Editor’s note: Grace Ueng is CEO of Savvy Growth, a leadership coaching and management consultancy founded in 2003.  Her great passion to help leaders and the companies they run achieve their fullest potential combined with her empathy and ability to help leaders figure out their “why” is what clients value most.  Grace will be writing a regular column for WRAL TechWire. Watch for future columns.

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – When WRAL TechWire Editor Rick Smith asked at the start of this year if I would write a weekly column, I immediately said “yes.”  Then came the quandary of what theme and topics would be most useful for you, the reader.

Seven years ago, in anticipation of becoming an empty nester with my only child entering college and fearful of being thrown into despondency, I proactively started a yearlong study of Positive Psychology. My lead teacher was Tal Ben-Shahar, the creator of Harvard’s most popular course ever, on happiness.  

While I embarked on this study for purely personal reasons, I soon realized this intense study of happiness could also benefit my coaching clients. Fast forward six years after losing my father, my mother, and then moving from my home of 25 years where I had raised my son … I struggled this past year through a severe depressive episode, the most difficult months of my entire life. I only shared my suffering with a few people.  Mental illness still holds a stigma in our society. I hope to help change that.  Mental wellness is just as important as good physical health. Why corporations are now investing in mental health resources as a strategic priority. They know it just makes business sense.

During my period in “the dark tunnel,” I did manage to log in for my Harvard Business School 30th reunion and was intrigued by a talk by HBS Senior Fellow, Arthur Brooks, who teaches a course entitled “Leadership and Happiness.”  I started to remember how much my yearlong study of happiness had benefited me as well as my leadership coaching clients.The few people that knew of my struggles, encouraged me that I once again would be the energetic, passionate, and happy Grace that we all knew.  I wanted more than anything to be myself again. 

I finally went into remission before the end of last year, exactly a week before Christmas, for which I am forever grateful.  I now appreciate things I had before taken for granted.  I see life’s glass as half-full.

In my happiness talks and workshops, I start off by sharing, “It’s happiness that creates success, not the other way around.”  Professor Brooks’s HBS course syllabus quotes Nobel Laureate Albert Schweitzer as once saying, “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” 

Research shows that to be a successful leader, you need to understand happiness and how to manage it – yours and those you lead. Most leaders learn this through the school of hard knocks…until now.  With the expanding science of happiness, we can now learn how to be happy in order to be the best possible leader, and to make others happier as well. I look forward to sharing with you how.

In the weeks to come, I will be interviewing interesting people, reviewing books I believe worth your valuable time including Professor Brooks’s latest, From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life, available starting February 15.  He sent me an advance copy; it is excellent.  I look forward to sharing key insights and my interview with him with you, along with much more in coming posts.  I welcome your thoughts and ideas for what you would like to learn this year along my theme of Leadership and Happiness. 

All my best to you, including good health, happiness, and new possibilities, in this New Year of the Tiger!

About the author

Grace is CEO of Savvy Growth, a leadership coaching and management consultancy founded in 2003.  Her great passion to help leaders and the companies they run achieve their fullest potential combined with her empathy and ability to help leaders figure out their “why” is what clients value most.  

Savvy’s core offerings are one on one coaching for CEOs and their leadership teams, leading workshops on Personal Branding, Happiness and Speaking Success, and conducting strategic reviews for companies at a critical juncture.

A marketing strategist, Grace held leadership roles at five high growth technology ventures that successfully exited through acquisition or IPO. She started her career at Bain & Company and then worked in brand management at Clorox and General Mills. She is a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School and holds a positive coaching certification from the Whole Being Institute.