I spoke to my elderly aunt this weekend. She is 92 years old and living in an old age home near Durban. She remains one of my heroes as despite increasingly frailty and the indignities that come with age, she is always one to find gratitude in her circumstances.

She is a reminder that happiness is what we cultivate within. We can have all the material wealth of cars, houses, clothes, and holidays. We can have perfect health, external beauty, intelligence, and the trappings of success and yet still feel dissatisfied and unhappy.

We can cast a longing eye at others who we feel are more successful, more adored, more and more of who we wish to be and in doing so, miss sight of what we have.

Yet satisfaction, happiness and contentment are achieved with change in our inner attitude of appreciation, not with what is on the outside.

So, as we go into this busy week, it’s a great reminder to be grateful for the simple things – our families, our clients, our team members, the sunshine, and the rain – because as we raise our inner happiness, so too do we cast a spell of happiness on those around us.