Why "Happiness" Deserves to Be One of Your KPI's

Funny story, before I started Allegory - working on a Sunday felt like a drag.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved every job I had and often say I’m a lucky person because I found something I was extremely passionate about straight out of school. In fact, like most things, a bit of luck played into me finding myself working in marketing for the last 8 years. In my past life, I was a junior professional tennis player until a career-ending injury saw me flying back from Hong Kong (where I was playing international tours) and rejoining my local high school in grade 11. Long story short, I had to take any classes that had space and lucky for me, Marketing had an opening.

Thanks to a very progressive high school teacher who made the entire curriculum about running a real-life school store (we competed against the other class) and a joke amongst friends — I found myself in my first CEO position running a school project that had real products and budgets. At the time, Instagram was just kicking off and we were all layering Sepia filters (yikes) but using Facebook events and advertising led to our store making a lot more revenue simply because our marketing was more effective both in cost and reach than the traditional printed flyers that every other class before us had used. At the end of the semester, my teacher patted me on the back and said “you might actually have a career in marketing”. It was the first time outside of playing tennis, I felt a sense of true happiness— the kind that only comes from an alignment between achievement and clarity.

Fast forward many years later and here I was starting Allegory. For the first time in my career, I started feeling unhappy with my 9-5 job. I kept sticking it out thinking “grit is all I need to get me through this rough patch” and “it’s about time I felt this way”. Having nothing but time to reflect due to lockdown, I realized it was important to me that I felt my achievements and hustle were tied to impact. I wanted the freedom to choose which clients I supported and who I worked with. To me, it was important that female entrepreneurs and small business owners had the knowledge, expertise and execution of a solid digital strategy to thrive because when you uplift one of us — you uplift the community. So I left my job, hoping I would make a living. I’m happy to report I’ve more than tripled what I was making without sacrificing my values or hustling more. The funny thing is, I had to keep re-learning this simple tip because my mindset was always to “tough it out”. Yes, it’s not all roses and rainbows but if you feel in your gut it’s wrong, it’s likely going to cost you time and money! Same goes for clients — if they aren’t a “HELL YES”, they’re a no. You have to make space for the ones that light you up on the inside.

I’m writing this on a Sunday after spending time working on a 12-month content calendar for an amazing female entrepreneur that has impacted many lives with her gifts. I can honestly say I’m happy from a sense of achievement and clarity. As someone who loves to track data and KPIs to inform progress, this is a quick reminder to always use “happiness” (the real stuff, not the same type of happiness that comes from a good donut—although I love that for you) as a key performance indicator for how well your business is doing. Every time I invested in making myself happier with coaching, workouts, walks and mindfulness—my business grew. Why? Because without you, there is no business.