Positive psychology in effectual entrepreneurship

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Introduction

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The Happiness Advantage is a book that states that positive psychology can be used in the workplace to become more efficient.  As seen in the book, positive people are more creative and productive This relates to entrepreneurship, because they need a strong set of work ethics to run a business. There are 7 main principles, and the book gives real life examples on how to use them. The principles can also relate to Sarasvathy’s 5 principles of effectuation.

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bird in hand principle

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looking to tools that you have readily available at your hand and building up on them

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affordable loss principle

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decide on losses that you can take rather than focusing on gaining maximized profits

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crazy quilt principle

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forming relationships, building a network of people to rely on

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lemonade principle

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to not be discouraged by surprises but rather embrace them and learn from them

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pilot in the plane principle

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wants us to focus on things we can control rather than things out of our control to directly affect our future

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conclusion

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In these ways, we can relate the Happiness Advantage to Sarasvathy’s 5 principles of effectuation. There are real life examples on how each principle can be used, and most of them are even related to each other. Combining these principles learned and forming these habits at the start of an entrepreneurship journey can lead to overall happiness and a positive experience.

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what happiness advantage principle relates to bird in hand principle and why

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1.      There are a couple of principles from the Happiness Advantage that can relate to this statement. There are: the fulcrum & the lever, and the tetris effect. The fulcrum and the lever means using the fulcrum (our mindset) and the lever (our power) to think positively and believe in ourselves. The tetris effect means rewiring our brains to focus on the positive things rather than the negative things. For example, the new customers gained rather than old customers lost. This increases our positivity, gratitude and optimism. Using these 2 declarations from the Happiness Advantage, we can use the tools we have at hand (our brain and mindset) to build a positive work experience as an entrepreneur.

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what happiness advantage principle relates to affordable loss principle and why

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One principle from the Happiness Advantage that can relate to this is ‘falling up’. This means that despite having failures, taking them and learning from them to form a positive experience. You can combine this with the affordable loss principle by deciding on your affordable losses and learning from them. Therefore, creating a positive experience from a negative one. For example, deciding that having a limited range of ice-cream flavours rather than a 100 different ones is an affordable loss for your company and using this to see what ice-cream flavours from your limited range is popular amongst customers and focusing on enhancing those flavours with toppings.

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what happiness advantage principle relates to crazy quilt principle and why

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1. The Happiness Advantage has a similar principle called ‘social investment’. The postulate states that people who have meaningful, genuine relationships are happier and enhances success. Combining these two principles, it would be beneficial to build a network of people who you can trust and lean on for help.