The Happiness Project

The last few weeks have been rather stressful, and it felt great to get all that positive feedback on my last post so, inspired by the Delivering Happiess Movement, I’m going to start my own little Happiness Project.

It’s nothing much, just a small daily effort to notice at least one nice moment. Noticing those times has helped me keep a positive attidude the last few weeks, and I’d like to hear more about all of yours too, so I’m going to try to post a little blurb at the end of my blog post every day remembering at least one good thing from that day and invite you to share yours with me too =]

I’ve noticed that, since I started doing, I’ve become much more conscious of all the good things in my life. At first, I only noticed one thing each day, but now I notice several! I hope you’ll do this with me and that it’ll bring you more happiness too =]

So, for yesterday’s moment: while I was handing out badges for Startups for business (which went well–I’ll post something about it later), there were some lulls since most people arrived by the time the event was under way, so I got to hang out downstairs by myself for a few hours. During that time, a Chinese couple wandered in looking for Printemps, a fancy French department store. They were lost so I took a look at their map, showed off my complete lack of directions, and went outside to find someone who could help them. It turned out someone was going that way and offered to walk them there =D Now that was a great use of my time ❤

The Printemps store they were looking for

What about you? What made you happy today? What nice moment did you have?

Why Being Social Is Awesome (Check Out My Bike!)

I haven’t gotten my camera memory card back yet, but I couldn’t resist sharing one of the coolest moments from Jason Calacanis’ LAUNCH conference with you.

One of the things my boss wanted me to do at the conference was to go around and find judges and somehow entice them to come to our booth (we were just one of dozens of startups in the demo pit, but if one judge found our startup really cool they could have brought us on stage to pitch in front of the whole conference.)

That’s not a very good strategy though. Have you ever been hunted? For anything… a favor, money, even a homeless person trying to get a few coins? It’s NOT an enjoyable experience. So I had the following thought process: if I was a judge, would I get sick of entrepreneurs chasing me around trying to get me to go check out their cool SoLoMo startup? Um… yeah! I would! Would I avoid anyone making a bee line for me? Heh, well… I would be a little cautious. So why the hell would I do that to them?

The way I saw it, our best chance at success (and at my actually enjoying the conference–the first day was pretty boring since all I got to do was stand at the booth) was to just be my usual social, cheerful self =] so that’s what I did. I walked around the stands chatting everyone up, trying on costumes (no joke! Pictures will go up once I get my camera memory card back) and taking pictures… and lo and behold, I ran into judges!

So I just kept going =] One judge I ran into had an awesome bike! So what did I do? I asked for a ride ^^ and I got it!! He let me do several laps around the conference! Yeah… I was proud =D He had me film a little schpeel about how the bike rode for his blog too ❤ (I’ll post the link once I’ve got it.) And we did end up stopping by the stand so I could grab my camera, so he learned about Contract Live too.

Told you that ride was awesome! Can you see the peddals?

The coolest part though? Bill Warner (the judge in question), a famous entrepreneur and Angel investor, asked for my opinion on an investment he was considering. Oh was I proud then! I’ll have to save those details for another post though ;D I want to see what y’all think about the startup he was considering.

So? Are you gonna be even more social and awesome now that you’ve read how awesome it can make your day? =]

*As if that encounter wasn’t cool enough as it is, he told me I should go into tv =]

Sugar Rainbows and Flying Kittens

Wow, what an amazing day! Totaly has been amazerockome ! Um… amazing, rocking and awesome? I feel like a puppy high on rainbow candy (probably sound like one right now too.)

PS: no, I am NOT on drugs, just very excited and running an important sleep deficit.

The 5 reasons today is awesome:

1. The internet wasn’t working when I got to work this morning, so I got to take my time and enjoy eating breakfast: a nutella sandwich =3 Oh those simple pleasures…
2. The mayor came to visit our office building. No joke. There was a procession of cleaners (wish I was kidding ><;), reporters, city officials… even champagne and snacks =3 He didn’t come to our office, but he did visit Spideo‘s (they’re friends with my bosses–does that include me by extension??)
   

   Bertrand Delanoë, mayor of Paris, visiting Spideo's office at Paris Région Innovation Nord Express.

3. Alex is arriving in Paris in just an hour and a half! I’m beyond excited to see him ^^
4. There’s an AIESEC Alumni France Café at Café du Rocher de Cancale tonight, and we should be able to make it there, albeit a little late, after dropping Alex’s luggage off at my apartment. I don’t have my camera right now =/, but I’ll see if I can gather some pictures to post!
5. It’s the last day of the BFM Académieentrepreneur contest quarter finals, so I ran around the whole PRINE incubator asking entrepreneurs to vote for us. I had tons of fun meeting everyone… I was on such a social high =]5 b. I’ve also been having a lot of fun getting people to spread my last blog entry around. (I created a prize drawing to get people to vote for Mathieu of Contract Live.) This is going to sound very obsessive, but I really enjoyed watching the number of views, comments and link clicks go up!5 c. I get to discover how many people voted for Mathieu tonight and pick a winner! I think I’ll have Alex help me to make sure it’s fair and random ;D

OK, time to go back to puking sugar rainbows and flying kittens until I head to the airport<3

Super Kitten to the rescue!