If you were hoping for an inspirational read about canine husbandry or lots of useful tips regarding mans best-friend, you might have picked up the wrong book or be tempted to return this one to whoever gave it to you. It is likely, however, you are reading this to help with the critical relationship between work and the rest of your life. We spend a huge amount of time toiling away at our desk, making sure our families have the best health insurance and lifestyle, constructing plans and solving problems for other people often making profit for unknown shareholders or investors. Yet we rarely, if ever, look at ourselves with the same critical eye, enabling us to realise our own full potential and be happier in the process. The road to success is not an easy or straight one and there are no 'magic bullets', turning our lives into a dream-like state, but there are some alternative ways of approaching things that can make a real difference. It is not always about making meteoric changes but often taking small steps in the right direction.

The focus of the following chapters is how to think differently about what opportunities exist, so we can spend more time doing what we want and less chasing our tail. This issue is more important now because we are being exposed to a toxic combination of factors, divorcing us from who we really are and removing the very freedom we are supposed to be working towards. It’s time for a change!

Can We Be Happier?
It is my view that we can all be happier and influence our state of mind by changing a few simple parts of our lives. The first thing to consider is that we are rarely totally unhappy with our lot or completely satisfied at the other end, therefore we spend most of the time somewhere moving between these two polar states. Imagine for a moment that our happiness is represented on a single line; at the left-hand end there is complete self-fulfillment and success with work and the rest of what we do. The right-hand side is where we are totally unhappiness and live in a state of permanent under achievement.
Our lives are made up of many differing elements, all of which can be plotted along this line. For me, lots of boring meetings, presentations, making decisions on subjects I am ill-equipped to make and wading through a sea of emails that have no relevance to what I do, are all situated at the right-hand end. On the other side, however, sits finding new business opportunities, briefing creative projects to my team and breaking down complicated tasks in to manageable units. For many people I have spoken to and interviewed, commuting to and from work is often on the negative side, along with being called out of the office and the feeling of not being in control of ones work destiny. It follows to be happier, all we need to do is remove or reduce one element from the negative side and spend a little more time doing something that sits on the other end. It sounds straight forward because it is. If we can, over a period of time, move more things from the right-hand side, or perhaps even get them closer to the centre where they have less impact, the happier and usually, more successful we will become.