If you ain’t having fun in the business you’re building then why are you doing it??

Some people start a business for the Money 🤑 , some start it with a driven purpose 🫡, some start it for glory and identity 🤩.

I unashamedly started mine to have more fun! 🤣

Yep, you read that right, I started mine largely to have F U N.

Sure, I get such a kick from helping people become more effective and sure I realised I had a special talent that I should monetise but really, my main driver was to have more fun in life.

Before starting my business, I had had a successful consulting career but in some ways I’d traded my soul to make it to the pinnacle of that career 😈; I’d made a nice bit of money but where was the fun every day 😥?

As such, a big factor when I started the business was to have more fun day-to-day and as such that became the only metric I measured every week; not revenues, not clients but levels of fun.

From Day 1, when it was just me, every Friday afternoon I would assess how much fun I had had the previous week. I didn’t overthink it, came up with a score out of 10 and wrote it down 📈 .

I kept doing that every Friday, keeping a log of the scores over time 📝.

As the business expanded and I started growing a team, I kept the tradition going and got the team to score their weeks too.

By doing this I was able to determine an average business score (8.1 over the last 6.5 years in case you are wondering). Most importantly, I discovered something amazing:

The more fun we had, the more money we made!!!!!

My hypothesis for this is that as we have more fun then this flows into our work and our interactions with clients, which in turn is infectious and leads to more and better projects ♻️.

Another hypothesis is that by having more fun, you approach work in a more positive mindset which is shown to lead to better creativity, team working, productivity, resilience and more 💪.

Of course fun can’t magically evaporate a depressed economy but it can make you stand out in a crowded market and that can be all the difference you need.

What does fun look like?

If you look at my LinkedIn feed you will see a lot of me smiling and having fun:

• Fun delivering training
• Fun running workshops
• Fun facilitating
• Fun delivering keynotes
• Fun hosting dinners
• Fun guesting on podcasts
• Fun learning a new skill
• Fun receiving negative feedback
• Fun working on my weaknesses
• Fun doing mundane tasks
• Fun sending voice notes
• Fun networking
• Fun networking in random places
• Fun listening to talks
• Fun going to conferences
• Fun cycling
• Fun having business breakfasts
• Fun drinking coffee
• Fun asking for help
• Fun helping others
• Fun observing human behaviours
• Fun observing more human behaviours
• Fun meeting my doppelganger
• Fun having lunch with my dad
• Fun posting on LinkedIn
• Fun using AI
• Fun trying new things

How can you have more fun?

As I outlined in my popular article: “Why I smile at golf balls and why you should too” 🏌🏻; the key to having more fun in work is three-fold:

1. Can you utilise something you already find fun in your work? — I have a friend who runs a business but hates sales; however, what he does Love is dressing up in his old military uniform. So he turned that into his business development; he dresses up in the uniform once a week and then walks the halls of a conference and that generates the conversations that generate the sales for his engineering firm
2. Can you bring fun people and/or fun activities into your business? — this doesn’t have to just be employees. I know one business owner that invites a comedian to serious team sessions to generate a bit of levity. Or I’ve seen people select suppliers and customers based on how fun that relationship is
3. Can you make yourself laugh alongside your work? — simply taking time to do fun things before you do work can make all the difference; it’s why firms have team socials and provide nice benefits in offices. But it doesn’t have to all be expensive stuff: simply creating space for relaxed coffees, being a bit more creative, doing stupid stuff together and using fun office-based activities. All it takes is some out-of-the-box thinking.

If you need any ideas then hit me up, I always have some lightning rods and speed bumps up my sleeve 🤔.

If all else fails do some kung-fu punctuation 🥋.

Here’s to us all having more fun in our work; I’m on a mission to make it happen 🙌

Faris

Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here

Success = IQ x EQ x FQ

Want to assess your levels of IQ, EQ and FQ? click here

Originally Published on https://farisaranki.medium.com/

Faris Aranki Strategy & Emotional Intelligence

Having spent over 20 years delivering strategic change for the corporate and non-corporate worlds, Faris has experienced first-hand the fine differences between strategic success and failure.
His work has spanned numerous companies (from global behemoths to small start-ups), in numerous countries, across a range of sectors, supporting them all to unlock strategic success.

He came to realize that often what hinders institutions from achieving their goals goes beyond the quality of their strategy; it is their ability to engage effectively with others at all levels and remove barriers in their way. This has led to his passion for improving strategic effectiveness within all businesses and individuals and the foundation of Shiageto Consulting.

Over time, Faris has worked to distill his knowledge of how to solve complex problems in a structured manner combined with his skill on engaging effectively with others and his ability to quickly determine the barriers to a strategy's success. This knowledge has formed the foundation of Shiageto’s workshops, courses and methodologies. Faris believes that any firm or team can adopt these improvements; all it requires is a little of the right support -something Shiageto provides!

On top of leading our business, Faris is now an accomplished speaker and contributor for a variety of outlets.