Eat the Cake in Search of Happiness

Last Monday was International Day of Happiness, the perfect day to celebrate simple pleasures and share a little happiness around you. As a proud fan of happiness for as long as I can remember, both in my personal and professional life, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to talk a bit about the philosophy of Eat the Cake and how we try to cultivate and spread this happiness.

It’s hard to talk about our philosophy without talking about our name. "Eat the Cake Studio" is a very joyful name, but the first time you heard it you probably expected us to be selling pastries, not immersive experiences! And it’s definitely not the name we thought we would adopt when we started this adventure, but sometimes fate works in mysterious ways.

We had been trying for weeks to find a name for our company, but nothing seemed to fit. The few times we found a name we all liked, it was already taken. We were at a dead end. Then I heard a story that stuck with me. A woman at the end of her life was asked if she had any regrets. Her answer? She wished she had eaten more cake. A simple pleasure she had often denied herself, for a myriad of reasons. And now, on her deathbed, it was clear that most of those reasons didn’t really matter.

We immediately knew we had found the perfect name for our business. Of course, it didn’t say anything about what we did… and at the same time, it said everything. Because that’s what our immersive experiences are about: letting go, enjoying the small and big pleasures, taking the leap, not overthinking when you can do something that might make you happy. Dance like nobody's watching, live your life fully… eat cake, and never feel guilty afterwards!

(The fact that this name perfectly matched the title of our first show, Let Them Eat Cake/Qu’Ils Mangent de la Brioche, was literally the icing on the cake 🍒).

We fell in love with this name from day one, and the great thing is that lots of other people love it too! Our company's name is one of the things people often talk to us about. It’s a name that makes people happy and stays in their memory because of its positive connotations. It’s the kind of advertising money can’t buy!

But let’s go back four years. We had the perfect name. All that was left was to create the perfect working conditions to go with it.

I’m not the only one on the team for whom happiness is so important. Elena, Maddy, and I are three very happy and positive girls, and it was clear from our first official meeting that we all wanted to create a company that would help that happiness and positivity to flourish. After all, we wanted to create experiences that would bring happiness to people - how could we truly achieve that if we were unhappy doing it?

Because honestly, creating immersive experiences is a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work and it would be very easy to get worn down by the daily grind and lose our passion. That’s why we make a conscious decision every day not to let routine drag us down.

But how do you stay happy without pretending not to see the problems? The concept of happiness at work is all the rage right now, so much so that big companies now have Chief Happiness Officers on their teams to convince you that really, working here is so much fun, you won’t want to go home at the end of the day!

Let's be clear, most of the time, it’s nonsense. When we decided to start this company together, we had all been burned by bad employers who cared more about pretending everyone was happy than creating processes that would truly help their employees thrive.

We were very aware of what we didn’t like, so we set out to define what would work for the three of us.

So, how to do it? How to reach the Grail, true happiness at work?

First of all, you can’t pretend everything is always going to be amazing. In all our meetings, we set aside time to vent, talk about what’s happening in our lives (good and bad news) and share what brings us joy and inspiration, so that however the meeting went, we can leave with reasons to celebrate.

We also meet several times a year to review our working methods, define what might be improved, share what worked and what we didn’t like, and try to put in place ever more effective methods so we can all keep thriving. Because that’s another important point: happiness is not one-size-fits-all. People don’t find happiness in the same things, and what brings me joy doesn’t necessarily transport Maddy or Elena.

Another important thing for us, whether in our personal meetings or in our meetings with our partners and clients, is the use of rituals. Many of our meetings start with a word that sums up what we feel or expect from the meeting. At the end of the meeting, each person gives a second word to express what they feel now. Often, these two words aren’t the same, and the results can be surprising. But it’s striking to realize that something as simple as taking a few seconds to connect to your emotions and accept what you feel in the present can have a deep impact on everyone.

This is just a small sample of all the ways we try to foster happiness in our work. There are also a myriad of little things, like sharing gifs and memes that make us laugh even on the busiest days, exchanging our recommendations on shows, podcasts, and books, and reserving space to spend time together outside work, whether it’s to try an immersive experience or just an evening spent laughing over a glass of wine (or three).

We started this adventure as friends and, over the past four years, we have worked very hard to maintain this flourishing friendship, through highs and lows, victories and disappointments, stress and exhilaration.

And when there’s cake to eat, we tak