Happiness lessons from Monsters Inc (the movie)!

Happiness lessons from Monsters Inc (the movie)!

by Andy Cope (Art of Brilliance)

If you_ã_ve seen _ãÄMonsters Inc._ã_ you_ã_ll know it_ã_s a cool movie. If you haven_ã_t seen it…what are you waiting for?

Sully is a blue, hairy, hulk of a monster. His buddy, Mike, is well…an eye. On legs. And they are a team. They work for _ãÄMonsters Incorporated_ã_, a huge organisation that employs monsters to scare children into screaming. They then bottle the screams to create electricity that powers their city (Monstropolis…where else!)

The children are scared of the monsters and, interestingly, the monsters have been taught to be scared of the children. With me so far?

Except Sully messes up big time. The big blue buffoon accidentally brings a child back to Monstropolis. And he finds that the child (Boo) is a sweet, innocent thing. And Boo has no fear of Sully. I guess she_ã_s not learned to be scared. The breakthrough comes when Mike and Sully discover that Boo_ã_s laughter also creates power. And then it_ã_s a good old-fashioned battle between the old way (creating fear) versus the new way (creating happiness)
It_ã_s such a great idea for a movie. And the clincher is when they discover that laughter has 10 times more power than fear. Imagine! So the monsters have to change their approach, adopting silly hats and churning out smiles instead of roars. It seems the new way is more powerful than the old.

And I can_ã_t help thinking there might be a business message in there somewhere, if only I was clever enough to work it out. Any ideas? Or examples?

Find out more about Andy and his work at www.artofbrilliance.co.uk