Happiness does not come in a box and often happiness can only be found outside the box.
Today on a CBS Sunday Morning segment artist, producer and musician Pharrell Williams was profiled where he spoke about his iconic hat, his music, his successes and his failures. He said something that I really liked.
He was talking about Thinking Outside the Box.
"You've said that you were one of those kids who just didn't fit into the box"
"No. I just never even seen the box"
"It's like, what do you mean? What wall? What ceiling? What are you talking about. Hence the phrase 'Room without a roof,' you know? Limitless."
I was impressed in that at 41 years old he has kept his focus and taken away an important lesson. One that some people never realize. The lesson was that you aren’t defined by others and that you need to own your art.
Involve The People
Making the video and Owning his art. Pharrell was wise in so many ways, but one of the best was to involve the people. To me the people make this a great video. People can see themselves in the video and can instantly get in on the action.
He was asked about giving credit to and remembering his early music teachers. His reply was perfect. He said …
What am I without them?
Have you seen the video for “Happy” yet? Pharrell did something really smart. In addition to creating a catchy tune he involved the people. He gave the people the credit. And it worked! He got people to get with the beat and dance to it. It’s really easy to tap along with this song. And, as shown in the video, it’s equally easy to get up and dance along. This was pure genius and goes to his point and the lesson he has taken away from his life experiences.
Take Responsibility for Your Own Actions
This is my mantra (it has been on my Facebook profile since day one). Pharrell made mention of his failed album from a few years ago and that he blamed everyone else. He took away an important lesson from that experience and he spoke about it in the CBS Sunday Morning segment.
Take a few minutes and watch the CBS Sunday segment. Then watch the Happy video. I think you’ll find yourself tapping along and perhaps even getting up and dancing along. Ya know … to show that you are Happy!
Sources: CBS Sunday, YouTube
Jeff is a expert in the Enterprise Content Management industry. He is an international speaker and writer on the Intersection of People and Process in Social, Mobile and Cloud Computing. He is a contributing author to Elite Daily, Yahoo, US News and to the Personal Branding Blog. Over the past 20 years he has worked with customers and partners to design, develop and deploy solutions around the world. He has worked for Microsoft, FileNet (IBM), K2, Captaris, Open Text, Kofax, Kodak and Winshuttle. Currently he is the Director of Strategic Alliances and Gimmal.
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