important or they find it difficult to find opportunities for outside play.

The answer

The OMO Outside Play Foundation. A foundation that became officially part of NOC-NSF (Dutch Olympic Committee). It consisted of more than 40.000 clubs started by kids and their friends. Every year, the National Outside Play were held at the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam.

My opinion

When I was a child, I used to play outside all day. And so was every kid in my neighborhood. It was a fundamental part of my childhood happiness. This needs to come back. Great initiative, with a lot of fun. Good for society. And, nevertheless, good for Omo. On a long term. With all the branded content, Omo gets her (fun) brand into the hearts of children at a very young age.

Earlier, I wrote about TOMS, a shoe brand that does things differently. The Belgian shoe brand JoJo takes meaningful footprints to another level. For every pair of Jojo shoes purchased, they plant one tree or provide one person with a year of clean drinking water. What makes them different is that they offer full transparency and allow customers to track the progress of their contribution well after the point of purchase.

1. Buy your shoes.
2. Choose to help plant trees or build water pomps.
3. Check what’s the difference you help make.

Ideas of becoming a social entrepreneur? Let the Jojo project inspire you!