Your ultimate aim is for your child to be happy. This article is about increasing your understanding of happiness. Because the better you understand it, the better you’ll be able to explain happiness to your child.

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So I think about how I could structure today's little video from me about happiness. And the thing that popped into my head was the first coach that I had, so this must have been about probably about 14 years ago. And he was a really nice guy called John Muranka who used to work with a colleague of mine in a big printing firm in Leeds. And, I don't know, 30 odd years ago, I think. And so yeah, he was a sales guy who became a coach, interesting journey from a sales director to being a coach who's a focused business coach.

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Our first session together he talks about, I think, something like what I really wanted, so trying to get to the bottom, to the heart of what I truly wanted and if I could sum that up, how could I sum that up and we played with a few ideas and asked me lots of questions. That's what a coach does, you know, they ask you questions. People think of a coach, think about a football coach doing a strategy and telling the kids playing football. I know the Premier League starting again soon – I can't wait for the swimming pool to start, anyway, that's another thing. So I think when you think of a coach, we think of somebody telling somebody what to do – a sports coach, that's what we’re most familiar with but in terms of like a business coach, or what do they call it? Life coaches.

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And it's more actually about asking questions. So the thing that I came up with his help, yeah, was smiling Simon leading sustainable success. And that seemed like a really good idea to me in terms of - a really good summary of what I wanted: smiling Simon leading sustainable success. So I just want to focus it on the first bit, the smiling bit. So this was kind of like a future, you know, this is my vision for the future. I feel like smiling Simon. 

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Well, looking back on that now 14 years ago, I thought I fell into a trap. And we all fall into this trap. And the question is, do we want kids to fall into this trap? Do we want to raise our kids in this way. And do we want our kids to grow up thinking like we do as adults? With that when word, yeah. So smiling Simon leading sustainable success, it's like, well, that's the future. I'm going to be smiling in the future when I've got sustainable success. 

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Well, don't we want to be happy now? We're all we're all waiting for a reason, so I will be happy when... I'll be happy when - I'm doing it right now. And as I mentioned, I'll be happy when the swimming pool reopens. I'll be happy when I can go out to dinner with my friends.  I’ll be happy when I can go out, take my mum out for lunch to the pub. I'll be happy when I've shed my lockdown pounds. I'll be happy when I can go on holiday. I'll be happy when - we've all got this thought that I'll be happy when I get a new car. I'll be happy when my child does well at school, or I'll be happy when my child is happy. I'll be happy when I get that new top, new shirt that I've been after. And I'll be happy when - we're putting it off. 

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We're putting off happiness. Well, those feelings of happiness are inside us already. They're just waiting for us to let them out. We don't need to be happy when, we can be happy NOW. That's what we would choose, right? And that's what I'd love for all of us to do more of.  I'd love to do more of that myself and would love you to do more. I’d love for your kids to do more of that. Just doing that. Just be happy now for no reason whatsoever. And this reminds me to do something one of my mentors said, I'm happy because I don't like the alternative. Short and sweet today. Stop putting it off. Stop. I'm giving myself this message. So here's where I'm at right now. I'll be happy when the world's kids are happy. That's what I've been putting off. I'd be happy when - I've only helped 1600 kids so far, I'll be happy when I've helped a million. It's absolutely nuts, isn't it? 

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That’s all because I want to help you improve your child’s happiness so they’re happy whatever life throws at them when you’re not there.