I am based in Ericeira, close to Lisbon in Portugal, but I lived in Germany for twelve years just before this. I'm Bulgarian and Italian.And you will hear a bit about my story today and how you can design your life for happiness and success. Are you excited? We will look at the four steps to go from now to wow. And thanks for the confetti. I wanna ask you before we even start, when was the last time you felt truly happy? You can use the chat to engage as you're already doing, saying where you are based. When was the last time that you truly felt happy? And why? What was happening? That's the first question I wanna ask you today before we start as a little warm up.

And the first thing that probably popped into your mind is something very small. For me, it was the hack of my little three years old before he just went to kindergarten this morning, or the coffee I had this morning just on my balcony. It's really the small things. Right? But when I asked you this question, probably more and more examples came to mind. And until I asked you this question, you didn't think about it. Right? Because we naturally tend to focus on the things that are not going so well in our lives. Let's say they're not so happy things. If you see the visual here, it's really all about why is life so unfair, what's the next problem to solve. Just focusing on the bad side of things.

Ignoring all of the amazing and great things already happening in our lives. Well, what if we could turn and really proactively look at the good things in our lives and at the happy things in our lives? Then we would have the greater opportunity, a bit more open. We would be in a better mood to face the day and to face any challenge. But you know what? This doesn't come so naturally. It is not your fault. It is our brain survival mechanism. What does that mean? Our brain really prioritizes survivor. Survival over happiness. You know, our brain just thinks we're surrounded by tigers and lions as we used to be in the past, and that's great. Thanks to our brain. We anticipate danger, and we can just avoid it. But nowadays, it's probably an email from your boss, or it's a notification. Oh my god.

What did they comment on my latest post? Or just the small things. And it's not so helpful because our brain just goes in this hyperventilation and is really kind of overthinking mode, which is not serving us well most of the times. Right? So who am I, and why am I speaking about happiness? My name is Radiana Milteva. I'm a certified happiness coach with an MBA in organizational happiness and I need happiness hacks on a daily basis. I need to design my life for happiness proactively because I'm the queen of overthinking, of imposter syndrome. And when it comes to designing my life for success and happiness and really live a free life with the people I love, doing the things I love, I've really put a lot of work into that.

And I help 20,000 people from companies like Google, Siemens, IKEA, Adidas, on running, and more to have their own happiness in just one hour being 20% or a bit more happier in just a very quick session with practical science based, evidence based tools that are simple and also fun to apply.

And today, we will learn a few of them. Why? Well, if you're here, we all wanna be happy or happier, but how many of us actually know how to do it? As I've explained, doesn't really come that natural. Right? Our brain really tries to protect us at all times, and that doesn't involve much happiness, does it? And when we think of, okay, I know what will make me happy and successful, we kinda think we know what's what it is. Right? Getting a great job, getting the next role, getting the promotion, leading a team, getting a director level, maybe starting an own business, which is something that everybody's doing these days. Making money or making more money, buying a house. Why not? Right? As a checklist and that perfect body getting married, having kids, and all all of those things.

That kind of society says, you know, once you've achieved them, you've made it. Yes. You you rock. Right? You can have your Christmas dinner with your family, with your parents, and everybody will be proud of you because now you finally got a great job and got married. Right? Well, truth is, not really. These are not the things that will make us happy. All of these things will not get you happiness. They will actually probably even get you away from it in a loop of, for example, constant wanting for more at work, more promotions, more roles, more stress, more work. And then where's the where's the reward? Where's the happiness I've been promised? And all of these things really can reduce our well-being. So what what went wrong? What happened? Science of happiness says that this first thing is the success checklist.

And there is another one, and I'm saying it's very important that they go hand in hand in combination. So the first all these things that I just mentioned are good. Right? We all pursue them. But how we do that, it's very important. So the combination of this plus a second piece, which is the happiness checklist, is fundamental. What do I mean by the happiness checklist? So a great job, a great a great business will not make us happy if we don't use our strengths in it. Very important. Are you using your strengths in your current roles and your current businesses? Making money, yes, amazing. Science says up until a point doesn't make a big difference, but then making meaning is what really makes a difference and make us happy.

Like, are we creating an impact? Are we leaving a legacy? Buying a car, buying a house, yes. Great. All those things, we need them to make meaning maybe or to really just do what we're supposed to do. But getting experiences, as we know, makes us truly way more happier than buying material things. Perfect body. Well, as well here, of course, it's very important to be fit, but the key is to love ourselves the way we are. Right? So that's happiness. That's a that's a twist. That's the the tricky piece there. Getting married. Yes. But the science of happiness says that the biggest key to happiness, a study of Harvard for over 80 studies, discovered the key to happiness, and that's strong relationships.

So, yes, getting married, amazing, but getting married to the right person. Right? So this is a kind of a thing we all know, but very important reminder. And it's not just who whom you get married to, whom you surround yourself with, and so on and so forth. So why do we need both? Because, you know, success is a bit more external. Right? It it just just doesn't come it's, like, driven by achievements, recognition. And then happiness is really is internal rooted in peace, contentment, personal fulfillment. You know it. You name it. The key is to have a combination of both. Right? So very important. A great reminder here. And I see people in the chat say, yes. You agree. And you know what? I know you kind of thought, oh, wow. Okay. I was missing a piece or maybe you already knew some of these things.

But the key here is that there is nothing wrong with you if you didn't because you know what? You just don't learn about happiness in school. We don't learn about happiness. Your brain is not designed for happiness as we've seen a little teaser. And, also, another harsh truth is we are really very bad at predicting what makes us happy. What do I mean by that? So let's go and unpack them one by one real quick. You learn how to be happy in school. Do did you learn how to be happy in school? Write in the chat if you ever had a happiness class in school or maybe I don't know. University gets already a bit better. Reality is, yes. People say no. Absolutely not. Reality is only 5% of schools had a happiness class in Europe and in US a few years ago. 5%.

Numbers are a bit increasing because there's a bit more awareness around the topic, but we're not learning enough about happiness. And how can we actually be the CEOs of anything if we're not the CEOs of ourselves in the first place? That self leadership is so important. How can we be the best parents we can be and so on and so forth? So it's very important we design our lives for happiness and success in a healthy way so we can teach others around us, our team members, our teams, our kids, everyone around us. Right? And the second thing is we kind of you know, we're somehow better at better predicting what makes us happy. Why? Because we can't think in absolutes. I will ask you something. So imagine there is a podium at the end of a competition. Right? The numb the three finalists made it.

Who do you think is the happiest? The first one. Right? The first one. The first place is the happiest. But here comes the tricky part. Who do you think is the second happiest? Number two. Right? The second place. And then the the the most sad person who arrived is the third one. Well, wrong. This is very, very wrong, actually. It's the opposite. So the first one is the happiest. Yes. But then the second happiest is the third place because he almost thought he didn't make it. So he's looking at the relatives of not making it, of all the people behind him, instead of the second place who is looking, ah, upwards. Right? I could have been number one. He doesn't recognize that he actually made it. He's he's not looking behind him. He's looking up.

So we're really bad at thinking in absolute. So that's just our nature. Another example to demonstrate that is we're very that that we are predict better predicting happiness is that it takes us eighteen months to be back at our baseline of happiness after both winning the lottery and being a victim of a very, very big accident. Can you imagine? The same exact time. After eighteen months, we are back at our levels of happiness. So, yes, very interesting, Sarah. Right? The good news though is that we can relearn happiness anytime. So we just need to be aware of these small things, which are actually very big, but we don't learn in school. And, yeah, just relearn and learn if we didn't what we need to do to be happier and more successful and actually do it.

And so here comes my definition of happiness. What is happiness? Happiness is very subjective. Right? So what made you happy at the beginning is I asked the question might be different than what made me happy or other people. So it's very, very subjective. But science says happiness is a mix of just two things. How good we feel in the now, in our lives, and how good we feel with our lives. So the first one is more of this emotional happiness in the now, and the other one is more of this bigger purpose legacy and the the meaning we were talking about. Like, how satisfied are you with these two things? And here is my little twist to that in my little graphics. So here it's you on the left side running. Right? This is you in the now.

Running towards the rainbow, the dream, maybe the dream career, maybe the dream job, maybe the starting a business, the family, whatever you wanted. Just whatever your biggest dream is. And here is where my methodology for happiness on how you can also use these four steps to design your life for happiness and success comes into the picture. So it's really simple. It's the now as we've seen because it's very important to take care of our well-being and happiness in the moment. It's the wow. So be aware of your dreams. Be aware. Have clarity on what you want. Many people I meet don't don't know. I tell them, you can have anything you want. You can do anything you want as long as you tell me what that is. And people have no idea. They don't know what they want. Do you know what you really want in your life? You have time. You don't have to come up with that right now.

But the point is working towards that clarity is so important. Third, really believe that you can bridge the gap. That you can go from now to wow. And then the last thing which we all overlook is ask and get. Because very often, we think, okay. I know what I wanna know what I'm good at. And someone will just come and give it to me. Yeah? No. That's not how it works, unfortunately. So let's unpack that a little bit in the last seven minutes. So step number one is all about the now. It's all about knowing what makes you happy. We had a little bit of a glimpse on how our brain works, what the science says. Of course, we have a limited time here today. But I am a big fan of happiness hacks. Simple one minute things that can really elevate your happiness in the present. One. Two, energy givers.

The things that give you energy, that drain your energy. How can you design your life in your day so that you're more productive? Right? So that you are both happy and successful, not just one or the other. Personal values. How many people here know what their personal values are? They're a little compass for life. And really being in the present is where the magic happens. Why? Because again, if you look at a scale from past, present, and future, where do you think you spend most of your time with your thoughts? Yep. It's either in the past, reimagining the past, remembering. Or in the future, anticipating as we've seen our brain just looks for threats and dangers. But where does happiness live? We all know, but we kind of rarely do that. Happiness is in the present. That is when your opportunities rather open up.

That is where you can actually that's the only thing that exists present. Everything else is just imagined or anticipated. It doesn't it's not real. So being in the present is where the magic happens. And why what do we mean by that? Here is how I came up with this initiative that made 20,000 people 20% happier at Google where, I I was in this full time technical job, in this full time technical role. As I created this initiative, out of the blue, I was literally having a shower, and I had a moment of, oh, wow. My friends, my colleagues need some more happiness these days. It was a post COVID times. And I was like, I have something to teach. Let me just share what works for me. Because, again, we teach what we most wanna learn.

And I was really struggling with happiness those days, imposter syndrome, you name it. And that is how I came up with this just very helpful initiative to help others by sharing what I know. And it just exploded at Google. It became such a big thing. Over 20,000 people joined it. It's a one hour session, and they claim to be happier. And that is just because I was fully in the present, and I was just enjoying myself and really, really being focused on the current moment, enjoying being being fully, fully grounded. So that's just one example. Of course, there are so many so many more things to say to that. But step number two is all about the wow. And it's all I don't know how many of you here have a vision board maybe for your lives or for your next years, for your next year.

I love doing this design thinking exercise where we come up with our own life goals using design thinking principles by by finding out ways on how to prototype them. And goals, setting goals that actually work, not just like some boring OKRs KPIs. Like, what is something that will excite you to wake up in the morning? What is that big dream? Because it can happen. Right? It's really just in your hands, and that's how I landed my TEDx talk just a few months ago. I had it so clear on my vision board. I knew what I wanted, but not just like a wishful thinking. I sat down and I created tangible goals, tangible steps on how to achieve it. And I took the steps. I reached out to the people, and I made it happen. That's it. That's as simple as that.

You need that clarity, and you need to work towards it because, you know, the expectation is it's just we know we are present in the now. We're grounded. We have ideas flowing. We're envisioning the future, the dream, and then that's it. Well, no. Obstacles always happen. There's always something coming in the way that kind of, you know, predict just prevents us from getting as quickly as we want to where we wanna go. You know, I just decided to diet and now my friends invited me for pizza. Oh, I go, what? How? Why just now? Like, what what happened the past few months? They forgot. Step number three is really how you can overcome that obstacle. And step three is all about believing you can, believing in yourself. And it's not just like, yeah. I I believe I can do it.

Really, there's work there, and that's really one of the most important steps. It's all about mindset work. It's all about the words you use, the self talk, and the people you surround yourself with. And it's really about you know, the biggest secret to go from now to wow is not to be fearless because that will get us, you know, run by a car on the street, but it's really to fear less and do it anyway. And when I say surround yourself with people who believe in you, it's really about either believing in yourself, you believe in yourself, or you find someone who does. Because very often, I found myself I found I found in my career that I had leaders, managers at work who believed in me before even I before I could even see it, and they were so right. And that is exactly what happened when I got recruited by Google. I couldn't believe it. I thought, no. This is this is not possible. This there's no way.

I didn't study it. I don't come from a proper IT background. I just did a lot of tech projects, but who am I to work at Google? You know, the imposter syndrome was huge. That was my dream company, by the way. When they reached out, I was so happy. And I remember almost declining the interview just because of the imposter syndrome. And then I had this leader at work. I was working at Adidas at the time, and he was the techiest person I know. And he was like, you're totally gonna do it, and you're gonna smash it. And you're gonna work for Google, and it's gonna be amazing. And he believed in me so much that I could believe in myself. Yeah. Someone said I had the same feeling before joining Google.

And I had some and and he believed in me so bad that I could also believe in me because I saw myself through his eyes, and that was just a game changer. That was and and I made it. He was right. He was right. Step number four, as we said, ask and get. That's probably one of the most important ones after believing in yourself. So branding. I know we kind of hate it. We have to kind of go out there and tell our story. But, you know, if you do it in an authentic way, as I did, as I did as I shared with my mentor, I said, hey, you know, they reached out. I don't know, but I really want to. You really have to be authentic, know your own truth, and really just share it from a place of I need help.

It's not it's not from a bragging place. It's really just finding a way to tell your story and then see how it all comes together. Happened to me when I when I was when I was studying in Germany, actually. I really wanted to do, my master's thesis there, but I didn't know how to do it. And I and I had this friend who says, who's your favorite teacher? Go and ask her. And I go there and I say, well, but I don't know. You know, you probably are very busy. And she says, you know what? I was really looking for a research assistant. Do you wanna help me with my research? And I can help you with your thesis. I couldn't believe my years. That was a dream coming true. And long story short, that's how I landed my first, my first job at Adidas.

Just because I had this friend who believed in me and made me ask my dream teacher and I was so ashamed, But it worked out, and it was brilliant. So if you ask, you might get. So remember that that if you don't ask, the answer is already no. It's as simple as that. And here it is the truth. I come from nothing, from nowhere. It's really a journey from zero to hero using these four steps, and you can use them to to design your life for happiness and success. Because if you imagine your biggest career goals, your biggest life dreams, and you imagine you've achieved it, that is already the first step to getting there. And, of course, all of the four steps that I just described are part of a deeper program. I'd love to tell you everything about it.

Reach out, whenever you want on this QR code. Find me on all major social media platforms as Radiana Miteva. I have different sessions for all the steps. We can dive into each one of them and really reach out here on this QR code. There's a little, form that you can fill out and stay in touch. We can collaborate one on one. I'm, of course, also a coach. I just yesterday did an amazing session for, for another one of my dream companies, which I can't name now. But it's so, so great to see people really lightening up after my sessions and really reading your comments and how you're actually achieving your dreams, your goals, whatever it is that your next step is. It's so exciting to see it coming true because you really have that power, and I'm happy to make it happen together with you.

So reach out at all different channels. Thank you so much for being here to sharing your time with me today, and I'd love to hear more from you on LinkedIn, What you thought, what you liked, what is your takeaway. I know you have to run to next to the next sessions. I really enjoy the comments. People say great motivational session, amazing session to start today. Yes. Thank you so much. Really illuminating. Yeah. This design of the slides brings me already a good mood. I'm happy. Great session. Thank you. Have a brilliant day. Make the most out of the conference. And now you also can reuse the four steps to make the most of that. Right? So know what your goals are. You're really asking, get for what you want. Have an amazing rest of the day. I'm here in case someone wants to ask more questions or either in the chat.

Just let me know. And I'm in the meantime enjoying when people are still typing and someone is sharing their LinkedIn. Of course. I'll connect with you immediately, Agnieszka. Thanks for that. Well, so energized. See, that's the key. Like, that's where happiness and success coming to into the picture. When you enjoy what you do, when you use your strengths as I just showed you, it just comes so easy and natural to be more successful. Right? So I don't have to force it. What's the lesson you've learned the hard way that you now consider a quiet superpower? Oh, dear. I've changed many countries in my life. I was 12 when I changed the first country. And from from Bulgaria to Italy, and for many years, I thought that's a trauma.

But doing the work that I'm now teaching people, I realized that that's a superpower, and I like to call that power scar because I felt so lonely. I had no friends, new language. It was so, so, so difficult and isolating. But I realized, okay. I can do this. There's no other way. And I just went through it. I powered through. I learned the language. I made a friends. Even I managed to to get the hottest guy of the school as my boyfriend without doing anything. He he he was he chose me. But that's all to say that I I I blended in and then stood out. So really learning language, fitting in, just knowing the culture. And that's that's why today I speak six languages fluently. People wouldn't even guess. I'm not from the place of where I speak the language.

And that was such a hard, hard lesson, but that's actually what one of my first coaches taught me. Like, she was a psychologist as well, and she said, this is what they teach victims of abuse how to reframe the trauma. So, basically, you look at the trauma and you think of ways this could be. Sounds a bit harsh, but the best thing that could have happened to you. So you kind of reframe it to know how this could actually now give you meaning. And that gave me meaning. So now for me, I just came to Portugal, and I'm doing an MBA in Portuguese. And, of course, I'm not crazy to just jump into things. I it's really about learning a little bit before knowing, having the basis, having a a good foundation to start.

But it's really about reframing it, and now it just became a superpower. Of course, people might say there's a bit of Italian there. Yes. There is. But that's the whole thing of what I teach. Like, you really kind of have to know your strengths a little bit and just double down on them. What else do people ask? Pamela, I hope that answered your question. Thanks for asking. Happy yeah. Sarah, let's connect. If you have any more questions, just write them in the chat. I'm happy to stay here a few more minutes. This was so much fun. And I need to read all of the things that I missed. People are from Italy. Belgium, India. Yeah. My my grading is a huge challenge. Definitely. But it's a rewarding one. We just moved here to live by the ocean.

I always had it in my vision boards, and I didn't and I thought that's something for when I will retire. But I just made it happen in our thirties with my partner, our toddler. I have a baby on the way, a baby girl in my belly. And we're just, like, so happy because and we were crazy because when we did the the the move, we both kind of had very little security. I had little security if Google would support a move. My partner just had lost his job at the time, so it was crazy. It's a crazy risk, but it's so rewarding if you really know why you're doing it. Our son now goes to the forest in the garden. So happy. He loves nature. We go to the beach every day. It's a dream. So, yeah, migrating is a huge challenge, but it can be very rewarding. And there's another question.

Could you balance your work and home when you were moving from one country to the other? Well, it's it's tricky. You need help. Right? So it's not easy at all. But moving countries, when whenever you have the big picture, whenever you know why you're doing it, it just gives you that extra power you need to just power through the change, the transition, and you know it's gonna be all worth it at the end. It's not easy. Nothing is easy. But, you know, there are a lot of not easy things that are actually super stressful, and then there are a lot of not easy things that, you know, will give you both happiness and success. So you choose your battles at the end. Thanks for that question. This was very, very rewarding. Thank you everyone for being here.

I still see a few people in the call. Let me know if there's another question or, yeah, if you wanna hear me talking about a last topic before we all drop off. But I really enjoyed your energy, and it was a bit strange to not see faces, but thanks for making the chat so lively that I didn't feel alone. And, yes, please connect so we can stay in touch and talk more offline. Have a great rest of your conference.