LifeDoneDifferent.ly

We've known Mark and Action for Happiness for many years but this conversation was different. Here we learned about Mark's sometimes painful journey into the world of social entrepreneurship. It was a real pleasure to talk about:

• Big questions such as "What really matters in life?"
• What happens when you climb the ladder of success only to find you're climbing the wrong ladder
• What it takes to help people experience and create a happier world
• How our leaders have forgotten to focus on the greatest happiness for the greatest number
• Why measuring GDP at a national level and personal wealth at an individual level does not measure success
• How Coca Cola have cheapened happiness
• Why the feeling of happiness is so universal but what makes us happy can be so different
• The benefits of the Stoic philosophy of choosing how we react to situations
• Changing ourselves when we are no longer able to change the situation
• The importance of 'meta cognition' aka 'noticing how you feel' as the first step to doing something about it
• The role of the Dalai Lama in the Action for Happiness movement
• What it means to live a good life and care about each other
• The Dalai Lama's secularism and his sense that we need to create a new way of being
• Consumerism and why it's such a poor substitute for purpose and a shared humanity
• The trials and tribulations of growing up in a loving Malvern family
• Noticing a depressed peer in the year above and using it as the motivation to study
• His ten years as a management consultant where he focused on the money but wasn't proud of what he did
• How he had neglected the emotional side of life
• The power of the 'good life crisis' and how it can help provide direction
• How Mark's increasing emotional discomfort with his work turned into a constant physical pain
• Mark's low point when he was diagnosed with a degenerative hereditary spinal disorder and faced the prospect of a wheelchair in his 40's
• 'Back Sense', his wife's gifted book that prompted him to think himself free of pain
• His interest in the placebo effect
• How his MBA allowed him to slowly understand himself and the human condition
• The importance of Kate, Mark's then girlfriend and now wife, in helping him do something different
• The struggle of bringing oneself to work versus knowing when to stop when you do
• The options that come with a frugal life
• The difficulty and the power of listening to your gut
• Meeting Neil Crofts and answering his three questions:
  • What are you really good at?
  • What are you passionate about?
  • What makes you angry?
• The angst of leaving The Carbon Trust and a job he loved for the challenge of Action for Happiness
• Life as a recovering people pleaser
• Following the energy when deciding where to put your own energy
• The future of Action for Happiness
• Why personal success and community success is not a zero sum gain / why me and we are the same thing

https://www.actionforhappiness.org/
www.neilcrofts.com
www.backsense.org