Happiness is not just a feeling, but an action that can be intentionally built within an organisation. By prioritising happiness and promoting engagement, pride, and appreciation, companies can create a culture that leads to profitability and success.

Dr Pelè developed the concept of "profitable happiness", which centres around the notion that organisations can create a culture of happiness that leads to engaged and productive employees, and ultimately, profitability. Dr Pelè emphasises the importance of eudaimonic happiness, which focuses on engagement, meaning, and purpose, rather than just seeking pleasure.

With this framework, managers can create habits of profitable happiness by providing appreciation, autonomy, and recognition to their employees.

Links

• Profitable Happiness: The 5 Key Habits of a High-Performance Organization – Dr Pelè’s book
• The Profitable Happiness Podcast
• Eudaimonia
• Try the Profitable Happiness software beta
• Go Kaba Monate – Dr Pelè & Mash Macaroni (closing music)

Welcome to this episode of the Happy Manifesto Podcast, and today we have Dr.

Kelly of Profitable Happiness.

I'm Henry Stewart

And I'm Maureen Egbe.

So to start off, Henry, I'm gonna ask you first What has been your joyful moment?

My joyful a moment was last week we had a staff happy day.

Um, and we don't get the staff together a lot happy since the pandemic.

Um, but this time we had nearly everybody.

Um, we went for a scavenger boat on, we went up and down the Regent Canal and asked lots of questions.

It was just, Just beautiful.

We had a, a lunch and then in the afternoon we had, well we, some people did ax throwing.

I, I didn't do ax throwing.

I do shuffle boarding, which was how you, uh.

But, but the great thing, but it wasn't about the actions with it, it was just about getting to meet everybody and, and see them and discover about them.

Yeah.

That was fabulous.

And I missed that day.

I did.

I wanted to do some of the xray, but everybody said they had such a great time.

But, the thing that made it worth me missing it was my joyful moment.

Because I was delivering my apprenticeship Global Majority Workshop and one of, um, one of my people shared that they got promoted.

So using the leadership skills, um, and strategies, they were able to apply themselves and they felt so confident and they are now in a senior position.

So,

Excellent.

That's what, well, that's what we need from that, isn't

that's it.

That's celebrations all rounds.

Excellent.

And your the, your, what makes, what makes happy.

Happy.

I was just thinking about this and I'm thinking about Happiness cuz we've got Dr.

Pelè on, but um, it was about actually creating that space.

I know here at Happy we've got a lovely cafe and it's an opportunity where people can come together and have a conversation.

So walk away from the workspace, and then have that moment to be able to share and meet with other colleagues, not just being stuck at the desk.

So I think it's something that everybody should do at their work, in work, always walk away from workspace and find that time to have conversations with other people within your team, within your department.

Absolutely.

And I will make that my happy moment too, because there was, there was a point at Happy when we moved into the new office where somebody dropped chocolate on the floor somewhere.

It was probably me actually.

But, you know, and, and people then people said, no, we're not gonna have any food in the office.

So that meant you, you, you couldn't, uh, have your lunch in, in, uh, at the office.

You had to go out into the cafe.

And, and it was great cuz you got to meet other people.

You got to actually see people who, you know, might, might not normally meet.

And that was, that was something that made a big difference, I think to, to Happy.

Anyway, let's move on to Dr.

Pelè.

Now my mom would not forgive me if I didn't greet you properly.

Okay.

So it was amazing that, um, Henry's got you on the show cause um, you are a fellow Biafran, cuz I'm from Biafra as well.

And so to start off, can you just tell us about your childhood and Biafra, because I know that was, uh, that's a major part of your story.

All right.

Well, Maureen, it's a pleasure to meet you and Henry, thank you so much for, uh, making this happen.

Um, so going way back to Biafra is quite a stretch because it's something that happened in the sixties.

Biafra was a, a, uh, sort of, uh, a part of Nigeria, which is a country in West Africa, and they wanted to break away from Nigeria.

And Biafra was, or rather what we call Biafra, was actually a civil war between Nigeria and this little breakaway, you know, country of the Iboes.

Now the Iboe are a tribe within Nigeria.

The, the, their effort to break away was not successful.

Um, but that war.

Uh, had millions of people dying.

Um, I think, uh, close to 3 million people died.

Uh, people were, uh, I'm talking about on the biran side.

People were, uh, struggling in, in, you know, uh, hunger, kashko people.

Just, it was really a terrible time in the, in the late sixties.

And I was one of those children, uh, you know, you might see black and white pictures of.

Of those children with the big stomachs.

I was one of those children and, and I was, uh, fortunate to, um, survive that war along with my mother and other people.

And that war actually has a lot to do with why I'm in the business of, uh, what I call profitable Happiness today.

And I'm happy to share more about that, but that's the context of Biafra.

But going back to why, why this topic of Happiness is so, Important to me personally, you know, for everyone it's gonna be different, but Happiness is really something that we all strive for and, um, everyone has roots somewhere.

For me it started, as I said, in Biafra, you know, I just want you to imagine bombs, bombs falling.

People are dying everywhere of, of hunger and you're afraid the soldiers are gonna come drive you away.

And, and we're going from refugee camp to refugee camp.

And as a child, I was about two or three years old.

When my mother couldn't find food to eat and she couldn't find a way to keep me safe, she did the strangest thing.

You know what she did?

She would sing to me.

She would take my name, Pelè, and put it inside a song.

And sing to me.

And the magical thing about this process of singing to me was that it was almost a distraction and it took my mind away from being afraid to die and the fact that I was hungry and all those kinds of things, and it focused me on something that made me happy.

And believe it or not, people around the village and around the refugee camps would gather around and sing along with us, and it became this big community affair of staying happy as a way of surviving.

And so that was when I learned my life's first lesson, which is Happiness.

Is a thing, it's a tangible thing, and it comes before success.

It can come even before survival because it will lead to success.

And so once I learned that there's this thing, if I do the things that make me happy, somehow it's gonna lead me to the place I want to be from a tangible profit, uh, uh, point of view, that was the key for me.

And so I, I am a musician because of that ex, uh, fir, uh, first experience.

But I'm also a, a, an avid.

Per, uh, per, I mean, avid pursuit, uh, for, I've always been an avid pursuit of Happiness because Happiness first leads me to the success that I want in my life and in my work.

So that's what profitable Happiness means.

If you think about companies today, you know, they're dealing with 70% disengaged employees.

You hear numbers like 85% of employees are dissatisfied with their jobs now.

You know, for a minute, just, just think about this.

What if you could launch a culture in these companies where, where employees are engaged, fully feeling appreciated and, and happy, and, and, and what if you could deliver some kind of an employee experience where everyone gets to participate in creating high performance?

That's profitable Happiness in an organizational context, right?

And that's what I help, uh, people work on is how do we have happy employees to really produce professional and, and, and, and positive business results beyond just the, the saying of our employees are the, you know, best asset we have really doing it.

How do you do that?

It's by making sure that employees have a positive experience and are profitably happy.

It's, it's so in line with what we are talking about that creating that joy at work, you know.

I mean, there's a, a statement that you made when I listen to one of your interviews and it said that Happiness is not a feeling, it's an action.

It's trusting.

So true.

So true.

So many of us misunderstand Happiness.

You know, a lot of people think Happiness is just a feeling that they're gonna experience after they get rich or after they buy that Lamborghini or the big house down the road.

And the funny thing is, when they buy the big house down the road and move in, they find out that they're still miserable.

Because, because, because it has nothing to do with those feelings and those achievements.

Instead, Happiness is an action that we do.

There's a lot of science that supports the fact that inside of our brains, there is a place where if we engineer it right and do the right things and say the right things, Happiness can be created.

In fact, there's something I do on my podcast.

Um, I always ask my guests to start by smiling so we can get a picture, right?

The funny thing is when they smile and I smile, we're just putting on a smile.

We can't help but feel happy because the action of smiling, you just can't.

It's like, look, if I yawn, you're gonna want to yawn.

It's an automatic thing that happens.

It's the same thing when I put on a happy face like this.

I feel something, all of a sudden I'm creating happiness.

So imagine if we, if we took that little example and put that in an organizational context, and you could show people that this idea of Happiness is something we can build as a habit.

Meaning if we can develop the muscles of Happiness, we will be happier and therefore we will be more focused and engaged in doing the things that creates, uh, uh, profitable results for our company.

So that's the link between Happiness and profitability.

It's actions, it's habits.

But it's not, it's not about hedonism, is it?

You talk about eudaimonism.

What is eudaimonism?

Oh, what, what, what an excellent, uh, point.

Again, back to the misunderstanding that most people have.

When you go to a place and you say, I'm here to help your employees become happy.

They go, uh, okay.

Uh, because they think, because they think that Happiness.

Is, you know, this sort of fuzzy, warm feeling of pleasure and, uh, achieving, you know, you know, just, yeah, I'm happy.

Or, or, or maybe, you know, having, uh, what do they call it, uh, ping pong tables in the foyer.

That's an example I like to use.

You know, let's get some ping pong tables and let's look like Google or something, you know?

That's not what we mean by Happiness.

What we mean by Happiness, companies like Google actually do practice that, right?

Beyond the foyers and the, you know, the, the, the ping pong tables.

It's this idea that you mentioned Henry called eudaimonism, which was, uh, introduced by, uh, Aristotle many years ago as a sort of a counterpart, a different way of viewing what Happiness is versus just seeking pleasure.

And what what it is, and it's not been researched and supported by a lot of social science.

What it is, is eudaimonic happiness is really the A, a focus on engagement, on doing things that you love, things that bring meaning into your life.

You know, you may have heard of the concept of flow that is all within this sphere of eudaimonic happiness.

Look, when I'm playing my guitar, I can't help but be happy because I'm in a place of real focus and engagement that covers my entire mind, and that is what we need employees to do.

We need employees to really be personally invested, emotionally invested in their work.

That is Happiness.

That's eudaimonic happiness.

And that's what I call.

Profitable Happiness, by the way, because eudaimonic is a funny word, and I, I, I didn't want to be marketing that word.

So instead of eudaimonic happiness, just replace that with profitable Happiness.

Definitely.

So, so can you share a strategy that you would use to, to encourage organizations to become profitable in Happiness?

Yeah, no, that, that's really a, a great point.

You know, there's a three step process.

It's a very specific process that has to be made or gone through.

And companies like Zoom, by the way, and, uh, Zappos have done this brilliantly, and we can talk about that later.

But, It's a three step process.

The first step is focus on happiness.

Actually build happiness intentionally within your organization as a thing for people to aspire to, right?

So leadership has to step in and say, Hey, you know, we're not just here to give you paychecks and tell you what to do.

We want you to actually be happy doing what you do.

So that's step number one, is focus on Happiness as a real tangible deliverable of your organization to employees.

Step number two is create habits of profitable happiness.

Right?

You see, when we, when we turn to the magic of habits, our brains are so powerful.

It's unbelievable.

If you think about Pelè, the greatest soccer player on earth that I was named after, um, just imagine when he did that soccer kick, right?

When he was pretty much upside down in his foot was up and he scored the goal that won the entire World Cup back in the sixties.

Let me tell you something.

He practiced really hard to get that, okay?

This is not something he just woke, woke up and did.

He built so many little tiny habits before he was able to actually do that effortlessly.

That's what we need when it comes to engagement, employee experience, happiness appreciation, you know?

Simply saying thank you to people.

If we can build habits around that, you know, or, or, or, or recognition of people's, you know, uh, uh, what people do.

When we build habits around that we really take Happiness and move it into the tangible and move it into how you then begin to create uh, uh, profitability.

So it's three steps.

Step number one is Happiness as a focus.

Number two is turn those, uh, uh, Happiness elements like engagement and experience into habits.

And then those habits will power the great skills that we need to create profitable outcomes.

Um, and just to kind of Maureen, go back to maybe a very simple answer, cause I know I've given you a three step process.

It's brilliant.

I love it.

thank you.

You wanna know one of the best ways to create.

Habits with people?

Software.

Software is one of the most powerful ways, and that's why I'm a software developer.

You know, um, not only do I have this book called Profitable Happiness, but we have a software tool called Profitable Happiness, and it helps to, yeah, it helps to implement the habits with the employee base of profitable happiness, such as engagement, higher engagement, higher, you know, uh, you know, pride, you see me looking over at the board there cuz I have this big thing where I always talk about the five key habits of profitable happiness.

And that's Happiness appreciation, a sense of pride at work, um, participation with the organization, and then engagement.

So when you have those things, and actually it spells H A P P yard six y of engagement.

It actually spells H A P P Y so I can remember it, right?

But when you have all those habits developing every single week in an organization through the use of software, that's how you move your culture toward productivity.

now, Dr.

Pelè, some people will say, is this about forced happiness?

Is this about managers making their people be happy?

Um, but I think the, the, the key is, uh, I think you talked about Daniel Pink in your book.

The key is to give people that mastery, autonomy, and purpose, isn't it?

It's, uh, uh, giving people that freedom.

Absolutely.

You know, it is a, it is a balancing act.

We do talk about, Managers are responsible for so much, you know, making, uh, making their employees happy.

The truth is you really can't make anyone happy.

But what you can do as a manager is you can provide a sense of appreciation to your employees.

You can, as you said, Henry, give them autonomy.

Tell them what the goal of the, or the objective of, of, of what has to be done is, and then step out of the way, let them do it.

Right.

And so by, by giving people that autonomy you've mentioned by, by allowing people to feel appreciated when they do great things and giving them recognition for the things they do, that's the engine that leaders and managers can put in place that will allow people to be happy.

You can't make them happy, but you can allow their Happiness to flourish and to grow.

Uh, and can you give some examples of, uh, where this, where you, either you've put it in place or you, you quoted, uh, zoom in the book or something like that?

Yeah, well Zoom, I'll talk about myself and my organization in a minute, but Zoom is a great example.

The, the c e o and the leader of Zoom has based his entire life pretty much on the concept of making.

His employees happy.

Because once you make your employees happy and you set the mission of the organization to making customers happy, everybody complies because everybody wants to be happy.

It's really a beautiful thing.

And I, I, I love what, I love what the Zoom, uh, his name is.

Uh, Eric Yuan, by the way, uh, the CEO of Zoom.

I love what he says.

He says that if you want to make anyone happy, uh, sorry.

If you want to be happy, rather you have to make other people happy, right?

It's a very interesting thing.

If you wanna be happy, you have to make other people happy.

I'm reminded of, uh, imagine this example.

Um, you know, that I heard recently .A classroom teacher, uh, brought a whole bunch of balloons to his, uh, uh, uh, to her students.

And she said, okay, everyone, I want you to write your name.

On this balloon, and we're gonna throw these balloons, uh, outside into the hallway.

So all the kids wrote their names.

Every person put one name on, on one balloon, and then they put all the balloons outside in the hallway.

So you can imagine a hallway full of balloons just everywhere, right?

And then the teacher said, okay, now go outside into the hallway and find your balloon and bring it back in.

So all the kids rushed out and they started to look for these balloons.

Uh, let me tell you, it was a, a disaster because nobody could find the balloon do with their name on it because all the balloons are going all over the place.

So the, so the teacher gave them a different instructor in instruction.

She said, okay, now this time go back outside and find any balloon and whoever.

Has a name on that balloon, find the person who has the name and give that balloon to the person with the name.

That was easy.

They went outside, everybody grabbed a balloon real quick, ran back in, looked at the name and gave it to someone and made that person so happy.

And what's interesting is that's how Happiness works.

If you wanna be happy, stop looking for it so much for yourself.

Give it to other people and you'll be shocked at how happy that makes you feel.

So when you make customers happy, You are happy when you make employees happy as a leader, or not make them happy, but when you allow them to be happy, you are happy because the results all come back.

And so Happiness is almost a two step phase.

Uh, you know, recognize Happiness and then work on making other people around you Happiness, uh, around you happy.

Whether you're a leader or an employee, it always works every time.

I love that and.

What it sounds as, as you are saying is that it's not also about just spending money, it's just about taking that moment in time to, you know, share appreciate, as you said, it just can be something to acknowledge something that's done well.

And when you feel good, others feel good and they pay it back in kind.

So it sounds awesome, Dr.

Pelè.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You know, I can't tell you how many times, I, myself, personally, have been in organizations where the leadership just didn't care about my Happiness.

Um, and I saw this was with other people as well.

And you know, after a while you just start to wonder, what am I doing here?

I'm miserable.

And, and, and as you said Henry earlier, I think, you know, this money thing, they're giving me it, it's actually not working.

It's not making me happy.

So I think if we really see that when people spend their entire lifetimes at, at work, eight in the morning, actually earlier, cuz they gotta drive to work and, and then, and then they get off at five or six and they've gotta drive home, they've spent the entire day in your location.

How about just helping them feel good about where they are and what they're doing and help them be happy if you get that right.

Everything else works out.

So, yeah, so, so it's not about giving people great pay, you know, as you quoted in the book, but it's about getting people to do what they love.

Is that right?

It really is.

And for people who think that you know, well, how can I ever fix this?

You can fix this.

You can go into your organization, and you can take a look, take an inventory of the jobs that people are doing and find out, do a survey.

Are you happy with the job?

And, and let me tell you, we're not asking you this for any negative reason.

We wanna know how we can maybe reposition your skills within that job, or maybe with another job.

Maybe this is a career path so that you can really find that space where you're fully invested, you're engaged, and you're happy at what you do.

Um, when, when people, you know, Can make that shift within an organization, things can work out.

You don't have to fire people, you don't have to hire new people.

You can take the people that you have and just help them reposition their skills toward the, the things that really bring out that you eudaimonic happiness in their work.

What is the best story that you've come across in terms of putting profitable Happiness in the workplace?

Okay, well, I'll, I'll tell you, I'll tell you two stories.

The, the first one is about one of my all time heroes.

His name is Seth Godin.

Um, Seth Godin is an author, just a, a world renowned author, and I was fortunate to have him on my podcast.

And he shared a story about Bruce Springsteen, and how Bruce Springsteen really had no talent.

He was a failure.

He was not a great singer.

He was not a great, uh, guitar player or musician.

Um, but somehow he was able to be successful.

And the question is, was it, was it his talent that made him successful or was it the fact that he just showed up and that he surrounded himself with a community of practice that supported him?

And, and, and because of that community of practice and all the good things that come from a community of engaged people, he was able to be successful.

And so what I, what I take away from that story is that, you know, a lot of people put too much, uh, emphasis on talent.

You know, we are individually great.

No.

The fact is, when you form communities of practice with other people, and your goal is the use of the greatest use of your skills and your talents to find Happiness for everyone, you really, really do achieve exponential results and success.

Now I, in my life I've had, um, many opportunities in work and in other places, and, and the specific place that I had was enjoining bands, right?

A lot of bands you join are all about the leader and you just show up and do what you're told.

It's almost like an employment.

And you, and, and you know, some people just don't like, uh, you know, feeling like they're only being told to do things and they have no autonomy and so on.

Same thing in a band.

But I joined one particular band here in Austin when I moved over.

And over dinner.

The leader sat me down and he said, this band is different.

He said, in this band, Everybody gets a chance to shine.

We're here as a community to support each other.

So that means you bring.

Two of the songs you wanna sing, you sing them, we'll support you for your song.

Uh, the other musicians will all bring their songs that they want to sing or perform.

And I watched this and I was like, this is so simple, yet so brilliant, because every single person had almost a selfish, vested interest in being there, because they got to perform their song, they got to sing, they got to be the center of attention for those two songs.

So in a set list of 10 songs, all five people were stars, okay?

Um, everyone was happy.

And that's what we have to do when we talk about employees.

We have to give them a chance to shine.

We have to create a community of practice where each one becomes a star.

They get to use their best talents in that way so that they go home every day going, yep, I'm going back to work tomorrow, because guess what?

That felt good today.

Yeah, so, so, so these are some of the stories that I believe.

They're more than stories.

They're things that really touch the heart.

Um, so if we can build communities of practice inside organizations where people get to thrive, they get to shine, they get to feel appreciated, they get to feel recognized, that's how we get people to actually walk away e every night going, now, that was an eight hour day, but gosh darn it, I'm happy I'm going back tomorrow morning.

Yeah, well, the hours will just fly by.

You won't even realize how long, uh, you know, the day has gone and you've done such great work, and as you said, everyone's left feeling really good and happy.

Did you know that, there's actually been research, and I hate to use this example, but Monday mornings at 9:00 AM is when the most heart attacks happen.

I've heard that and I avoid that.

Monday mornings at 9:00 AM.

Just happens to be when people go back to work.

Yes.

we've got a lot of work to do in this area, so that Monday mornings at 9:00 AM are a pleasurable time, because it's a time to get right back to the place where you feel appreciated, you are fully engaged, and you get a chance to shine because there's a, an entire community of practice surrounding you, just like they supported Bruce Springsteen to allow your talent to flourish.

Oh, it's been brilliant listening to your Dr.

Pillar.

Yeah.

and, uh, discovery's book, uh, Profitable Happiness, wherever you find your books.

Yeah.

And, and thank you guys, both of you, for, for the, the platform to share.

I, I just want to put out one thing is that, you know, we, we talked about being practical, you know, there's, there's the book.

And I would love for everyone to go get a copy and read it and just have fun learning how you can build habits of happiness.

But there's also the software Profitable Happiness, which is a tangible thing that companies can use.

And we're looking right now for beta partners, companies between 50 employees and 500 employees who are interested in trying the software for free so that they can improve their culture using the software.

Okay.

And how can people, uh, get, get, get that software?

first of all, they can go to profitablehappiness.com, which is where the software resides.

And of course, they can connect with me on LinkedIn.

My handle is D R P E L E, Dr.

Pelè.

Any of those will work and we can have a conversation about helping them join the beta program.

Perfect.

So what we will do is that we'll put that on the Happy Manifesto website as well.

So guys, if you wanna leave a comment and reach out and you'll find all of those links on our website too.

So we'll get the word out there.

Dr.

Pelè.

So, Henry Maureen and I are gonna have to teach you Iboe, which is the language that she used to greet me.

We're gonna have to teach you that.

You're gonna love.

It's gonna make you happy.

exactly.

Cato.

Yeah.

Cato.

Is that it?

Okay.

Yes, you, you're learning already.

Look at that smile.

Look at that smile on his face.

I loved it.

It was just the simpleness of it all in the sense of that appreciation, you know?

Um, just, just sharing about, it's just about making people feel happy.

You know, for me it's about treating people well, and I love that,

And it was intriguing that it came.

He, he, he talked about it coming as a result of the Biafran Civil War, you know, which was, uh, amazing.

Now, No, you've actually heard Prince Bruce Springsteen, haven't you?

I have, I have, you know, like, um, you know, for years I heard of him and I never really listened to his music, but there was an opportunity when the Olympics came to London, he performed at the, the Olympic Park, the Queen Elizabeth Park, and I went to listen to him and I actually thought he was really good.

And I think, um, what I thought was really great about him was that he's a great storyteller.

You know, if he songs, he tells stories and, um, you can really connect to those stories.

That's what I loved about Bruce Springsteen.

So, yeah, born in the USA artist about not singing, but, um, I won't,

Do, do sing.

No.

But it was a great show.

Um, I'm definitely gonna go and read his book.

Indeed.

Yes.

And, and use the software.

Yes, definitely.

So if you wanna find out more about Dr.

Pelè, if you'd like to leave a comment and find out more or listen to our past podcast guests, please go to our website, thehappymanifesto.com.