Published on July 20th, 2014 | by thezooooo
How do I collect karmapoints?
I got a lot of reactions on my quote about collecting karmapoints. “What do you mean with this joke, why and how do you do it?”
A few years ago I followed a Mastercourse “Effectivenes of Happiness” at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, developed by happines-professor, sociologist Ruut Veenhoven. We listened to a number of scientists, economy, psychology and a number of entrepreneurs who actually put happiness at their core of their business and have succes while doing it. Great inspiring ‘apers’ as we call them at The Zooooo.
From years of research, Veenhoven has found the 3 elements that are important to experience hapiness. How you can live your life autonomously is very important, your sense of freedom. When you were born in The Netherlands, you are already lucky on a macro-level. But you can limit your freedom in your life also. If you have a lot of possessions and you have to work a lot to maintain them, you may limit your autonomy. You can come up with al kind of reasons how you limit your autonomy.
Second: development. Are you able to develop yourself, both intellectually and emotionally? How do you develop your talents? Do you challenge yourself and keep on doing that? Are you a know-it-all or still wondering like a 7-year-old? Can you be vulnerable and step into the world as a first-grader or are you taken yourself very serious and important? We talked en heared a lot about staying curious, showing guts, trial and error, vulnerable leadership in those lessons.
Most important in experiencing hapiness: connection. Can you connect to other people? And not in a facebook-one-way-direction, but really connect. Of course with family and friend (which van also be hard if you define real connection), but even more so with people who defy your tolerance. Who give you an allergic reaction? Which is saying more about you than about them. How do you connect with them? Pffff…. luckily you have time to practise.
How do those 3 pillars of hapiness manifest in my work, I wondered? And if I would divide the work in ‘money-makers’ and the ones who would build up a good karma and even better do both, how would that be? Only way to find out, is to do it.
With volunteering, teaching and working with NGO’s and Social Enterprises I am all set for all three pillars. They pay nothing or a little bit of money and give me enough ‘karmapoints’ to last a lifetime. In volunteering for Women on Wings I am dropped in India, compleet different world and remarkable culture and although they positioning me as an expert, I feel sometimes like a first-grader. My world upsite down and completely tested on my improv-skills. De Vrije Mare is an spiritual organization, that fuels my sense of awareness. Teaching and mentoring at Design Academy Eindhoven keeps my fresh, stimulates my own creativity and is a great way to pass over experience. The Social Enterprises like OOPOEH www.oopoeh.nl, Social Salon (www.socialsalon.nl) and A Beautiful Story (www.abeautifulstory.nl) and Dokters van de Wereld (www.doktersvandewereld.org) give me (besides fun) meaningful, valuable work and I can pass over my entrepreneurial experience. And test me in implementation.
It fits the work we do at The Zooooo, helping people and organizations in transformation by delivering business-creativity, innovation and enthousiasme. Together with the teams we develop the concept, so that they are the real owners. We hope to help with change and luckily clients like it a lot that they support our other work as well. A bit ‘fair-trade/charity’-consultancy.
The fun part is: there is synergy between all the activities, it all adds up. And the 3 pillars are beautifully covered. We build up a great experience and it keeps the swarm healthy. It attracts the jobs we are apparently needed. Balancing in time is sometimes a challenge, but we are getting better and better at it. We PLAY. CHANGE. GROW. every day.
We hope you can define your work like this. How do you collect your karmapoints?
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