On Thursday July 15, the Business21C community was treated to a hugely entertaining, uplifting and enlivening double act: Dr Happy, aka UTS Adjunct Professor Dr Timothy Sharp, and his friend and inspiration Darren Percival, otherwise known as vocal artist Mr Percival. While Dr Happy appealed to the intellectual side of the audience, presenting well-researched and reasoned arguments for the practice of happiness in everyday life, Mr Percival just did it – giving the audience something to smile about there, then and afterwards.
http://www.vimeo.com/14109356Happiness is a choice we make everyday. It’s a matter of practice, active positivity, of looking for the bright side, of not settling for just OK. Happiness is not necessarily about optimal human functioning. It’s about thriving and flourishing despite whatever context you’re in. It’s about enjoying the good times, but getting through the bad times as well as you can.
http://www.vimeo.com/14076033Psychology has traditionally focused on fixing the negative – ensuring an absence of distress or anxiety, depression or other psychological problems. Positive psychology aims for better than well, to ‘play above the line’, in the parlance of Dr Happy’s Happiness Institute.
He believes that a key obstacle to many people’s happiness is ‘the tyranny of when…’ the addictive but destructive belief that ‘I’ll be happy when… I have more money, a bigger house, a better job, when I get that promotion, when I lose some weight, when I find the love of my life or [insert pretty much anything you like here!]’.
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with aspiring to be and to have more, the problem is that many people never achieve their goals because they’re too focused on the future and not focused enough on the here and now; and even if they do achieve their goals, many then think of something else that they ‘need’ before they can really feel happy. Does that sound familiar?
Dr Happy has developed a new approach; an approach that involves getting happy first. The premise is that by creating positivity in the first instance you’ll be more likely to achieve your goals. And there’s even more good news; this idea is supported by well-conducted, valid and reliable scientific studies. It doesn’t just sound good, it actually works. The aim of the game, says Dr Happy, is to have at least three positive emotions or experiences for every three negative ones.
‘The greatest risk is not that we will aim too low and hit, but that we don’t aim at all, too many people stumble through life, wander along… do you want to live an okay life, stumbling across happiness every now and again, or do you want to create a great life, a meaningful and purposeful life, one one in which we connect with others?’
http://www.vimeo.com/14103649To add to all this practical advice, Dr Happy invited a special and inspirational friend, Mr Percival, a vocal artist of national renown, to provide the audience with practical experience in creating happiness – there and then.
Darren Percival has achieved an outstanding reputation in Australia as an artist, musician, vocal coach and jazz singer of talent, imagination and skill. With over twenty years of professional experience, he has worked as an entertainer, recording artist, singing teacher and innovator with resounding results. A childhood spent in Mexico inspired the canvas for Darren’s ‘spontaneous vocalisation’, and recording monthly cassette tapes for family and friends back home in Australia propelled his fascination with recording the human voice and being able to play it back.
The Business21C audience experienced live, first hand, the inspirational impact music and practical positivity can have on their lives.