The opening keynote for The Conference Board coaching conference* I’m attending (twitter hashtag #tcbcoaching) was given by Marshall Goldsmith.

Now I’m not a huge Goldsmith fan. It’s not that I don’t like (or disagree with) WHAT he talks about, it’s just that I find that, sometimes, I find the WAY he talks about things doesn’t resonate for me as much as it does for others.

Such was the case this morning, as well. His topic was mainly about his new book – released just this Tuesday - ”MOJO: How To Get It, How To Keep It, How To Get It Back If You Lose It.”

Basically, it’s about the importance of striving for not just happiness OR meaning, but happiness AND meaning. (Nothing new to me in that.)

Here are some excerpts of note, however: “What matters most in life?” he rhetorically asked, and then answered.

1. Health – first and foremost; no ifs, ands, or buts.
2. Wealth – Key point: Money is only positively correlated with happiness up to around $60K-$85K/year. (a topic discussed in greater detail at the 1st World Congress on the Positive Psychology I attended last year.)
3. Relationships - People who spend more time with people they love away from work, are more satisfied (happier) when at work! (Yes, counterintuitive, but logical. Look at it this way, we all need love. Any time a need goes unmet, we tend to get cranky. Since we spend so much time at work, it’s likely that our crankiness will express itself there. Conversely, if our need for love is met out side of work, we don’t need to try to get it met at work. This makes it easier to just focus on the work at hand, which we’ll likely do better when we’re not otherwise distracted.)
4. Meaningfulness – that which provides long-term benefit.
5. Happiness – that which provides short-term satisfaction. BTW, hours spent working do NOT correlate with happiness, just as hours watching tv (happy?) do not correlate with a meaningful life. Oh, and when it comes to meaningfulness and happiness,, they must be SELF-defined. Otherwise they simply won’t make us happy or give our lives meaning.

Other Randoms:

• The MOJO Paradox – the ‘default’ reaction in life is NOT happiness, and is NOT meaningfulness. It is INERTIA.
• “Be as happy as you can; find as much meaning as you can.”
• 5 prevailing models for happiness and meaningfulness:
  • High Meaningfulness/Low Gratification (happiness) = Sacrificing
  • Low Meaningfulness/ Low Gratification = Surviving
  • High Gratification/Low Meaningfulness = Stimulating
  • High Gratification/High Meaningfulness = Succeeding
  • Medium Meaningfulness/Medium Gratification = Sustaining
• Successful people spend most of their time in the Succeeding space
• “People who are miserable at work tend to be miserable at home, too.” And vice versa.
• Ask yourself: “How happy were you yesterday? How meaningful was yesterday?” and see if you (a) like your answers, and (b) can improve upon them when you ask yourself again tomorrow.

Perhaps the one thing that I liked the best of all, though, was this:

Adpot a “Be happy NOW” attitude, rather than an “I will be happy when …”

Good advice, Marshall. But as “one of the 15 most influential business thinkers in the world,” according to Forbe’s and as quoted on his book’s inner sleeve, I never got a sense of that kind of depth from his keynote. Rather, it felt much like a piece of cork just bobbing on the surface of the water for an hour or so. Based on the reactions of the audience, though, I suspect that others had differing views.

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* Disclosure: I was invited (and comped) by The Conference Board to attend this conference as a “guest blogger/tweeter.” No editorial constraints were imposed upon me, however. To their credit, The Conference Board gave me complete and total control over whatever content and comments I felt appropriate to publish, without limitation, and without prior approval.

Related posts:

1. High Potential Coaching – Panel Discussion
2. David Clutterbuck Presentation
3. A Noun Called ‘Happiness’
4. NCIS, Crime-Solving, Chart-Busting