A workshop for EO Chapters
For Learning Chairs & Learning Events

life by design, for your chapter.

A workshop for chapters who want their members thinking as intentionally about their lives as they do about their businesses.

Forum is where we hold each other accountable for the 5% that is holding us back or driving us forward. This is the session where members step back and get deliberate about the direction they want their lives to take. It's the same framework I'm capturing in The HAPPY Entrepreneur, the book I'm writing now.

Stephen Shortt facilitating
The Workshop

What is the happy work life MAP?

The happy work life MAP is an interactive workshop built around a simple, powerful idea: happiness is progress towards purpose. It gives entrepreneurs a structured way to reflect on where they are, where they want to go, and how to show up, in business and in life, in a way that's genuinely aligned with who they are.

Forum is where we hold each other accountable for the 5% that is holding us back or driving us forward. This session is where we step back and get deliberate about the direction we want our lives to take. It's not a wellbeing tick-box. It's a real conversation, grounded in a proven framework, that leaves members clearer, more energised, and more intentional about the life they're actually building.

The five HAPPY dimensions

HAPPY?

H

Highlights

The milestones, adventures, and accomplishments that pull you toward the future you want to live.

Identify the key life and business achievements you want to experience: the defining moments, big and small, that mark a life well lived. Your highlights aren't just things that have happened. They're the experiences you're building towards.

A

Appreciation

Appreciation grounds you, and reminds you of the strengths you've earned along the way.

Cultivate gratitude and recognise the value in the relationships, challenges, and moments that have shaped who you are. This isn't toxic positivity. It's a deliberate practice of seeing clearly what's already working and what you already have.

P

Progress

Real happiness comes from knowing you're moving forward.

Set measurable personal and business growth goals. This dimension is about building skills, forming habits, and taking meaningful steps toward a life that excites you. Not growth for growth's sake. Progress in the direction that actually matters to you.

P

People

The qualities you admire in others often reflect the potential waiting to be developed within yourself.

Strengthen the relationships that support, inspire, and challenge you to grow. Consider who energises you, who you want to invest more in, and who you want to become in the context of the people around you, in business, at home, and beyond.

Y

Your Contribution

Define the impact you want to make, and then design a plan to bring it to life.

The lasting legacy you want to leave through your business, your community, and your personal actions. This goes beyond revenue and exits. It's about the difference you genuinely want to make in the world, and whether your daily life reflects that intention.

How it works

The workshop, step by step.

The session moves through four distinct phases: opening mindset, deep individual reflection, energised group sharing, and purposeful future planning. Dynamic, honest, and consistently surprising for entrepreneurs who expect a standard wellbeing talk.

01
Whole group conversation

Opening: Mindset, Means Goals & Why Happiness Is So Hard to Define

We start with the whole group. Before anyone puts pen to paper, we explore the ideas that make the rest of the session land properly: the difference between means goals (what we think we want) and end goals (what we actually want underneath them), why happiness is so slippery to define, and what we're really chasing when we chase it. We walk through the five HAPPY dimensions and what each one holds. This isn't a lecture. It's a conversation, and the room warms up fast.

02
Individual free writing

Free Writing: 3 minutes per dimension. No editing, no filtering.

For each of the five HAPPY dimensions, participants write freely for three minutes. The timer is the point. Three minutes is long enough to move past the tired, easy answers, and short enough that your rational brain doesn't get a chance to say "that's not possible." What emerges in those three minutes tends to be truer than anything you'd write with more time to think.

03
Breakout group sharing

Small Group Sharing: your top 2 or 3, dimension by dimension

After each writing round, participants share the two or three things that struck them most, in small breakout groups. Not to impress, not to perform: to spark and inspire. Hearing what actually matters to a peer you've known for years, and realising you had no idea, is one of the most reliably moving moments of the session. This is where the energy in the room builds.

04
Individual action planning

The MAP: My Action Plan

Having surfaced what genuinely matters to them, participants identify the purposes they want to work towards across four horizons: this year, near term, medium term, and the long view, plus space for their own. The focus isn't to fill in every box. It's to be deliberate about the ones that matter.

05
Full group debrief

Whole Room Takeaways, Insights & Energy

We bring everyone back together. No pressure to share anything personal, but the room is always ready to talk by this point. People leave feeling happier than when they walked in, and more connected to those around them.

1yr
This Year
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Your own
What members take away

A happier, more intentional chapter.

🗺️

Their personal happy work life MAP

A clear visual snapshot of where they are, and where they want to grow, across all five dimensions of a fulfilling life.

🎯

One meaningful commitment

Not a wish list. A single, specific intention for the next 90 days, chosen by them, owned by them, grounded in what actually matters.

⚡

Renewed energy & focus

Not because problems are solved, but because clarity replaces fog. Members know what they want, and why.

💡

Permission to be intentional

Often the most powerful outcome: entrepreneurs feel seen, and given explicit permission to build a life that actually works for them, not just for the business.

Stephen Shortt
Stephen is a member of EO Ireland & Europe Bridge Chapters
Affiliation logo
Why chapters invite me

A member, facilitating for members.

  • Deep understanding of entrepreneurial psychology
  • Engaging, dynamic, discussion-led sessions
  • Content designed specifically with members' needs in mind
  • Founding member of EO Ireland, former chapter president, and extensive international EO experience
  • Multiple local, regional and global roles in EO, including former Global Chair of GSEA
  • MC for GLC Dublin 2026 and part of the GLC organising committee for 3 years

I don't deliver generic corporate content. I facilitate structured conversations that continue long after the event ends.

Around the world

Places I've worked with

Delivering keynotes, workshops and learning experiences across the globe.

82 locations · tap a dot to see the place · drag to pan, scroll or use + / − to zoom
Heard from the room

What people say

"

Stephen did a phenomenal job. He brought the perfect mix of energy, presence, and timing. That's a craft, and he made it look effortless.

Mobolaji Sokunbi
Vice President of Business Development, EO Global
"

One of the most authentic learning sessions our chapter has run. Members are still referring to their MAP months later.

Chapter member
EO Learning Chair
"

Stephen gets EO in a way outside facilitators simply can't. He speaks our language and pushes us in exactly the right places.

Chapter member
EO Forum Moderator
The HAPPY Entrepreneur book mockup
The HAPPY Entrepreneur

The workshop and the book.

The happy work life MAP isn't a one-off keynote framework. It's the same thinking captured in The HAPPY Entrepreneur, a book about building a life by design alongside a business by design.

Every dimension in this workshop, Highlights, Appreciation, Progress, People, Your Contribution, is a chapter in progress. The material has been tested live with entrepreneurs over hundreds of conversations, and it keeps improving each time we run it.

Format & fit

Designed to fit your chapter's calendar.

Chapter workshop

2 - 2.5 hour happy work life MAP workshop for your chapter

The full experience: individual mapping, small group sharing, and 90-day commitments. Run as a chapter learning event or as part of a regional summit or retreat. Open to members, Next Gen and families. Flexible to your chapter's rhythm and calendar.

  • 2 - 2.5 hours including reflection and sharing time
  • Works well for 15 to 60 participants, no minimum required
  • Open to members, Next Gen and families
  • Small group exercises deliberately mix forums, companies, and industries
  • Each participant leaves with a completed personal happy work life MAP
  • Facilitated by Stephen, no prep or pre-reading required
  • Can be delivered in-person globally, or adapted for regional summits and retreats

let's design the session together.

Tell us about the group, the moment in the calendar, and what you want people to leave with. We'll shape the right version of the workshop for you.

Start a conversation