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Speaker 1: Pushkin. This special episode of the Happiness Lab is brought

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Speaker 1: to you by State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State

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Speaker 1: Farm is there. If you have a job, it's entirely

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Speaker 1: possible that you spend more waking hours at work than

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Speaker 1: doing anything else in your life, more time than you

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Speaker 1: spend with your family or enjoying your hobbies, or kicking

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Speaker 1: back and relaxing. Work is a big part of our lives,

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Speaker 1: but aside from just paying the bills, our job can

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Speaker 1: give us purpose fulfillment and a sense of belonging. One

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Speaker 1: survey by the American Psychological Association found that ninety two

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Speaker 1: percent of us think that our workplaces should actively support

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Speaker 1: our emotional well being. But that same survey found that

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Speaker 1: one in five of us describe our workplace as being toxic.

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Speaker 1: And what makes a job toxic, according to that survey,

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Speaker 1: those things like bullying, overwork, discrimination, and even loneliness. It's

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Speaker 1: therefore no surprise that this year's World Mental Health Day

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Speaker 1: was devoted to the idea of wellness in the workplace,

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Speaker 1: and so in the last of our special World Mental

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Speaker 1: Health Day shows, we're going to look at some recommendations

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Speaker 1: to improve our happiness at work. Joining me again is

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Speaker 1: Dan Harris. You probably already know Dan from his podcast

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Speaker 1: ten Percent Happier, but you should also check out the

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Speaker 1: fabulous new community he's developing at Dan harris dot com.

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Speaker 1: Aside from being a Titan of Happiness, Dan also has

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Speaker 1: lots of workplace experiences to draw from. For our conversation today,

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Speaker 1: One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you

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Speaker 1: is that it seems like work is just gonna be

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Speaker 1: hard necessarily. There's like some situations at work that are

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Speaker 1: just naturally going to be hard. And one of the

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Speaker 1: techniques I know I've learned a lot from your work

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Speaker 1: on mindfulness is just this idea of like not fleeing

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Speaker 1: from the hard, or it may be a better way

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Speaker 1: to put it, is sort of radically accepting the hard.

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Speaker 1: And so what is radical acceptance? And why can it

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Speaker 1: be so helpful when we're experiencing stress at work?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, just to say in an overarching sense of for me,

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Speaker 2: one of the biggest sources of stress and anxiety and

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Speaker 2: suffering has been work. Not to be overly gloomy about this,

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Speaker 2: I mean work its also been the source of so

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Speaker 2: much purpose and meaning and joy and connection and so

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Speaker 2: it's complicated. But to answer the question you actually asked me,

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Speaker 2: it's so counterintuitive because stress is unpleasant. So you know,

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Speaker 2: you want to self medicate with food or gambling or

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Speaker 2: TikTok or whatever it is. You want to push it away,

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Speaker 2: But that doesn't really work. It can work a little bit,

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Speaker 2: you know, obviously we need stress relief. But honestly, the

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Speaker 2: one of the great mechanisms, or one of the great

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Speaker 2: ways to think about this, is that the only way

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Speaker 2: out is through to feel the difficult feelings instead of

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Speaker 2: letting them own you.

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Speaker 3: And there are.

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Speaker 2: Lots of ways to do this. For me, mindfulness meditation

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Speaker 2: is a great way. I'll just briefly describe it. There

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Speaker 2: are really only three steps for beginning mindfulness meditation. The

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Speaker 2: first is to sit comfortably and close your eyes. I

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Speaker 2: sit on a chair. You don't have to get into

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Speaker 2: the lotus position. The second step is to bring your

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Speaker 2: full attention to something neutral. Often it's your breath coming

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Speaker 2: in and going out. Some people don't like the breath,

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Speaker 2: so you can just pick the feeling of your body

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Speaker 2: sitting in the chair, or sounds in the environment. Just

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Speaker 2: picking something based in one of your senses that gets

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Speaker 2: you out of the spinning thoughts in your head and

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Speaker 2: into some sense based object of meditation. That's a technical term. Basically,

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Speaker 2: it's the thing you're focusing on, your object. And then

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Speaker 2: the third step is the most important, which is very quickly.

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Speaker 3: As soon as you try.

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Speaker 2: To feel your breath coming in and going out, you're

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Speaker 2: likely to get distracted a lot. And this is the

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Speaker 2: moment when many people tell themselves this story that they're

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Speaker 2: failed meditators. But actually my job on the planet is

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Speaker 2: to reframe this moment as success. The whole point of

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Speaker 2: meditation is not to feel some specific way or to

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Speaker 2: stop thinking to clear your mind. The point is to

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Speaker 2: become familiar with how wild the mind is, so that

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Speaker 2: the chaos and cacophony doesn't own you as much. So

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Speaker 2: that's what the practice is. The sit try to focus

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Speaker 2: on one thing very quickly, you'll get carried away and

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Speaker 2: you start again and again and again. It's like a

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Speaker 2: bicep curl for your brain, and it really changes the

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Speaker 2: structure of the brain. It's so interesting that this is

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Speaker 2: something that is available to us. It's such a radical

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Speaker 2: notion that we can have a different relationship to our

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Speaker 2: thoughts and emotions, and so to me, this simple but

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Speaker 2: not easy practice is a great way to learn how

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Speaker 2: to get comfortable with our inner meteorology, you know, our

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Speaker 2: inner storms, so that they don't own us as much.

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Speaker 1: And so let's say your inner storm is really kind

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Speaker 1: of feeling like it's owning you because your stress at

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Speaker 1: work has just gone like through the roof. I was

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Speaker 1: just talking to a friend of mine, this's having a

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Speaker 1: really difficult time at work, and she talked about how,

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Speaker 1: you know, working out as much as I possibly can,

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Speaker 1: and I'm trying to engage in, you know, the best

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Speaker 1: sleep hygiene. Although I think we'll talk later about strategies

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Speaker 1: we can use to do that better. But like I

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Speaker 1: just am simmering when I leave the office. I'm just

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Speaker 1: like hating work. So she's going to sit down and

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Speaker 1: she's going to meditate. What does she do with all

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Speaker 1: those simmering feelings? What's the advice there?

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Speaker 2: Well, just to say it is very common. I've had

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Speaker 2: this feeling many times. I remember in my twenty one

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Speaker 2: years at working of working at ABC News, I would

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Speaker 2: have this experience often of leaving there. There was a

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Speaker 2: our office was in the Upper West side of Manhattan.

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Speaker 2: There was a main entrance on sixty sixth Street and

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Speaker 2: a back entrance on sixty seventh and I used to

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Speaker 2: take that exit, and it's a very leafy upper West

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Speaker 2: side street. I used to take that exit and walk

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Speaker 2: to the apartment where that I shared with my now wife,

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Speaker 2: And I remember having this thought every time I left

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Speaker 2: and walked down this beautiful street.

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Speaker 3: What was I so upset about? Why did I spend

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Speaker 3: this whole day in agony? Like what is going on?

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Speaker 2: And so I really relate to this experience your friend

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Speaker 2: is having. And I don't want to say that meditation

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Speaker 2: is some sort of panacea. I'm not a meditation bully.

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Speaker 2: I think it's one of many options, and we'll talk

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Speaker 2: about a bunch of options. But how it can work

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Speaker 2: if you feel like doing it is that well. First

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Speaker 2: of all, I find it such a relief because it's

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Speaker 2: this dedicated period of time and it doesn't have to

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Speaker 2: be long.

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Speaker 3: It could be a minute, two minutes.

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Speaker 2: I tend to do a little bit longer twenty thirty,

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Speaker 2: forty minutes, but I'm like a semi professional. But it's

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Speaker 2: this one concentrated period of time where you don't have

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Speaker 2: to take your thoughts that seriously, and that is such

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Speaker 2: a relief. Over and over and over, you're sitting trying

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Speaker 2: to focus on something like the feeling of your breath

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Speaker 2: coming in and going out, and then you're ambushed by

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Speaker 2: all the simmering. But you know your job is to

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Speaker 2: eventually wake up. You might get carried away for a minute,

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Speaker 2: two minutes, three minutes with a whole session, but eventually

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Speaker 2: it's gonna end, and you're gonna wake up and realize, oh,

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Speaker 2: this is just a set of thoughts with accompanying physical

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Speaker 2: sensations that I can get increasingly familiar with, but they

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Speaker 2: aren't facts. One of the great expressions that my meditation

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Speaker 2: teacher Joseph Goldstein has is pretend your thoughts are coming

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Speaker 2: from the guy next to you, or from somebody you

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Speaker 2: know in the apartment across the way, or from the

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Speaker 2: cat that lean in the corner.

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Speaker 3: Whatever.

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Speaker 2: These thoughts, which have so much control over us, are actually,

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Speaker 2: as Joseph says, little more than nothing. Unexamined, they they

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Speaker 2: blot out the sun. We believe them as facts, but

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Speaker 2: examined for what they are, they have way less power.

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Speaker 2: And so that's how sitting for me that at least

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Speaker 2: in my life. That's how sitting with the simmering can work.

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Speaker 2: Doesn't fix the objective facts of the situation. It can

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Speaker 2: change your relationship to those facts. And by the way,

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Speaker 2: the facts may not be so factual.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think sometimes we can see that through

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Speaker 1: practices like meditation. I think they're for folks who struggle

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Speaker 1: with meditation. There are also other techniques we can use

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Speaker 1: to do that. I'm really taken by this idea of

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Speaker 1: cognitive diffusion, which are all these funny ways to kind

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Speaker 1: of see your thoughts as separate. I've heard a recent one,

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Speaker 1: which is to take the most annoying pop song that

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Speaker 1: gets stuck in your head and then sing your thoughts

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Speaker 1: to that song, which is or to watch your thoughts

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Speaker 1: on big Star Wars fan watch your thoughts kind of

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Speaker 1: scrolling up like the text of Star Wars, so it's

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Speaker 1: kind of going away. Yes, I mean, it seems like

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Speaker 1: those techniques are doing exactly the kind of thing you're

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Speaker 1: talking about with meditation, right, which is that you get

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Speaker 1: some distance from them you can sort of see them

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Speaker 1: as thoughts. But another way that meditation in particular, I

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Speaker 1: maybe even more so than cognitive diffusion, can be helpful,

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Speaker 1: I think, is to give some space to the simmering

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Speaker 1: part that has to do less with the thoughts and

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Speaker 1: more with the emotions. Right. I know my friend from

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Speaker 1: dealing with these job struggles as a whole host of

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Speaker 1: sets of frustration and a shed of shame that she's

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Speaker 1: kind of so pissed off at her job, and like

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Speaker 1: a kind of uncertainty. Right, the sort of scarcity mindset

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Speaker 1: that you and I talked about in the last episode.

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Speaker 1: There's just a whole host of yunky emotions that come

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Speaker 1: when you're experiencing some troubles at work. How can the

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Speaker 1: practice of sitting with these emotions.

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Speaker 2: Be really helpful because in your.

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Speaker 3: Investigation of the emotion.

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Speaker 2: In other words, so you sit and you try to

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Speaker 2: feel your breath and then you get overtaken by this

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Speaker 2: blast of anger or regret or shame or whatever it is.

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Speaker 2: And then in that moment, the move is instead of

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Speaker 2: going back to the breath, just take a look at like,

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Speaker 2: what's happening? What is this thing I'm calling anger? So

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Speaker 2: it's a bunch of thoughts, but it's also maybe a

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Speaker 2: burning in my chest, some heat in my ears, heaviness

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Speaker 2: in my forehead, kind of taking with a seemingly solid,

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Speaker 2: monolithic thing called anger and putting it through a cheese grater.

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Speaker 2: Because you're picking it apart, you're disambiguating the constituent parts

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Speaker 2: of the anger, and in this way it doesn't have

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Speaker 2: as much power. You can actually see And now I'm

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Speaker 2: going to get a little bit mystical with you here,

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Speaker 2: but you can see that to call it your anger is,

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Speaker 2: in the words of one great Buddhist monk, a misappropriation

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Speaker 2: of public property.

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Speaker 3: It isn't your anger.

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Speaker 2: Another way to think about this, and this comes again

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Speaker 2: from the aforementioned Joseph Goldstein. A little linguistic trick you

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Speaker 2: can run is instead of saying I'm angry, you can

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Speaker 2: say there is anger. You don't own any anger. Look

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Speaker 2: close your eyes and look for anything you own in there.

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Speaker 2: There's nothing you own. You are just a process, right,

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Speaker 2: And so anger is a passing storm and you don't

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Speaker 2: have to identify so deeply with it. You can see

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Speaker 2: it as again to meteorological phenomenon that is playing out internally.

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Speaker 2: And please tell me if this is making any sense.

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Speaker 2: But this is how this is how I relate to

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Speaker 2: all of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think you're pointing out two ways

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Speaker 1: that sort of sitting with our emotions can be really helpful, right.

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Speaker 1: One is kind of getting distance from the fact that

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Speaker 1: they're you. There's just something that exists. But the second

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Speaker 1: part is this idea of it as a process, right,

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Speaker 1: that it is changing in times when I've kind of

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Speaker 1: really tried to sit with certain emotions of mine. I

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Speaker 1: did this recently with something I was experiencing a lot

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Speaker 1: of sadness about, and I'm like, as much as I

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Speaker 1: really deeply don't want to sit with this sadness, which

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Speaker 1: is like sit with the sadness, and when you start,

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Speaker 1: it can feel so intense. You feel like this is

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Speaker 1: always going to feel this bad and this intense and

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Speaker 1: this painful. And then like within four minutes of meditation,

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Speaker 1: my mind is wandering off to other stuff. But I

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Speaker 1: quickly come back and notice like, oh wait, I'm not

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Speaker 1: experiencing the sadness as as sad anymore. My brain is

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Speaker 1: like in its stream moved on to something equally stupid

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Speaker 1: and made me rumutative, but it's not the sadness anymore.

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Speaker 1: And then I have this moment sort of shockle like,

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Speaker 1: well that's weird. Like a few seconds ago, I thought

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Speaker 1: this was going to stick around forever. And so I

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Speaker 1: think that's the kind of thing that I often get

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Speaker 1: out of It is less the kind of making sure

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Speaker 1: the anger is that sadness or whatever it's not me,

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Speaker 1: because I struggle with that to kind of seem that

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Speaker 1: it's not part of me. But maybe I should use

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Speaker 1: this technique of there is sadness as opposed to I'm

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Speaker 1: super sad right now. But what I do often is

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Speaker 1: experience is like, oh, this was not nearly as permanent

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Speaker 1: as I assumed this would be, This was not nearly

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Speaker 1: as intractable as I assumed it would be, and that

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Speaker 1: that part's been really helpful for me.

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Speaker 2: That makes complete sense. And just to say, I think

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Speaker 2: something that you and I have in common is we'll

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Speaker 2: just throw lots of tools out there at people, and

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Speaker 2: as I often say, like view it as a menu,

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Speaker 2: not a to do list. Take what resonates with you

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Speaker 2: and abandon what doesn't. And just to emphasize what you

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Speaker 2: were saying, a less esoteric or mystical way to see

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Speaker 2: the benefits of tuning into your difficult emotions is that

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Speaker 2: they will pass and there's a lot of relief on

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Speaker 2: the other side of that.

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Speaker 1: Can I jump into an other tool in the toolkit

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Speaker 1: that I know you've talked about, a technique that I

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Speaker 1: know you've talked about as in terms of knowing your motivation,

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Speaker 1: which I think can be especially helpful when things on

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Speaker 1: the job seem just like overwhelming, you're not even sure

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Speaker 1: why you work there anymore. So what is knowing your motivation?

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Speaker 1: And what are some ways that we can engage in

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Speaker 1: that technique?

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Speaker 2: To me, this is huge and very interested after I

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Speaker 2: say a few words to hear what if any science

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Speaker 2: there is on this. And I'll just say from the beginning,

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Speaker 2: like under, the idea of like having an intention always

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Speaker 2: struck me as pretty treacly or saccharin or just didn't

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Speaker 2: speak to me.

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Speaker 3: And yet you know, I'm very.

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Speaker 2: Definitely, deeply influenced by the Buddhist tradition or the many

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Speaker 2: Buddhist traditions, and there's a lot about setting an intention

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Speaker 2: in your mind, getting clear on what your motivations are,

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Speaker 2: like what matters most to you as a north star

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Speaker 2: that can keep you going through the inevitable ups and

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Speaker 2: downs of life. And so I've spent a decent amount

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Speaker 2: of time in recent years thinking about so like, what's

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Speaker 2: my job. So when I wake up in the morning,

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Speaker 2: I do this thing that if you told me fifteen

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Speaker 2: years ago I was going to do this thing, I

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Speaker 2: would have, you know, coughed my beer up through my nose.

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Speaker 2: But I have this little thing I say to myself,

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Speaker 2: which is my job is to make awesome shit that

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Speaker 2: helps people do their lives better, and to work on

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Speaker 2: the relationships in my life, including my relationship with myself.

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Speaker 2: Those are my jobs, and to try to remind myself

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Speaker 2: as much as possible.

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Speaker 3: That that's the goal.

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Speaker 2: So if my latest Instagram post didn't perform, or if

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Speaker 2: my podcast numbers are dropping off, or you know, I

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Speaker 2: gave a talk and it didn't go that well, or

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Speaker 2: somebody I feel competitive with is kicking ass or whatever,

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Speaker 2: I can maybe not be so stuck in that stuff

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Speaker 2: and instead remember, like what matters. Really, the hardest part

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Speaker 2: of this, even harder than figuring out what matters to you,

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Speaker 2: is to remember what matters to you and so to

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Speaker 2: not get so stuck in it.

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Speaker 3: And so you have ways to remind yourself.

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Speaker 2: And one of the things that I've done that's rather

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Speaker 2: extreme is to get a tattoo on my wrist right

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Speaker 2: next to my watch, so that I'm looking down at

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Speaker 2: my wrist all the time and I'm seeing these letters ftboab,

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Speaker 2: which is pretty off brand for me in its earnestness,

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Speaker 2: but it stands for and this is a Buddhist phrase

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Speaker 2: for the benefit of all beings. That's my job everything

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Speaker 2: I do. Every time I brush my teeth, every time

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Speaker 2: I take a nap, every time I meditate, every time

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Speaker 2: I do a podcast like this.

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Speaker 3: That.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I have all sorts of craven motivations that are

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Speaker 2: absolutely still in there, one of them. But I as

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Speaker 2: much in my life as I've told myself a story

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Speaker 2: about how I'm like inherently rotten, even I have altruism

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Speaker 2: in me, and I want to nurture that aspect of

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Speaker 2: my inner repertoire. And so to remind myself over and

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Speaker 2: over and over again it really helps me through the

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Speaker 2: ups and downs of work. So is anything I'm saying

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Speaker 2: like base in actual evidence?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, tons of it. I mean, first, is this

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Speaker 1: idea that you're turning to your purpose like a greater purpose, right,

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Speaker 1: And there's just been tons of work in positive psychology

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Speaker 1: about the power of having a purpose, having a life purpose,

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Speaker 1: having that kind of bigger intention, and in some ways

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Speaker 1: like it doesn't fully matter what the purpose is, it's

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Speaker 1: just that you kind of see it as having one.

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Speaker 1: It also seems like you build in various kinds of

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Speaker 1: rituals and practices to remember this. Because I thought you

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Speaker 1: were going to say the hardest part is sort of,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of remembering to do it every day

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Speaker 1: right where you have to kind of do it every morning.

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Speaker 1: You've kind of put together these sort of tattoos that

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Speaker 1: allow you to remember to do it. Every time you

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Speaker 1: see it, You're like, oh, yeah, purpose. I thought it

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Speaker 1: was just my Instagram numbers, but nope, it was actually,

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Speaker 1: you know, for the benefit of all beings. That's why

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Speaker 1: I was doing it. So I think like the fact

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Speaker 1: that you have this purpose is really important and meaningful.

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Speaker 1: The fact that you remember to engage with it, But

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Speaker 1: the fact that yours really is an other oriented purpose,

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Speaker 1: I think gives it kind of special power and special weight.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's just lots of evidence that the typical

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Speaker 1: way we think about what makes us happy, which is

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Speaker 1: doing for ourselves or treating yourself or self care, it

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Speaker 1: just doesn't do the work that we think, like the

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Speaker 1: real kind of bang for your energy and your bluck

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Speaker 1: in terms of like what's going to boost your well

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Speaker 1: being is taking time to do stuff for other people.

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Speaker 1: I know on both of our podcasts we've talked a

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Speaker 1: lot about the feel good do good effect right where

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Speaker 1: it's just like, if you do stuff for others, you're

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Speaker 1: going to wind up feeling better, And so making that

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Speaker 1: sense of purpose not about you winds up making it

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Speaker 1: easier to kind of engage with these things because then

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Speaker 1: the parts that feel like it's about you, of like oh,

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Speaker 1: your particular podcast numbers go down, or your talk didn't

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Speaker 1: go well, it's like it's not about you. Right, if

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Speaker 1: that talk resonated with one person in the big audience,

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Speaker 1: then check, you know, you've done your work for the day,

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Speaker 1: you can kind of feel good about it. And so yeah,

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Speaker 1: So yet again the science is taking off all the

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Speaker 1: all the great advice you're giving us here.

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Speaker 2: What do you think about the overlap between self interest

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Speaker 2: and altruism, because I feel like, a there's no bright

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Speaker 2: line here, They're really interwoven in some profound ways.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is a like deeply mistake in

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Speaker 1: theory we have just in general about happiness and well being,

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Speaker 1: Like there's some pot out there of like, you know,

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Speaker 1: the goodness that can happen in the world, or the

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Speaker 1: happiness that we can all achieve. And I think our

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Speaker 1: mistaken theory is often like, well, if I do something

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Speaker 1: nice for somebody else, then there's like less overall happiness

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Speaker 1: in the pot, like that happiness went to that person

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Speaker 1: and then there's like less for me. But that is

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Speaker 1: just like all studies show that that's just not how

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Speaker 1: happiness works. It's like a growing pie. The more nice

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Speaker 1: stuff we do for other people, they wind up feeling great.

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Speaker 1: We wind up feeling great. That gives us more, both

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Speaker 1: of us more bandwidth to do nice stuff for other people.

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Speaker 1: And I think we don't have this great growing the

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Speaker 1: pie model of happiness, but that's sort of how it works.

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Speaker 1: I think the key, though, is that we have to

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Speaker 1: kind of it's helpful to remember that the motivation isn't

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Speaker 1: about us. I think when we get in the headspace

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Speaker 1: of like I'm going to do nice things for other

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Speaker 1: people and I'm going to do things for the better

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Speaker 1: fit of all creatures because I personally want to be happy,

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Speaker 1: it sort of loses something. So I think really holding

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Speaker 1: on to the motivation that like it's not about you

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Speaker 1: can be a profound step for ultimately, in a very

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Speaker 1: ironic way, it becoming absolutely about you and your well

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Speaker 1: being and your happiness. And I think this is so

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Speaker 1: true at work, right. I mean, most of our workplaces

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Speaker 1: offer lots of opportunities to do nice stuff for other people. Right,

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Speaker 1: even if you're in the kind of worst capitalists sort

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Speaker 1: of system, maybe you're creating a product that maybe somebody

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Speaker 1: will enjoy, or at least you're making the shareholders some money,

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Speaker 1: like they'll be happy. Right. I think we often don't

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Speaker 1: frame kind of our success in business as being about

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Speaker 1: other people, but so often it really is. Whether that's

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Speaker 1: you know, just for the guy who works next to

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Speaker 1: you on your team and kind of making his life

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Speaker 1: and his job a little bit easier. I think that

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Speaker 1: can be really powerful because often in many jobs there

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Speaker 1: are these cases where like they're not a lot of wins,

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Speaker 1: or things are going bad, but you can also often

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Speaker 1: do the one nice thing for somebody next to you.

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Speaker 1: You can often make their lives a little bit easier,

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Speaker 1: and that can have profound effects on our own well being.

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Speaker 1: When everything kind of feels like it's going bad, turning

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Speaker 1: to doing one nice thing for somebody else and making

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Speaker 1: their lives a little bit easier. That can often be

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Speaker 1: a remedy that we don't often think about, but can

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Speaker 1: be super effective at making us feel.

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Speaker 3: A little bit better. Yeah, that all lands for me.

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Speaker 2: I'm thinking a little bit about an expression that I

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Speaker 2: heard from the Dalar Lama, and it goes to this

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Speaker 2: really interesting relationship between altruism and self interest. And his

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Speaker 2: expression is wise selfishness. And I like putting positive spin

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Speaker 2: on selfishness because it gets such a bad rap. But

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Speaker 2: his point is that we're all selfish, like nature designed

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Speaker 2: us that way. But if you want to do selfishness right,

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Speaker 2: you will be altruistic because it is what will lead

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Speaker 2: to your greatest happiness.

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Speaker 3: And I just think that's so interesting.

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Speaker 2: Like there's so much pessimism abroad in the land right

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Speaker 2: now about the state of humanity, cynicism really about the

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Speaker 2: state of humanity and the state of the world, and

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Speaker 2: I don't think that's all baseless at all. And I

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Speaker 2: see the problems climate change, polarization, war, they're real, and

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Speaker 2: there's so many bugs in the human design and either

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Speaker 2: on the news all the time. But there's this feature

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Speaker 2: which is do good, feel good Right, That we as

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Speaker 2: social creatures feel good when we are useful to other people,

435
00:21:29,716 --> 00:21:32,276
Speaker 2: and that's a huge deal that we can harness in

436
00:21:32,316 --> 00:21:36,196
Speaker 2: our own lives and in our sense of optimism to

437
00:21:36,236 --> 00:21:39,356
Speaker 2: the extent we can get there about the species, it's.

438
00:21:39,196 --> 00:21:41,836
Speaker 1: Also just like the cure for so many other ills

439
00:21:41,836 --> 00:21:43,716
Speaker 1: that plague us. Right, Like, so many people these days

440
00:21:43,756 --> 00:21:47,436
Speaker 1: are talking about the loneliness crisis, which we experience all

441
00:21:47,516 --> 00:21:50,036
Speaker 1: the time, but especially at work. Right people are reporting

442
00:21:50,076 --> 00:21:52,796
Speaker 1: being lonelier at work than ever, and lots of research

443
00:21:52,796 --> 00:21:55,396
Speaker 1: shows that when you self report being lonely at work,

444
00:21:55,436 --> 00:21:57,916
Speaker 1: you tend to be pretty unhappy at work. But what's

445
00:21:57,956 --> 00:22:01,076
Speaker 1: an incredible remedy for loneliness Trying to reach out to

446
00:22:01,116 --> 00:22:04,236
Speaker 1: other people, trying to cure loneliness in somebody else. If

447
00:22:04,276 --> 00:22:06,236
Speaker 1: you take the action of doing that now, all of

448
00:22:06,276 --> 00:22:08,916
Speaker 1: a sudden, you wind up feeling less lonely doing nice

449
00:22:09,236 --> 00:22:11,036
Speaker 1: People's kind of like this cure all that we can

450
00:22:11,036 --> 00:22:12,916
Speaker 1: just sort of employ. It should be kind of your

451
00:22:12,916 --> 00:22:15,116
Speaker 1: go to move whenever you're feeling bad about anything.

452
00:22:15,156 --> 00:22:19,396
Speaker 2: Honestly, yes, service as an antidote to whatever ails us.

453
00:22:19,716 --> 00:22:22,476
Speaker 1: Dan, you mentioned something really interesting that I'm sad to say,

454
00:22:22,716 --> 00:22:26,556
Speaker 1: plagues a lot of my work unhappiness, which is this

455
00:22:26,676 --> 00:22:29,956
Speaker 1: idea of kind of comparing yourself to other people and

456
00:22:30,196 --> 00:22:32,916
Speaker 1: the really sad thing when other people in your organization

457
00:22:33,156 --> 00:22:35,516
Speaker 1: or in you know, similar organizations that are doing related

458
00:22:35,556 --> 00:22:38,596
Speaker 1: work do really well. Sadly, my instinct often isn't to

459
00:22:38,596 --> 00:22:41,116
Speaker 1: be like, that's so great that the total happiness of

460
00:22:41,156 --> 00:22:44,156
Speaker 1: the world is going off. My instinct is to be like, oh,

461
00:22:44,156 --> 00:22:47,196
Speaker 1: this makes me feel really crappy about myself. And I

462
00:22:47,276 --> 00:22:49,836
Speaker 1: know this is something that you've tackled, and I know

463
00:22:49,876 --> 00:22:52,516
Speaker 1: this is something that you have a specific meditation practice

464
00:22:52,516 --> 00:22:55,036
Speaker 1: that can be really powerful for fixing over time. So

465
00:22:55,076 --> 00:22:56,156
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about that.

466
00:22:57,076 --> 00:22:59,356
Speaker 2: I'm just laughing because it's hilarious, you know, and it's

467
00:22:59,396 --> 00:23:01,636
Speaker 2: so useful to hear you just say it out loud

468
00:23:01,676 --> 00:23:04,396
Speaker 2: that you deal with it, because I think other people

469
00:23:04,476 --> 00:23:08,316
Speaker 2: will feel like validated because it's so normal and I've

470
00:23:08,316 --> 00:23:10,796
Speaker 2: dealt with a you know, I worked in television news

471
00:23:10,796 --> 00:23:13,836
Speaker 2: for thirty years and saw so many people who were

472
00:23:13,876 --> 00:23:16,036
Speaker 2: like you know, coming up in the newsroom at the

473
00:23:16,036 --> 00:23:18,996
Speaker 2: same time as me and then just just absolutely kicked

474
00:23:18,996 --> 00:23:22,156
Speaker 2: my ass and are so much better compensated and better

475
00:23:22,236 --> 00:23:23,676
Speaker 2: known than.

476
00:23:23,156 --> 00:23:23,876
Speaker 3: I ever got.

477
00:23:23,916 --> 00:23:26,516
Speaker 2: And it, you know, I really wrestled with it, drove

478
00:23:26,636 --> 00:23:30,316
Speaker 2: me nuts, and now you know, I am like you

479
00:23:30,436 --> 00:23:33,836
Speaker 2: kind of in the wellness influencer space. I don't even

480
00:23:33,836 --> 00:23:35,876
Speaker 2: know what the right description it is for what we do,

481
00:23:35,956 --> 00:23:38,596
Speaker 2: but you know, it is very common that I'll look

482
00:23:38,636 --> 00:23:41,076
Speaker 2: at somebody who maybe I have mixed feelings about who's

483
00:23:41,276 --> 00:23:44,636
Speaker 2: kicking an ass, and I can, you know, feel badly

484
00:23:44,636 --> 00:23:47,596
Speaker 2: about myself or feel angry at them, or feel like

485
00:23:47,636 --> 00:23:51,396
Speaker 2: the world is unfair. And you know, over time, I've

486
00:23:51,476 --> 00:23:56,476
Speaker 2: really started to laugh at this. It really is just

487
00:23:56,516 --> 00:23:59,756
Speaker 2: an ancient program inside of me that is trying to

488
00:23:59,796 --> 00:24:02,956
Speaker 2: protect me. It's trying to help me be more effective,

489
00:24:02,956 --> 00:24:05,236
Speaker 2: but it's not the right way to be effective. So

490
00:24:05,596 --> 00:24:07,556
Speaker 2: I kind of laugh at it and say thank you

491
00:24:07,596 --> 00:24:10,996
Speaker 2: to it, but try not to let it own me.

492
00:24:11,396 --> 00:24:14,836
Speaker 2: And in Buddhism, there's a specific practice for dealing with this.

493
00:24:15,076 --> 00:24:19,716
Speaker 2: It's called Moudita m dta, and it's an actual meditation

494
00:24:19,796 --> 00:24:22,196
Speaker 2: practice for which I believe there's been a non trivial

495
00:24:22,196 --> 00:24:25,836
Speaker 2: amount of research. And the practice is you sit or

496
00:24:25,916 --> 00:24:29,756
Speaker 2: lie down, begin the practice, maybe a couple deep breaths

497
00:24:30,196 --> 00:24:33,476
Speaker 2: and then start by envisioning one person who is experiencing

498
00:24:33,556 --> 00:24:37,196
Speaker 2: success right now, and then you send them a set

499
00:24:37,236 --> 00:24:43,116
Speaker 2: of phrases like, may your happiness increase, may your health improve,

500
00:24:43,356 --> 00:24:47,796
Speaker 2: may your success expand. It's the opposite of schadenfreud. You're

501
00:24:47,836 --> 00:24:51,756
Speaker 2: just wishing for them to get increasingly happy. And then

502
00:24:51,796 --> 00:24:53,836
Speaker 2: you move to somebody else and do it for somebody else,

503
00:24:53,956 --> 00:24:55,436
Speaker 2: and then you move to another person and do it

504
00:24:55,476 --> 00:24:59,916
Speaker 2: for another person. And it is so counterintuitive. It is

505
00:24:59,996 --> 00:25:01,876
Speaker 2: said in the Buddhist tradition to be one of the

506
00:25:01,876 --> 00:25:04,956
Speaker 2: hardest practices because you know, I'm sure we've all seen

507
00:25:04,956 --> 00:25:06,556
Speaker 2: the T shirts. You know, every time a friend of

508
00:25:06,556 --> 00:25:08,916
Speaker 2: mine succeeds, a little part of me dies. It is

509
00:25:09,116 --> 00:25:12,396
Speaker 2: it's so natural to be jealous, but there's a way

510
00:25:12,516 --> 00:25:16,236
Speaker 2: to counteract that, and there's great joy in getting good

511
00:25:16,316 --> 00:25:19,036
Speaker 2: at Moodita. What you want is to become the type

512
00:25:19,036 --> 00:25:22,236
Speaker 2: of person who people love to call with good news.

513
00:25:22,676 --> 00:25:24,236
Speaker 3: That's who you want to be. That's who I want

514
00:25:24,236 --> 00:25:24,396
Speaker 3: to be.

515
00:25:24,716 --> 00:25:26,716
Speaker 2: I want to be the type of person who I

516
00:25:26,836 --> 00:25:29,636
Speaker 2: love like I love people I can call when something

517
00:25:29,796 --> 00:25:30,716
Speaker 2: good has happened to me.

518
00:25:30,796 --> 00:25:31,916
Speaker 3: And that's why I want to be.

519
00:25:31,956 --> 00:25:34,756
Speaker 2: In the latter half, of my life, and just one

520
00:25:34,836 --> 00:25:36,476
Speaker 2: last thing to say about this, and I took this.

521
00:25:36,836 --> 00:25:39,476
Speaker 2: I take this from the great meditation teacher Sharon Salzburg,

522
00:25:39,476 --> 00:25:43,916
Speaker 2: who's been really instrumental in promoting practices like moodita in

523
00:25:43,916 --> 00:25:47,516
Speaker 2: the West and then getting them studied in the labs.

524
00:25:47,876 --> 00:25:51,756
Speaker 2: She says, there's often a misunderstanding at the heart of jealousy,

525
00:25:52,036 --> 00:25:57,556
Speaker 2: which is that whatever accolade or achievement has arrived at

526
00:25:57,956 --> 00:26:01,516
Speaker 2: the doorstep of your enemy was somehow headed to you,

527
00:26:02,156 --> 00:26:06,996
Speaker 2: but they intercepted it. But it's almost never true, and

528
00:26:07,076 --> 00:26:10,796
Speaker 2: so just leaning into the reality and just laughing at

529
00:26:10,836 --> 00:26:15,716
Speaker 2: the whole system and working on developing the opposite intuition

530
00:26:16,276 --> 00:26:17,356
Speaker 2: can be very helpful.

531
00:26:17,396 --> 00:26:20,036
Speaker 1: I think there's also a different misconception that I talked

532
00:26:20,036 --> 00:26:23,636
Speaker 1: to my students about too, which is that whatever you're

533
00:26:23,636 --> 00:26:27,836
Speaker 1: feeling jealous of is inherently a really genuinely good thing

534
00:26:28,076 --> 00:26:31,196
Speaker 1: with no downsides. Right. You know, the human mind sucks

535
00:26:31,236 --> 00:26:34,116
Speaker 1: in part because we're constantly comparing our insides to other

536
00:26:34,156 --> 00:26:37,356
Speaker 1: people's outsides, and that means we don't see the internal

537
00:26:37,396 --> 00:26:40,436
Speaker 1: conflict that's going on and all the time with them,

538
00:26:40,476 --> 00:26:44,276
Speaker 1: but particularly during moments of these so called successes you know,

539
00:26:44,436 --> 00:26:46,436
Speaker 1: last time you and I were talking about your you know,

540
00:26:46,516 --> 00:26:48,876
Speaker 1: so called career earthquake and all the stresses that you

541
00:26:48,876 --> 00:26:51,156
Speaker 1: were under when you're promoting ten percent happier. I have

542
00:26:51,196 --> 00:26:53,916
Speaker 1: to say, as another person in your field on the outside,

543
00:26:54,316 --> 00:26:55,876
Speaker 1: I didn't see any of that. If anything, I was

544
00:26:55,916 --> 00:26:58,116
Speaker 1: looking at like, oh, man, Dan's got this cool company.

545
00:26:58,156 --> 00:27:00,676
Speaker 1: It's going really well. Maybe I should have started a company.

546
00:27:00,756 --> 00:27:02,836
Speaker 1: Why was I sitting on it? You know, he's doing

547
00:27:02,876 --> 00:27:05,796
Speaker 1: so much better than me. Meanwhile, inside, you're not sleeping,

548
00:27:05,796 --> 00:27:08,876
Speaker 1: your hair's going gray, everything's going badly. And I think

549
00:27:08,916 --> 00:27:11,236
Speaker 1: that this is something that the research bears out, which

550
00:27:11,276 --> 00:27:13,556
Speaker 1: is that when we try to do these social comparisons,

551
00:27:13,916 --> 00:27:17,196
Speaker 1: we inevitably are doing them wrong. One of my favorite

552
00:27:17,196 --> 00:27:19,796
Speaker 1: studies that I tell my college students about brings college

553
00:27:19,796 --> 00:27:22,156
Speaker 1: students into lab and has them guess how many good

554
00:27:22,196 --> 00:27:24,156
Speaker 1: and bad things are happening to other people, So, how

555
00:27:24,196 --> 00:27:26,756
Speaker 1: many freshmen are going to a cool party, or getting

556
00:27:26,796 --> 00:27:28,636
Speaker 1: a really good grade, or going out on a date

557
00:27:28,676 --> 00:27:31,196
Speaker 1: with somebody they found really hot or whatever. And then

558
00:27:31,196 --> 00:27:33,076
Speaker 1: they also ask the students how many times did this

559
00:27:33,116 --> 00:27:35,316
Speaker 1: happen to you? And what you find is that the

560
00:27:35,356 --> 00:27:38,516
Speaker 1: students are constantly fantasizing that all these great things are

561
00:27:38,516 --> 00:27:41,436
Speaker 1: happening to other people, when in fact, because we ask

562
00:27:41,556 --> 00:27:43,116
Speaker 1: them how many times they're happening to them, we have

563
00:27:43,156 --> 00:27:45,676
Speaker 1: the actual objective data on how much this is happening,

564
00:27:46,036 --> 00:27:49,116
Speaker 1: and basically everybody simulating it wrong. We're assuming that like

565
00:27:49,156 --> 00:27:51,876
Speaker 1: maybe twenty to thirty percent more great things are happening

566
00:27:51,876 --> 00:27:54,716
Speaker 1: to people than are really happening to them. And the

567
00:27:54,756 --> 00:27:56,756
Speaker 1: same thing with the bad things. We assume no bad

568
00:27:56,756 --> 00:27:58,636
Speaker 1: things are happening to people. Nobody is getting a bad

569
00:27:58,716 --> 00:28:00,676
Speaker 1: grade or getting dissed by somebody that thought was really

570
00:28:00,676 --> 00:28:02,036
Speaker 1: hot but who didn't want to go on a date

571
00:28:02,076 --> 00:28:04,996
Speaker 1: with them, et cetera, et cetera. But that effect is

572
00:28:05,036 --> 00:28:07,796
Speaker 1: even bigger. We're completely getting wrong the number of bad

573
00:28:07,836 --> 00:28:10,076
Speaker 1: events that others are going through. Assume that nobody's going

574
00:28:10,076 --> 00:28:12,236
Speaker 1: through the bad stuff that we're going through. But yet

575
00:28:12,236 --> 00:28:14,396
Speaker 1: again everybody is. And so I think this is the

576
00:28:14,436 --> 00:28:17,196
Speaker 1: second misconception. It's not just that those great things that

577
00:28:17,236 --> 00:28:20,036
Speaker 1: were floating around somehow missed you. It's also that those

578
00:28:20,116 --> 00:28:22,596
Speaker 1: things that seem great on the outside might not be

579
00:28:22,676 --> 00:28:24,716
Speaker 1: so great if you were in them yourself. Anyway.

580
00:28:24,796 --> 00:28:28,236
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, so it's like, would you call that a

581
00:28:28,316 --> 00:28:33,716
Speaker 2: kind of cognitive reappraisal or reframing to see that there's

582
00:28:33,836 --> 00:28:36,956
Speaker 2: there's so many mistakes in our perception of other people.

583
00:28:37,076 --> 00:28:38,556
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so, And I think it can just

584
00:28:38,956 --> 00:28:42,116
Speaker 1: you can ask yourself the question like would this actually

585
00:28:42,116 --> 00:28:44,636
Speaker 1: be really good? Or are there things that I'm missing there?

586
00:28:44,716 --> 00:28:46,156
Speaker 1: This is something I know we talk a lot about

587
00:28:46,196 --> 00:28:48,476
Speaker 1: the Buddhist ancient traditions, but this is a spot where

588
00:28:48,516 --> 00:28:50,716
Speaker 1: the Stoics, I think got it right where they said,

589
00:28:51,116 --> 00:28:52,796
Speaker 1: you know, look at the gifts that come to other

590
00:28:52,836 --> 00:28:54,756
Speaker 1: people and look at the work that goes into those

591
00:28:54,796 --> 00:28:57,196
Speaker 1: gifts and sort of ask yourself, would you want to

592
00:28:57,196 --> 00:28:59,396
Speaker 1: be the one that put in that work? And that's

593
00:28:59,436 --> 00:29:01,236
Speaker 1: actually something that I come back to a lot when

594
00:29:01,276 --> 00:29:03,996
Speaker 1: I'm feeling, you know, really jealous of somebody you know,

595
00:29:04,116 --> 00:29:06,236
Speaker 1: or sort of you know, feeling this at the gym

596
00:29:06,276 --> 00:29:09,116
Speaker 1: the other day, whereas watching a colleague of mind is

597
00:29:09,116 --> 00:29:11,276
Speaker 1: started going to the gym and they got fit super fast,

598
00:29:11,276 --> 00:29:12,996
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh man, I'm feeling so jealous,

599
00:29:13,036 --> 00:29:14,396
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

600
00:29:14,636 --> 00:29:16,436
Speaker 1: How many times do they go to the gym like

601
00:29:16,476 --> 00:29:18,196
Speaker 1: they're running this ten K? I don't want to run

602
00:29:18,196 --> 00:29:20,036
Speaker 1: a ten k. It was like, Okay, they can have

603
00:29:20,076 --> 00:29:21,996
Speaker 1: their gift because I'm not willing to put in the

604
00:29:21,996 --> 00:29:24,676
Speaker 1: work that i would need to do to get that gift.

605
00:29:24,836 --> 00:29:26,676
Speaker 1: And I think that can be the kind of thing

606
00:29:26,676 --> 00:29:28,716
Speaker 1: that we see on the job all the time, Right,

607
00:29:28,756 --> 00:29:30,876
Speaker 1: people are kind of getting these accolades at work. But

608
00:29:30,916 --> 00:29:33,356
Speaker 1: we might want to ask ourselves a question, is that

609
00:29:33,396 --> 00:29:35,796
Speaker 1: worth my work life balance? Right? Is it worth kind

610
00:29:35,796 --> 00:29:38,796
Speaker 1: of putting in that much time and energy and kind

611
00:29:38,796 --> 00:29:41,156
Speaker 1: of emotional drama to kind of get the same thing

612
00:29:41,156 --> 00:29:43,356
Speaker 1: that other people are getting. And when you ask yourself

613
00:29:43,396 --> 00:29:47,356
Speaker 1: that question, sometimes the balance might suggest that accolade just

614
00:29:47,556 --> 00:29:49,236
Speaker 1: isn't really worth it, or it's not really you in

615
00:29:49,276 --> 00:29:51,156
Speaker 1: the same way that you might have expected when you

616
00:29:51,156 --> 00:29:53,476
Speaker 1: were just kind of fantasizing with the usual version of

617
00:29:53,476 --> 00:29:54,356
Speaker 1: social comparison.

618
00:29:54,556 --> 00:29:55,196
Speaker 3: I love that.

619
00:29:55,436 --> 00:29:57,676
Speaker 2: I mean just to say anecdotally on my side that

620
00:29:58,436 --> 00:30:01,236
Speaker 2: in the three years since I've left the news business,

621
00:30:01,676 --> 00:30:03,556
Speaker 2: every once in a while, maybe like every two or

622
00:30:03,556 --> 00:30:06,876
Speaker 2: three months, I'll hear that there's a job maybe coming

623
00:30:06,956 --> 00:30:09,236
Speaker 2: free or something like that in the news bi and

624
00:30:09,236 --> 00:30:11,476
Speaker 2: say I'll go back to my wife and say, should

625
00:30:11,476 --> 00:30:13,116
Speaker 2: I put my hat in the ring and she's like,

626
00:30:13,196 --> 00:30:15,716
Speaker 2: do you do you really want to do? Like, think

627
00:30:16,316 --> 00:30:18,436
Speaker 2: what would that? What would your life be like if?

628
00:30:18,556 --> 00:30:20,756
Speaker 2: And then I run through that exercise and I'm like, no,

629
00:30:20,836 --> 00:30:24,116
Speaker 2: I don't. I if you handed me that on silver

630
00:30:24,156 --> 00:30:26,876
Speaker 2: platter right now, I wouldn't even though it probably come

631
00:30:26,956 --> 00:30:29,556
Speaker 2: with a shitload of money. What that would do to

632
00:30:29,596 --> 00:30:30,996
Speaker 2: my life is not worth it.

633
00:30:31,196 --> 00:30:34,356
Speaker 1: And I think doing that calculation, realizing the grass isn't

634
00:30:34,716 --> 00:30:37,436
Speaker 1: as green as we fantasize that it is, can be

635
00:30:37,516 --> 00:30:40,156
Speaker 1: super important, right, I think, especially in this day and age,

636
00:30:40,156 --> 00:30:42,756
Speaker 1: I see so much of my college students, where it

637
00:30:42,836 --> 00:30:44,556
Speaker 1: used to be the case that people work for very

638
00:30:44,556 --> 00:30:47,436
Speaker 1: long periods of time at one company and in one organization.

639
00:30:47,836 --> 00:30:50,156
Speaker 1: I think these days it's much easier to hop on

640
00:30:50,236 --> 00:30:52,996
Speaker 1: LinkedIn and just you know, jump ship whenever things aren't

641
00:30:52,996 --> 00:30:55,236
Speaker 1: feeling good. And that's not to say some people are

642
00:30:55,276 --> 00:30:57,316
Speaker 1: in bad situations at work. And I think we'll talk

643
00:30:57,316 --> 00:30:59,556
Speaker 1: about this moving forward, that you really probably should be

644
00:30:59,636 --> 00:31:02,476
Speaker 1: thinking about leaving and so on. But if the leaving

645
00:31:02,556 --> 00:31:04,916
Speaker 1: is just about this sort of fantasy life about this,

646
00:31:05,116 --> 00:31:06,516
Speaker 1: like you know, the grass is going to be greener

647
00:31:06,516 --> 00:31:08,596
Speaker 1: at this other place, it might not actually be worth

648
00:31:08,596 --> 00:31:10,716
Speaker 1: it right, And so I think kind of trying to

649
00:31:10,716 --> 00:31:14,076
Speaker 1: fight that cognitive bias and really do the hard work

650
00:31:14,116 --> 00:31:17,356
Speaker 1: of simulating more accurately what things are like, I think

651
00:31:17,356 --> 00:31:19,996
Speaker 1: that can help you not make the mistake of sort

652
00:31:19,996 --> 00:31:22,476
Speaker 1: of jumping ship when that wasn't really what was necessary.

653
00:31:22,556 --> 00:31:24,276
Speaker 2: Can I ask you about a kind of resentment that

654
00:31:24,316 --> 00:31:25,636
Speaker 2: I think might be justified?

655
00:31:25,676 --> 00:31:25,916
Speaker 3: Please?

656
00:31:26,156 --> 00:31:29,396
Speaker 2: Which is I believe And you probably have the evidence

657
00:31:29,636 --> 00:31:32,316
Speaker 2: closer to hand than I do, but I believe there

658
00:31:32,316 --> 00:31:34,836
Speaker 2: are just all sorts of unearned benefits that people who

659
00:31:34,876 --> 00:31:39,716
Speaker 2: look like me get in the workplace. And it seems

660
00:31:39,756 --> 00:31:44,196
Speaker 2: to me like the frustration that the folks who are

661
00:31:44,196 --> 00:31:48,716
Speaker 2: in marginalized communities might feel that seems pretty legit and

662
00:31:49,116 --> 00:31:52,036
Speaker 2: seems like in a different category from some of the

663
00:31:52,156 --> 00:31:54,556
Speaker 2: envy and jealousy and fomo that you and I are

664
00:31:54,556 --> 00:31:55,116
Speaker 2: talking about.

665
00:31:55,916 --> 00:31:58,236
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean I think these are real

666
00:31:58,316 --> 00:32:01,716
Speaker 1: structural inequities that exist out there, you know, just in

667
00:32:01,796 --> 00:32:04,476
Speaker 1: terms of things like emotional labor that people have to do,

668
00:32:04,676 --> 00:32:06,716
Speaker 1: or kind of work that's not seen, or kind of

669
00:32:06,756 --> 00:32:10,356
Speaker 1: opportunities missed out on, you know, like you know, sociological

670
00:32:10,396 --> 00:32:13,276
Speaker 1: study after sociological study pretty much shows that people from

671
00:32:13,276 --> 00:32:16,996
Speaker 1: marginalized communities experience that more. The question is kind of

672
00:32:17,036 --> 00:32:18,916
Speaker 1: how to deal with that, right, And I think that

673
00:32:18,956 --> 00:32:20,716
Speaker 1: there are many ways to do this. One is to

674
00:32:20,836 --> 00:32:23,876
Speaker 1: make the structural changes so that those differences don't exist

675
00:32:23,876 --> 00:32:27,196
Speaker 1: and that those inequities go away. But until those structural

676
00:32:27,276 --> 00:32:29,396
Speaker 1: changes are there, I think there's also lots of things

677
00:32:29,436 --> 00:32:31,916
Speaker 1: that individuals can do to kind of handle this stuff.

678
00:32:32,236 --> 00:32:34,236
Speaker 1: And I say that with care because sometimes when I

679
00:32:34,236 --> 00:32:36,996
Speaker 1: say that, people assume I mean we'll do that instead

680
00:32:36,996 --> 00:32:39,436
Speaker 1: of fixing the structural inequities. No, we got to fix

681
00:32:39,436 --> 00:32:42,156
Speaker 1: the structural inequities first. But a lot of the research

682
00:32:42,196 --> 00:32:45,116
Speaker 1: shows that finding good individual ways to cope with those

683
00:32:45,156 --> 00:32:47,876
Speaker 1: inequities wind up making it easier for you to have

684
00:32:47,916 --> 00:32:50,156
Speaker 1: the bandwidth to like fight the good fights and kind

685
00:32:50,156 --> 00:32:53,196
Speaker 1: of make you workplaces more fair and so on. But

686
00:32:53,276 --> 00:32:55,116
Speaker 1: in terms of the individual strategies, I think they get

687
00:32:55,156 --> 00:32:56,476
Speaker 1: back to some of the things that we were talking

688
00:32:56,516 --> 00:32:59,956
Speaker 1: about before, right, Like, it sucks to realize you're taking

689
00:32:59,996 --> 00:33:03,796
Speaker 1: on this emotional labor. It feels frustrating, it feels should

690
00:33:03,796 --> 00:33:06,036
Speaker 1: make you angry, it should make you kind of sad

691
00:33:06,076 --> 00:33:08,276
Speaker 1: that that's the state of the world. These are negative

692
00:33:08,276 --> 00:33:10,596
Speaker 1: emotions that we might want to find ways to allow

693
00:33:10,636 --> 00:33:14,156
Speaker 1: individuals to sit with and I think to give yourself

694
00:33:14,196 --> 00:33:16,876
Speaker 1: the grace to recognize that those negative emotions are there

695
00:33:16,916 --> 00:33:19,916
Speaker 1: and that they're going to necessarily affect your performance right

696
00:33:19,956 --> 00:33:21,916
Speaker 1: to give yourself the grace that you need to be

697
00:33:21,956 --> 00:33:24,956
Speaker 1: compassionate with yourself to kind of fight these sort of things.

698
00:33:25,276 --> 00:33:27,236
Speaker 1: We talked in the last episode a bit about some

699
00:33:27,316 --> 00:33:30,596
Speaker 1: of Kristin Neff's work on self compassion, where recently she's

700
00:33:30,636 --> 00:33:32,276
Speaker 1: just put out this new book on what she calls

701
00:33:32,436 --> 00:33:35,796
Speaker 1: Fierce Self Compassion, which is this idea that like, if

702
00:33:35,796 --> 00:33:37,756
Speaker 1: we're going to fight all those inequities you and I

703
00:33:37,796 --> 00:33:40,076
Speaker 1: were just talking about, what we might need to do

704
00:33:40,236 --> 00:33:43,196
Speaker 1: is to be kind to ourselves first. That this treating

705
00:33:43,236 --> 00:33:46,036
Speaker 1: ourself like a friend, which might sign kind of wimpy

706
00:33:46,276 --> 00:33:49,076
Speaker 1: or sort of not embracing, you know, the kind of real, real,

707
00:33:49,156 --> 00:33:51,836
Speaker 1: kind of inequities we face with the appropriate anger that's

708
00:33:51,916 --> 00:33:55,076
Speaker 1: normative in those situations. What Kristin Neff would say is like, no,

709
00:33:55,196 --> 00:33:58,156
Speaker 1: by treating yourself with kindness first, it can give you

710
00:33:58,196 --> 00:34:00,596
Speaker 1: the sort of fierceness that you need, that kind of

711
00:34:00,636 --> 00:34:02,996
Speaker 1: bandwidth that allows for that fierceness to sort of fight

712
00:34:03,036 --> 00:34:05,836
Speaker 1: some of these problems. And so yeah, I think those

713
00:34:05,836 --> 00:34:08,716
Speaker 1: things are legitimate. We need to fix some of those.

714
00:34:08,956 --> 00:34:11,316
Speaker 1: We also might need at the same time some individual

715
00:34:11,396 --> 00:34:13,796
Speaker 1: strategies to cope with the negative emotions that come from

716
00:34:13,876 --> 00:34:16,476
Speaker 1: that nasty stuff, so that we have the bandwidth to

717
00:34:16,476 --> 00:34:17,516
Speaker 1: fix it down the line.

718
00:34:17,636 --> 00:34:19,636
Speaker 2: That's really well said and just to jump on it.

719
00:34:19,636 --> 00:34:21,476
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people when they think

720
00:34:21,476 --> 00:34:24,956
Speaker 2: about self care, self compassion, any of it, and I

721
00:34:24,996 --> 00:34:29,676
Speaker 2: hear this sense that it's self indulgent to take care

722
00:34:29,716 --> 00:34:33,836
Speaker 2: of yourself. But it's that's really not true. Like if

723
00:34:33,876 --> 00:34:39,636
Speaker 2: you care about your colleagues and also managing work and

724
00:34:39,716 --> 00:34:42,276
Speaker 2: balancing that with your home life, if you care about

725
00:34:42,276 --> 00:34:43,836
Speaker 2: all of that, like it's hard to do that if

726
00:34:43,836 --> 00:34:47,436
Speaker 2: you're a mess, you know, so you need to schedule

727
00:34:47,996 --> 00:34:52,076
Speaker 2: and prioritize whatever self care it is that you know

728
00:34:52,116 --> 00:34:56,436
Speaker 2: recharges your battery. That's not self indulgent. That's mission critical.

729
00:34:59,956 --> 00:35:03,236
Speaker 1: One of those mission critical self care practices happens outside

730
00:35:03,276 --> 00:35:06,996
Speaker 1: of worktime. It's sleep And I'll ask Dan about that

731
00:35:07,236 --> 00:35:23,396
Speaker 1: when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment. One of

732
00:35:23,396 --> 00:35:25,876
Speaker 1: the mission critical self care things that I know you've

733
00:35:25,916 --> 00:35:28,636
Speaker 1: talked a lot about is finding ways, even in the

734
00:35:28,636 --> 00:35:31,116
Speaker 1: midst of a really stressful time at work, to make

735
00:35:31,156 --> 00:35:34,396
Speaker 1: sure you're protecting your sleep. So first, maybe we walked

736
00:35:34,396 --> 00:35:36,156
Speaker 1: through this a little bit last time, but can you

737
00:35:36,196 --> 00:35:38,676
Speaker 1: share kind of what happened to your sleep during some

738
00:35:38,716 --> 00:35:40,476
Speaker 1: of your recent career crises.

739
00:35:40,596 --> 00:35:40,836
Speaker 3: Yeah.

740
00:35:41,276 --> 00:35:44,956
Speaker 2: As I mentioned in the last episode, I went through

741
00:35:44,956 --> 00:35:49,196
Speaker 2: a very painful, nearly three year long separation process from

742
00:35:49,196 --> 00:35:51,596
Speaker 2: my co founders at a meditation app that I was

743
00:35:51,676 --> 00:35:54,356
Speaker 2: part of. Used to be called ten percent Happier, and

744
00:35:54,396 --> 00:35:57,356
Speaker 2: now it's the company's called Happier. The company is still

745
00:35:57,356 --> 00:36:00,036
Speaker 2: going and it's run by very cool people, and I

746
00:36:00,076 --> 00:36:01,396
Speaker 2: recommend everybody go check it out.

747
00:36:01,436 --> 00:36:03,276
Speaker 3: So there's no ill will there.

748
00:36:03,316 --> 00:36:07,436
Speaker 2: But the separation process was very hard and for me

749
00:36:07,636 --> 00:36:11,556
Speaker 2: at least, and in that process I dealt with a

750
00:36:11,556 --> 00:36:14,076
Speaker 2: lot of anger and fear that led to insomnia, which

751
00:36:14,076 --> 00:36:16,436
Speaker 2: of course made all of the anger and fear worse.

752
00:36:16,956 --> 00:36:19,596
Speaker 2: I developed a few techniques that were helpful for me.

753
00:36:20,076 --> 00:36:22,156
Speaker 2: Basic sleep hygiene. I think a lot of people know.

754
00:36:22,836 --> 00:36:24,916
Speaker 2: It's helpful if the room is cold, it's helpful if

755
00:36:24,956 --> 00:36:27,196
Speaker 2: you're not looking at blue light through your device in

756
00:36:27,276 --> 00:36:30,356
Speaker 2: the hours leading up to going to bed. It can

757
00:36:30,396 --> 00:36:32,796
Speaker 2: be helpful if you get direct sunlight early in the day.

758
00:36:33,316 --> 00:36:36,956
Speaker 2: Exercise is very helpful in terms of tiring you out.

759
00:36:37,276 --> 00:36:39,516
Speaker 2: So there are lots of tools that I think a

760
00:36:39,516 --> 00:36:41,156
Speaker 2: lot of people are aware of.

761
00:36:41,236 --> 00:36:43,036
Speaker 1: But can I jump in on that because this likes

762
00:36:43,076 --> 00:36:44,716
Speaker 1: me as a big at least for me personally. This

763
00:36:44,716 --> 00:36:47,956
Speaker 1: strikes me as a big case where there's cultural wisdom

764
00:36:47,996 --> 00:36:51,116
Speaker 1: but not cultural practice, right, Like, I know all those things. Yeah,

765
00:36:51,116 --> 00:36:52,956
Speaker 1: I mean, I make the room cold, and I know

766
00:36:53,036 --> 00:36:54,876
Speaker 1: I'm not supposed to look at my phone before bed,

767
00:36:55,236 --> 00:36:58,116
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to get into bed. I'm ruminating about

768
00:36:58,116 --> 00:37:01,316
Speaker 1: something that happened at work, and I'm using the scrolling

769
00:37:01,356 --> 00:37:03,516
Speaker 1: through whatever I'm scrolling through. Often it's Reddit, which is

770
00:37:03,556 --> 00:37:06,036
Speaker 1: probably the worst possible thing to be scrolling through. Often

771
00:37:06,036 --> 00:37:08,836
Speaker 1: I'm using that scrolling as a way to kind of

772
00:37:08,876 --> 00:37:12,156
Speaker 1: make my runative mind shut off. And of course it's

773
00:37:12,276 --> 00:37:14,676
Speaker 1: really bad because Reddit's filled with all kinds of stuff

774
00:37:14,676 --> 00:37:16,556
Speaker 1: that's going to make me even more anxious. Plus I'm

775
00:37:16,556 --> 00:37:18,636
Speaker 1: looking at this blue light. Plus I'm sort of hyping

776
00:37:18,676 --> 00:37:22,076
Speaker 1: myself up. So that's my technique. What do you actually

777
00:37:22,076 --> 00:37:24,076
Speaker 1: do instead when the urge to kind of look at

778
00:37:24,116 --> 00:37:26,556
Speaker 1: your digital devices sort of wins out against this sort

779
00:37:26,556 --> 00:37:27,396
Speaker 1: of cultural wisdom.

780
00:37:27,596 --> 00:37:30,236
Speaker 2: Your point is very well taken, and I screw this

781
00:37:30,316 --> 00:37:31,516
Speaker 2: up all the time too, So I don't want to

782
00:37:31,516 --> 00:37:36,076
Speaker 2: present myself as some sort of avatar of sleep hygiene perfection. However,

783
00:37:36,156 --> 00:37:38,236
Speaker 2: I think for me what's been very helpful and like

784
00:37:38,436 --> 00:37:41,796
Speaker 2: getting my shit together in this regard is tuning into

785
00:37:41,876 --> 00:37:46,476
Speaker 2: the pain of not sleeping. I mean, it's just terrible.

786
00:37:46,876 --> 00:37:49,436
Speaker 2: If I can just get in touch with how awful

787
00:37:49,516 --> 00:37:52,876
Speaker 2: that is, it is a very good motivator for me

788
00:37:53,436 --> 00:37:56,036
Speaker 2: to do some of the basic sleep hygiene. And more

789
00:37:56,236 --> 00:37:58,556
Speaker 2: so that the two things that were very helpful for me.

790
00:37:59,156 --> 00:38:03,996
Speaker 2: One is walking meditation. I often talk about seated meditation,

791
00:38:04,356 --> 00:38:07,796
Speaker 2: and I've described some practices where you can sit down

792
00:38:08,036 --> 00:38:11,196
Speaker 2: or lie down and do meditation. But a lot of

793
00:38:11,196 --> 00:38:13,276
Speaker 2: people either don't feel like they have time for this,

794
00:38:13,556 --> 00:38:16,196
Speaker 2: or if you have ADHD that you feel like you're

795
00:38:16,236 --> 00:38:18,676
Speaker 2: crawling out of your skin. And so there is this

796
00:38:18,836 --> 00:38:22,196
Speaker 2: very rich, multi millennia tradition of walking meditation, which I

797
00:38:22,196 --> 00:38:24,196
Speaker 2: will describe very briefly. And there are lots of ways

798
00:38:24,196 --> 00:38:25,596
Speaker 2: to do this, but the way I do it is

799
00:38:25,676 --> 00:38:27,636
Speaker 2: I sort of stake out a patch of land in

800
00:38:27,716 --> 00:38:30,876
Speaker 2: my house, maybe you know ten yards. You can do

801
00:38:30,916 --> 00:38:33,196
Speaker 2: this inside or outside, but you know it's nighttime and

802
00:38:33,276 --> 00:38:35,636
Speaker 2: often in the winter, so I'm doing it inside and

803
00:38:35,676 --> 00:38:38,436
Speaker 2: I'm just walking back and forth. It's a long trip

804
00:38:38,516 --> 00:38:42,316
Speaker 2: to nowhere. I'm walking back and forth very slowly. Now

805
00:38:42,356 --> 00:38:44,836
Speaker 2: there's a way you can do this that's really really slow,

806
00:38:44,876 --> 00:38:47,916
Speaker 2: that actually looks a little bit like paranormal activity or

807
00:38:47,916 --> 00:38:48,476
Speaker 2: something like this.

808
00:38:48,596 --> 00:38:51,556
Speaker 3: But I don't do that. I walks a zombie moved, yes.

809
00:38:51,676 --> 00:38:55,516
Speaker 2: Yes, which is a venerable ancient tradition, But I kind

810
00:38:55,516 --> 00:38:59,796
Speaker 2: of walk somewhere between that and a normal pace, slow walk.

811
00:39:00,916 --> 00:39:03,076
Speaker 2: And I'm bringing my full attention to the feeling of

812
00:39:03,076 --> 00:39:06,316
Speaker 2: my body moving, and then I'm getting distracted a million

813
00:39:06,356 --> 00:39:10,036
Speaker 2: times and starting again and again and again. And one

814
00:39:10,076 --> 00:39:12,516
Speaker 2: thing that can help you stay focused on the sensations

815
00:39:12,556 --> 00:39:15,276
Speaker 2: of your body moving is to use soft little mental

816
00:39:15,316 --> 00:39:21,356
Speaker 2: notes like lifting, like lifting your foot, moving, placing, thinking, planning,

817
00:39:21,916 --> 00:39:24,996
Speaker 2: just these little mental notes that and a lot of

818
00:39:24,996 --> 00:39:27,676
Speaker 2: people think, well, I shouldn't be thinking in meditation, but

819
00:39:27,836 --> 00:39:31,276
Speaker 2: thinking is inevitable. You can harness the thinking process to

820
00:39:31,316 --> 00:39:34,196
Speaker 2: get you closer to your direct sensory experience, and that's

821
00:39:34,196 --> 00:39:37,396
Speaker 2: what these little mental notes do, and you'll get distracted

822
00:39:37,436 --> 00:39:39,836
Speaker 2: and you start again, and you start again. The reason

823
00:39:39,916 --> 00:39:44,596
Speaker 2: why walking meditation really helps side benefit is it you know,

824
00:39:45,076 --> 00:39:47,596
Speaker 2: if you're tracking your steps, it will add to your steps.

825
00:39:49,076 --> 00:39:52,876
Speaker 2: For me is that my anxiety and anger often manifests

826
00:39:52,876 --> 00:39:56,596
Speaker 2: as an overwhelming physical restlessness. So I'm tossing and turning

827
00:39:56,636 --> 00:39:59,196
Speaker 2: in bed, and that's the worst thing you can do,

828
00:39:59,476 --> 00:40:01,356
Speaker 2: because if you stay in bed and toss and turn,

829
00:40:01,436 --> 00:40:03,916
Speaker 2: you're teaching the brain that the bed is a place

830
00:40:03,956 --> 00:40:07,236
Speaker 2: to struggle as opposed to to sleep. So I will

831
00:40:07,236 --> 00:40:11,116
Speaker 2: often do five, ten, fift teen minutes of walking meditation

832
00:40:11,196 --> 00:40:12,796
Speaker 2: before bed, and if I get into bed and I'm

833
00:40:12,796 --> 00:40:15,516
Speaker 2: tossing and turning, I'll get up and do more. Even

834
00:40:15,556 --> 00:40:18,556
Speaker 2: though it's totally and I keep using this word counterintuitive.

835
00:40:18,596 --> 00:40:20,356
Speaker 2: It's not what I actually want to do, but I

836
00:40:20,436 --> 00:40:24,396
Speaker 2: know that it works. Second piece of advice is much quicker,

837
00:40:24,556 --> 00:40:26,916
Speaker 2: and it goes back to this self talk refrain.

838
00:40:26,996 --> 00:40:27,836
Speaker 3: It keeps coming up.

839
00:40:28,916 --> 00:40:31,716
Speaker 2: I noticed that if I having trouble sleeping, I go

840
00:40:31,756 --> 00:40:34,116
Speaker 2: into this catastrophizing.

841
00:40:33,436 --> 00:40:34,476
Speaker 3: Tomorrow is gonna suck.

842
00:40:34,516 --> 00:40:36,276
Speaker 2: And oh my god, if to get up at six

843
00:40:36,316 --> 00:40:39,956
Speaker 2: and I can't sleep just I'm making these phantasma goric

844
00:40:40,396 --> 00:40:44,156
Speaker 2: movies about what's going to happen now. I'm like, no, dude,

845
00:40:44,276 --> 00:40:47,076
Speaker 2: you've been through this a million times. Even if you

846
00:40:47,116 --> 00:40:50,276
Speaker 2: get no sleep tonight, you will be fine. You have

847
00:40:50,516 --> 00:40:54,716
Speaker 2: dealt with sleeplessness before. You've always survived. It will be annoying,

848
00:40:54,876 --> 00:40:57,236
Speaker 2: but you're good. So get out of bed and do

849
00:40:57,276 --> 00:41:00,156
Speaker 2: your walking meditation, or get out of bed and watch TV.

850
00:41:00,716 --> 00:41:03,116
Speaker 2: That actually is one of the pieces of advice. If

851
00:41:03,116 --> 00:41:04,996
Speaker 2: you're struggling in bed, get up and do something fun,

852
00:41:05,076 --> 00:41:07,116
Speaker 2: read a book. Sometimes I'll even just like get some

853
00:41:07,156 --> 00:41:08,636
Speaker 2: work done that I was worried about I wasn't gonna

854
00:41:08,636 --> 00:41:11,556
Speaker 2: get done tomorrow. When I'm totally exhausted, I get into bed,

855
00:41:11,676 --> 00:41:14,836
Speaker 2: and honestly, it is not uncommon that I get into

856
00:41:14,876 --> 00:41:17,156
Speaker 2: bed and I start worrying I'm not going to fall asleep,

857
00:41:17,956 --> 00:41:22,036
Speaker 2: and I do fall asleep. Yeah, because it's the necessary

858
00:41:22,076 --> 00:41:25,476
Speaker 2: relaxation that helps me let go into this mysterious process

859
00:41:25,476 --> 00:41:27,236
Speaker 2: of sleep. So that's a long way of saying those

860
00:41:27,276 --> 00:41:27,916
Speaker 2: are two hacks.

861
00:41:28,076 --> 00:41:30,476
Speaker 1: I love the psycho hack in particular for the reason

862
00:41:30,516 --> 00:41:32,396
Speaker 1: we were just talking about, which is like one of

863
00:41:32,396 --> 00:41:34,556
Speaker 1: the reasons we need to prioritize sleep hygiene is we

864
00:41:34,636 --> 00:41:37,356
Speaker 1: know how terribly crappy it is when we don't get sleep,

865
00:41:37,636 --> 00:41:39,476
Speaker 1: and you care about it so much, so I can

866
00:41:39,516 --> 00:41:42,236
Speaker 1: get into this terrible the same rumatative cycle where I'm like,

867
00:41:42,516 --> 00:41:44,796
Speaker 1: oh gosh, it's taking forever. You know, I'm gonna get

868
00:41:44,876 --> 00:41:46,156
Speaker 1: up and go out, but then I'm gonna have even

869
00:41:46,236 --> 00:41:48,636
Speaker 1: less time, and I'm running through my head of like

870
00:41:48,676 --> 00:41:51,116
Speaker 1: all these terrible scenarios that are gonna come up. But

871
00:41:51,196 --> 00:41:53,516
Speaker 1: this act of just being like, it's gonna be fine,

872
00:41:53,636 --> 00:41:56,036
Speaker 1: It's okay, you've dealt with it before, Laura, you'll deal

873
00:41:56,076 --> 00:41:59,756
Speaker 1: with it again. It's just so powerful but very counterintuitive

874
00:41:59,836 --> 00:42:01,956
Speaker 1: to just give yourself grace for this something that it

875
00:42:01,956 --> 00:42:04,436
Speaker 1: feels like you're actively screwing up, but also recognize that

876
00:42:04,476 --> 00:42:07,276
Speaker 1: your body, just like sleep, is this mysterious thing that

877
00:42:07,316 --> 00:42:08,956
Speaker 1: comes when it comes, and like you don't have any

878
00:42:09,116 --> 00:42:11,276
Speaker 1: control over it. That's not your fault, and so just

879
00:42:11,356 --> 00:42:13,676
Speaker 1: like letting that be the way it is can be

880
00:42:13,796 --> 00:42:14,916
Speaker 1: also a powerful strategy.

881
00:42:15,436 --> 00:42:17,916
Speaker 2: It's like creativity or looking for an idea. It's like

882
00:42:18,196 --> 00:42:20,876
Speaker 2: the muse will visit, but you have to create the

883
00:42:20,876 --> 00:42:24,636
Speaker 2: conditions the same with this mysterious sleep thing. Just create

884
00:42:24,676 --> 00:42:27,316
Speaker 2: the conditions, and part of that is this relaxation that

885
00:42:27,676 --> 00:42:31,276
Speaker 2: can be arrived at in a counterintuitive there's that word again,

886
00:42:31,356 --> 00:42:34,876
Speaker 2: way of giving yourself permission for it just suck and

887
00:42:34,916 --> 00:42:38,476
Speaker 2: for you not to sleep. Very interestingly, as a brief digression,

888
00:42:39,076 --> 00:42:42,556
Speaker 2: many people deal with sleepiness during meditation, and so I

889
00:42:42,596 --> 00:42:45,036
Speaker 2: actually think giving yourself permission to fall asleep. Yeah, like

890
00:42:45,476 --> 00:42:47,356
Speaker 2: I might fall asleep and I'm not going to struggle

891
00:42:47,396 --> 00:42:50,876
Speaker 2: with it. Once there's no struggle, things can happen. Once

892
00:42:50,916 --> 00:42:54,556
Speaker 2: there are no expectations, things can unferl.

893
00:42:54,476 --> 00:42:57,316
Speaker 1: The mind is so poorly organized sometimes it's just like

894
00:42:57,356 --> 00:43:00,516
Speaker 1: by evolutionary head. I'm just like, why does the mind

895
00:43:00,556 --> 00:43:02,876
Speaker 1: built on resistance for things like we get mad at

896
00:43:02,916 --> 00:43:04,796
Speaker 1: ourselves and that makes it worse. It just like would

897
00:43:04,836 --> 00:43:08,196
Speaker 1: be so much easier if we came with reasonable operating instructions.

898
00:43:08,236 --> 00:43:10,236
Speaker 1: I just hope the next version of the mind doesn't

899
00:43:10,236 --> 00:43:11,036
Speaker 1: have all these features.

900
00:43:11,076 --> 00:43:14,236
Speaker 2: But the thing is, yet I agree with you all

901
00:43:14,316 --> 00:43:18,076
Speaker 2: the way. And the good news is that for millennia,

902
00:43:18,236 --> 00:43:20,876
Speaker 2: really smart people have been thinking about how to deal

903
00:43:21,476 --> 00:43:25,356
Speaker 2: with this quirky mind that natural selection has bequeathed us.

904
00:43:25,676 --> 00:43:28,756
Speaker 2: So my job and your job really is to curate

905
00:43:28,916 --> 00:43:33,356
Speaker 2: and present in compelling, sticky ways all of these techniques

906
00:43:33,396 --> 00:43:35,476
Speaker 2: that come out of ancient wisdom and modern science.

907
00:43:35,516 --> 00:43:38,236
Speaker 3: And so that is actually really good news.

908
00:43:38,356 --> 00:43:41,196
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of kind of figuring out compelling ways to

909
00:43:41,196 --> 00:43:43,276
Speaker 1: explain dumb things about the mind, one of the things

910
00:43:43,276 --> 00:43:45,916
Speaker 1: that World Mental Health Day folks pointed out is that

911
00:43:46,076 --> 00:43:49,356
Speaker 1: you know, these individual strategies, you know they're great, but

912
00:43:49,676 --> 00:43:52,396
Speaker 1: that might not be the most effective kind of intervention

913
00:43:52,596 --> 00:43:55,556
Speaker 1: for promoting happiness at work. We can empower people to

914
00:43:55,556 --> 00:43:57,356
Speaker 1: make the best of a bad situation, but if we

915
00:43:57,356 --> 00:43:59,916
Speaker 1: can make the bad situation better, that would make most

916
00:43:59,916 --> 00:44:03,316
Speaker 1: things better. And for this reason, employers and managers have

917
00:44:03,396 --> 00:44:05,516
Speaker 1: this big role in mental health, so says the folks

918
00:44:05,556 --> 00:44:07,796
Speaker 1: who came up with World Mental Health Day. And so

919
00:44:08,156 --> 00:44:12,076
Speaker 1: I'm curious about, well, your ideas for better training managers

920
00:44:12,076 --> 00:44:15,036
Speaker 1: at work to support mental health and in addition to

921
00:44:15,076 --> 00:44:18,076
Speaker 1: just being kind of a general good well being mindfulness guru,

922
00:44:18,556 --> 00:44:20,356
Speaker 1: I know this is something that you've thought a lot

923
00:44:20,396 --> 00:44:22,876
Speaker 1: about in the organizations that you've run, about how you

924
00:44:22,916 --> 00:44:25,636
Speaker 1: can be sort of the best, most compassionate boss that

925
00:44:25,636 --> 00:44:27,836
Speaker 1: you can be. And so tell me a little bit

926
00:44:27,836 --> 00:44:30,116
Speaker 1: about how you've been thinking about that and any techniques

927
00:44:30,156 --> 00:44:31,596
Speaker 1: that you've brought in to do that better.

928
00:44:31,676 --> 00:44:34,076
Speaker 2: Well, I want to hear your thoughts on the technique

929
00:44:34,156 --> 00:44:36,996
Speaker 2: as more of like a mental health authority. I'm definitely

930
00:44:36,996 --> 00:44:39,476
Speaker 2: an authority on my own experience, so I'll talk about

931
00:44:39,476 --> 00:44:43,676
Speaker 2: that in terms of having screwed this up a lot

932
00:44:43,716 --> 00:44:47,036
Speaker 2: as a manager, and I have made a lot of mistakes.

933
00:44:47,356 --> 00:44:50,436
Speaker 2: Part of this, by way of context, is that I

934
00:44:50,436 --> 00:44:53,796
Speaker 2: spent the beast bulk of my career as an anchorman

935
00:44:54,236 --> 00:44:56,436
Speaker 2: where I wasn't I didn't have any direct reports.

936
00:44:56,476 --> 00:44:57,876
Speaker 3: I never had any direct reports.

937
00:44:57,876 --> 00:45:02,236
Speaker 2: And then I co founded this company, but I was

938
00:45:02,236 --> 00:45:05,396
Speaker 2: not the CEO. I was a co founder, but somebody

939
00:45:05,396 --> 00:45:08,596
Speaker 2: else was running the company and had all the direct reports.

940
00:45:09,156 --> 00:45:10,636
Speaker 2: How I have my own company, and i have a

941
00:45:10,676 --> 00:45:13,316
Speaker 2: lot of direct reports, and I've made a lot of mistakes,

942
00:45:13,356 --> 00:45:16,196
Speaker 2: and I've spent a lot of time thinking about how

943
00:45:16,236 --> 00:45:19,156
Speaker 2: to be part of the solution rather than part of

944
00:45:19,156 --> 00:45:21,356
Speaker 2: the problem. In just in case anybody who works for

945
00:45:21,436 --> 00:45:23,796
Speaker 2: me is listening, I know that I am not perfect,

946
00:45:24,236 --> 00:45:26,676
Speaker 2: and I'm still making a lot of mistakes, but I

947
00:45:26,716 --> 00:45:29,396
Speaker 2: have done a lot of work on this score. One

948
00:45:29,436 --> 00:45:32,556
Speaker 2: thing I think about a lot. Is this term psychological safety,

949
00:45:32,596 --> 00:45:35,556
Speaker 2: which is yet another of these terms that can sound

950
00:45:35,716 --> 00:45:38,796
Speaker 2: kind of vague or gauzy or soft, but it really

951
00:45:38,876 --> 00:45:41,156
Speaker 2: is a ton of hard data to show that this

952
00:45:41,356 --> 00:45:43,516
Speaker 2: is the secret sauce. There was one big study done

953
00:45:43,556 --> 00:45:45,996
Speaker 2: internally at Google that I'm sure you're aware of, where

954
00:45:45,996 --> 00:45:48,716
Speaker 2: they were trying to figure out, like, what is the

955
00:45:48,756 --> 00:45:53,556
Speaker 2: common denominator among the best performing teams in this huge corporation,

956
00:45:53,916 --> 00:45:54,876
Speaker 2: And for a long time.

957
00:45:54,756 --> 00:45:57,036
Speaker 3: They could not figure it out.

958
00:45:56,716 --> 00:45:59,876
Speaker 2: And they finally arrived on this mysterious ingredient, which is

959
00:46:00,076 --> 00:46:03,716
Speaker 2: psychological safety, which is the comfort that even the most

960
00:46:03,796 --> 00:46:07,036
Speaker 2: junior person feels on any given team to speak up.

961
00:46:07,796 --> 00:46:09,756
Speaker 2: And so I have spent a lot of time and

962
00:46:09,796 --> 00:46:13,436
Speaker 2: continue to really struggle with this with somebody who has

963
00:46:13,476 --> 00:46:16,316
Speaker 2: my employees have pointed out, has a very pronounced, resting

964
00:46:16,356 --> 00:46:19,436
Speaker 2: bitch face and can be kind of scary. But really

965
00:46:19,556 --> 00:46:23,436
Speaker 2: thinking hard about how can I, in meetings call on

966
00:46:23,516 --> 00:46:26,476
Speaker 2: the junior people in a warm and welcoming way, make

967
00:46:26,556 --> 00:46:30,516
Speaker 2: everybody feel included. Reward people who say the hard thing

968
00:46:30,556 --> 00:46:34,956
Speaker 2: to me, Reward people who tell me when I'm screwing up.

969
00:46:35,116 --> 00:46:38,196
Speaker 2: And I try to encourage my direct reports two tell

970
00:46:38,276 --> 00:46:40,436
Speaker 2: me the truth, and then if they do, especially if

971
00:46:40,476 --> 00:46:42,756
Speaker 2: they do it publicly, to call them out in a

972
00:46:42,796 --> 00:46:45,396
Speaker 2: positive way and say so and so said did this

973
00:46:45,556 --> 00:46:47,476
Speaker 2: very brave thing. And they told me that I was

974
00:46:47,516 --> 00:46:49,876
Speaker 2: not expressing much gratitude to the team recently, and I

975
00:46:49,996 --> 00:46:52,076
Speaker 2: really heard that, and I'm grateful to that person, and

976
00:46:52,116 --> 00:46:54,156
Speaker 2: I'm grateful to all of you, and I'm sorry. And

977
00:46:54,196 --> 00:46:58,556
Speaker 2: here's why I wasn't doing it. And so really trying

978
00:46:58,596 --> 00:47:02,276
Speaker 2: to go hard at psychological safety is a big thing

979
00:47:02,316 --> 00:47:05,756
Speaker 2: that I've thought about. And another thing is working on

980
00:47:05,796 --> 00:47:08,516
Speaker 2: my communication skills, and this is very much related. I

981
00:47:08,556 --> 00:47:11,276
Speaker 2: have spent the last six years working with these two

982
00:47:11,316 --> 00:47:12,156
Speaker 2: incredible people.

983
00:47:12,316 --> 00:47:13,156
Speaker 3: They're a married couple.

984
00:47:13,236 --> 00:47:16,716
Speaker 2: Their names are Moudita Nisker and Dan Klerman, and they

985
00:47:16,716 --> 00:47:20,116
Speaker 2: wrote a book called Let's Talk, and they developed very simple,

986
00:47:20,156 --> 00:47:25,276
Speaker 2: comprehensible and comprehensive framework for communication skills in the workplace

987
00:47:25,356 --> 00:47:27,916
Speaker 2: and otherwise. They've come on my show a bunch, and

988
00:47:28,356 --> 00:47:30,156
Speaker 2: I also just have a phone call with them every

989
00:47:30,156 --> 00:47:33,076
Speaker 2: month for six years and I've really internalized their system.

990
00:47:33,116 --> 00:47:37,676
Speaker 2: And one technique that's really been helpful in my marriage

991
00:47:37,716 --> 00:47:40,356
Speaker 2: and in my work life is called reflective listening. And

992
00:47:40,676 --> 00:47:42,276
Speaker 2: I'm sure you know what this is, Lord, but I'll

993
00:47:42,276 --> 00:47:45,476
Speaker 2: say it for the listeners. It's essentially, when somebody says

994
00:47:45,516 --> 00:47:49,436
Speaker 2: something to you, you listen very carefully. Instead of planning

995
00:47:49,476 --> 00:47:51,356
Speaker 2: what you're going to say next, you listen very carefully

996
00:47:51,436 --> 00:47:54,436
Speaker 2: and then repeat back to them in your own words,

997
00:47:55,156 --> 00:47:57,996
Speaker 2: very briefly, the bones of their message to you.

998
00:47:58,636 --> 00:48:01,076
Speaker 3: And this does two things. One, it gives people.

999
00:48:01,316 --> 00:48:05,316
Speaker 2: It gives your interlocutor what every human being wants desperately,

1000
00:48:05,316 --> 00:48:06,916
Speaker 2: although they may not know it, which is to be

1001
00:48:06,996 --> 00:48:09,716
Speaker 2: seen and heard. And the second thing is it's a

1002
00:48:09,796 --> 00:48:15,276
Speaker 2: circuit breaker on your own reflexive reactive response. You can't

1003
00:48:15,356 --> 00:48:18,876
Speaker 2: pop off because you have this assignment of reflecting. And

1004
00:48:19,036 --> 00:48:21,516
Speaker 2: so I have found that when I can do this

1005
00:48:21,756 --> 00:48:25,836
Speaker 2: with my colleagues, especially the junior colleagues, it really helps

1006
00:48:25,876 --> 00:48:30,596
Speaker 2: people relax, feel seen and valued, even if I deeply disagree.

1007
00:48:30,916 --> 00:48:33,396
Speaker 2: Once I reflect them into submission, and I say that

1008
00:48:33,476 --> 00:48:36,756
Speaker 2: with tongues slightly and cheap, I can then say the

1009
00:48:36,836 --> 00:48:39,716
Speaker 2: hard things that they otherwise wouldn't be able to hear. Okay,

1010
00:48:39,756 --> 00:48:41,276
Speaker 2: so I just threw a lot at you. How does

1011
00:48:41,316 --> 00:48:42,196
Speaker 2: all of that go down with you?

1012
00:48:42,436 --> 00:48:44,196
Speaker 1: No? No, I think it's really powerful. I think, you know,

1013
00:48:44,356 --> 00:48:47,636
Speaker 1: reflective listening is so powerful in part because not only

1014
00:48:47,716 --> 00:48:50,116
Speaker 1: does it make you not pop off, it like stops

1015
00:48:50,156 --> 00:48:52,036
Speaker 1: that circuit breaker, but it can stop a kind of

1016
00:48:52,076 --> 00:48:55,556
Speaker 1: different circuit, which is kind of misunderstanding circuit, because sometimes

1017
00:48:55,596 --> 00:48:58,596
Speaker 1: someone tells us something, we hear something completely different, and

1018
00:48:58,676 --> 00:49:01,356
Speaker 1: we're reacting and popping off not to what they meant,

1019
00:49:01,516 --> 00:49:04,796
Speaker 1: but what we heard. And so I've heard a kind

1020
00:49:04,836 --> 00:49:06,916
Speaker 1: of addition to this technique, which is an addition to

1021
00:49:07,436 --> 00:49:09,996
Speaker 1: kind of having use serve some in your own words,

1022
00:49:10,036 --> 00:49:12,756
Speaker 1: as succinctly as possible, what they just said. You sometimes

1023
00:49:12,836 --> 00:49:15,596
Speaker 1: follow that with did I get that right? Or did

1024
00:49:15,636 --> 00:49:19,916
Speaker 1: I miss anything? And that allows this sort of cyclical activity,

1025
00:49:19,996 --> 00:49:22,316
Speaker 1: which is like making sure we kind of understand each other,

1026
00:49:22,476 --> 00:49:24,436
Speaker 1: because sometimes with a junior colleague, if you do that's

1027
00:49:24,436 --> 00:49:25,756
Speaker 1: like oh, did I get that right? Or am I

1028
00:49:25,756 --> 00:49:27,636
Speaker 1: missing anything, they'll be like, well, yeah, you're actually missing

1029
00:49:27,676 --> 00:49:30,196
Speaker 1: this other part, which is and the second thing winds

1030
00:49:30,276 --> 00:49:33,676
Speaker 1: up being even more relevant, or it really changes your view.

1031
00:49:33,796 --> 00:49:35,876
Speaker 1: It's a reason you didn't think about before, and so on,

1032
00:49:36,356 --> 00:49:39,076
Speaker 1: and so yeah, so I think this iterative process of

1033
00:49:39,196 --> 00:49:42,196
Speaker 1: making sure you come to true understanding and true listening

1034
00:49:42,636 --> 00:49:45,116
Speaker 1: can be so powerful, and just having like a kind

1035
00:49:45,116 --> 00:49:48,356
Speaker 1: of a really quick hack to do that is important

1036
00:49:48,396 --> 00:49:51,956
Speaker 1: because especially in busy situations, especially in sometimes high emotion

1037
00:49:52,156 --> 00:49:55,156
Speaker 1: situations or kind of high fear of failure situations, like

1038
00:49:55,196 --> 00:49:56,916
Speaker 1: the kind of thing we find at work, I think

1039
00:49:56,996 --> 00:49:59,476
Speaker 1: having one of these kind of quick go to hacks

1040
00:49:59,476 --> 00:50:01,276
Speaker 1: of like, oh no, no, my assignment right now is

1041
00:50:01,316 --> 00:50:03,876
Speaker 1: to do the reflective listening thing. Let me make sure

1042
00:50:03,916 --> 00:50:05,796
Speaker 1: I did it right. It can just be the kind

1043
00:50:05,836 --> 00:50:08,036
Speaker 1: of go to that I think eases everybody's minds.

1044
00:50:08,396 --> 00:50:08,956
Speaker 3: You can change.

1045
00:50:09,116 --> 00:50:12,516
Speaker 2: I mean, think about it like we're all our own cosmos.

1046
00:50:12,556 --> 00:50:16,156
Speaker 2: As Walt Whitman said, right, we have this incredibly rich

1047
00:50:16,236 --> 00:50:19,716
Speaker 2: and complex inner life that we're not even fully aware

1048
00:50:19,796 --> 00:50:24,916
Speaker 2: of that's influenced by all our ancestors and by the culture,

1049
00:50:25,156 --> 00:50:27,756
Speaker 2: and by what happened this morning and our conversations with

1050
00:50:27,836 --> 00:50:31,076
Speaker 2: our spouse. Is so much going on an individual mind

1051
00:50:31,276 --> 00:50:34,556
Speaker 2: in a workplace, and then you are trying to communicate

1052
00:50:34,636 --> 00:50:39,396
Speaker 2: from your cosmos through this unbridgable divide of somebody else's

1053
00:50:39,516 --> 00:50:45,196
Speaker 2: cranium and cosmos, and to just honor how difficult this

1054
00:50:45,436 --> 00:50:48,996
Speaker 2: is and use tools that up the odds of success.

1055
00:50:49,516 --> 00:50:52,676
Speaker 2: I think it is a such a winning recipe, especially

1056
00:50:52,756 --> 00:50:56,836
Speaker 2: for people of power in organizations, because the way I

1057
00:50:56,916 --> 00:50:59,196
Speaker 2: think about it, and I've really tried to train myself

1058
00:50:59,476 --> 00:51:03,436
Speaker 2: that if there's a problem on my team, it's gonna

1059
00:51:03,516 --> 00:51:06,436
Speaker 2: come from me. Ultimately, the fish is always going to

1060
00:51:06,516 --> 00:51:08,956
Speaker 2: rot from the head, and so I've really tried to

1061
00:51:09,716 --> 00:51:16,196
Speaker 2: develop the reflex of taking the full responsibility for whatever's

1062
00:51:16,276 --> 00:51:18,636
Speaker 2: going wrong on the team, hopefully not to take it

1063
00:51:18,716 --> 00:51:21,116
Speaker 2: too far because sometimes things won't be my fault, but

1064
00:51:21,356 --> 00:51:25,996
Speaker 2: generally speaking, given how power works, that it is mostly

1065
00:51:26,316 --> 00:51:29,596
Speaker 2: going to be coming from me. Just a great little

1066
00:51:29,636 --> 00:51:32,636
Speaker 2: phrase to throw at you and for your listeners, especially

1067
00:51:32,916 --> 00:51:36,156
Speaker 2: listeners with power to contemplate. This comes from a great

1068
00:51:36,236 --> 00:51:38,876
Speaker 2: executive coach named Jerry Klonna, with whom I've also worked

1069
00:51:39,236 --> 00:51:42,236
Speaker 2: intensely for the last six years. This is a question

1070
00:51:42,316 --> 00:51:44,036
Speaker 2: to ask yourself once in a while. How am I

1071
00:51:44,156 --> 00:51:47,156
Speaker 2: complicit in the conditions I say I don't want? And

1072
00:51:47,316 --> 00:51:51,716
Speaker 2: as a manager, it's such an inconvenient question to ask yourself,

1073
00:51:51,796 --> 00:51:52,676
Speaker 2: but it really helps.

1074
00:51:52,916 --> 00:51:54,916
Speaker 1: That's huge, And I think that's huge in part because

1075
00:51:55,316 --> 00:51:57,756
Speaker 1: when you're with the psychological research shows is that when

1076
00:51:57,796 --> 00:52:01,596
Speaker 1: you're in positions of power, you sometimes can't see that complicitness,

1077
00:52:01,756 --> 00:52:04,596
Speaker 1: Like there's a sense in which privilege blinds you to

1078
00:52:04,756 --> 00:52:06,836
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff. There's a really great book

1079
00:52:07,396 --> 00:52:10,236
Speaker 1: by the social psychologist Vanessa Bond called You Have More

1080
00:52:10,316 --> 00:52:12,956
Speaker 1: Influence Than You Think, and she just talks about how

1081
00:52:12,956 --> 00:52:15,436
Speaker 1: we're just blind to the fact that our you know,

1082
00:52:15,756 --> 00:52:19,716
Speaker 1: mild suggestions come off as like incredibly strong demands that

1083
00:52:19,756 --> 00:52:22,316
Speaker 1: people are into years about in the bathroom because we don't,

1084
00:52:22,356 --> 00:52:24,676
Speaker 1: as a manager, maybe realize that we've said anything that

1085
00:52:25,036 --> 00:52:27,276
Speaker 1: had that hold over people. And so I think that

1086
00:52:27,556 --> 00:52:31,076
Speaker 1: that question of really doing the reflection of could I

1087
00:52:31,156 --> 00:52:33,876
Speaker 1: see this from somebody else's perspective? Could I ask the

1088
00:52:33,956 --> 00:52:35,916
Speaker 1: question of, even if I don't realize it, what am

1089
00:52:35,956 --> 00:52:38,476
Speaker 1: I doing that might be contributing to the situation. It

1090
00:52:38,556 --> 00:52:41,036
Speaker 1: gives you a little bit of a like lens into

1091
00:52:41,116 --> 00:52:43,316
Speaker 1: that influence that you might be having, a lens into

1092
00:52:43,356 --> 00:52:45,476
Speaker 1: that complicitness that if you didn't take the time to

1093
00:52:45,516 --> 00:52:47,036
Speaker 1: do that reflection, you otherwise wouldn't have.

1094
00:52:47,276 --> 00:52:49,876
Speaker 2: Yeah, Vanessa's great, and I had her on my show

1095
00:52:49,876 --> 00:52:51,436
Speaker 2: and she had to be a little cute a lot

1096
00:52:51,516 --> 00:52:54,836
Speaker 2: of influence on me through her work. But just to

1097
00:52:55,036 --> 00:52:57,956
Speaker 2: throw this back at you, like when the people behind

1098
00:52:58,156 --> 00:53:02,956
Speaker 2: World Mental Health Day talk about how, especially in a workplace,

1099
00:53:03,116 --> 00:53:05,756
Speaker 2: it's great to give people individual coping mechanisms, but we

1100
00:53:05,836 --> 00:53:08,036
Speaker 2: do want to take a look at what the structure is.

1101
00:53:08,116 --> 00:53:11,836
Speaker 2: Like you, oh, with it being so steeved in the research,

1102
00:53:12,076 --> 00:53:14,036
Speaker 2: what do you think the answers are there?

1103
00:53:14,476 --> 00:53:16,076
Speaker 1: Well? I think part of it is like this sort

1104
00:53:16,116 --> 00:53:20,596
Speaker 1: of managerial training to become better listeners, become better communicators.

1105
00:53:20,956 --> 00:53:23,956
Speaker 1: I think what you mentioned about psychological safety is huge.

1106
00:53:24,676 --> 00:53:27,636
Speaker 1: I often hear this framed both in terms of psychological safety,

1107
00:53:27,676 --> 00:53:30,236
Speaker 1: but also in terms of finding ways to create belonging

1108
00:53:30,356 --> 00:53:32,876
Speaker 1: at work, which just allows a sense of safety, a

1109
00:53:32,956 --> 00:53:35,716
Speaker 1: sense of trust more broadly, and so some of their

1110
00:53:35,796 --> 00:53:38,796
Speaker 1: recommendations are kind of about that of like what can

1111
00:53:38,836 --> 00:53:41,196
Speaker 1: you do to sort of focus on thriving and belonging

1112
00:53:41,276 --> 00:53:43,836
Speaker 1: at work? And I think a big one beyond just

1113
00:53:43,916 --> 00:53:47,116
Speaker 1: sort of communicating, is just finding ways to allow people

1114
00:53:47,556 --> 00:53:49,676
Speaker 1: to kind of connect on the job in ways that

1115
00:53:49,756 --> 00:53:52,556
Speaker 1: we don't expect. One of my favorite studies looking at

1116
00:53:52,596 --> 00:53:54,796
Speaker 1: the power of belonging comes out of Yon Emmanuel Denv's

1117
00:53:54,836 --> 00:53:57,556
Speaker 1: work at Oxford University. He did this big study where

1118
00:53:57,556 --> 00:54:00,636
Speaker 1: he partnered up with indeed and got job data on

1119
00:54:00,956 --> 00:54:04,356
Speaker 1: fifteen million workers at over five thousand different companies to

1120
00:54:04,436 --> 00:54:07,236
Speaker 1: look at what promoted happiness at work, and what he

1121
00:54:07,396 --> 00:54:10,956
Speaker 1: found overall was that it was people's salary. It wasn't

1122
00:54:10,996 --> 00:54:13,436
Speaker 1: having a good manager, it wasn't work life balance. Those

1123
00:54:13,476 --> 00:54:15,596
Speaker 1: things mattered, but the biggest thing that mattered the most

1124
00:54:16,196 --> 00:54:18,916
Speaker 1: is your sense of belonging at work, which was defined

1125
00:54:18,996 --> 00:54:20,756
Speaker 1: in sort of two ways. One is your sense of

1126
00:54:20,876 --> 00:54:23,316
Speaker 1: kind of meaning at work, like what I do matters

1127
00:54:23,356 --> 00:54:25,956
Speaker 1: to somebody, which ultimately is a question of like social

1128
00:54:25,996 --> 00:54:28,876
Speaker 1: connection and kind of mattering. But another one, which I

1129
00:54:28,956 --> 00:54:31,396
Speaker 1: didn't expect, was the answer to the question do you

1130
00:54:31,476 --> 00:54:33,636
Speaker 1: have a best friend at work? If you said yes

1131
00:54:33,676 --> 00:54:36,036
Speaker 1: to that, you're much more likely to say that you're

1132
00:54:36,076 --> 00:54:38,436
Speaker 1: happy at work. And I think this gets us to

1133
00:54:38,516 --> 00:54:40,556
Speaker 1: it to just a thing that we forget is important

1134
00:54:40,596 --> 00:54:42,716
Speaker 1: for thriving at work, which is the kind of connection

1135
00:54:42,996 --> 00:54:45,476
Speaker 1: that we bring to our jobs. You and I and

1136
00:54:45,516 --> 00:54:47,916
Speaker 1: our podcast have both talked about the importance of social connection,

1137
00:54:48,076 --> 00:54:50,516
Speaker 1: but we forget that like we're spending like half of

1138
00:54:50,556 --> 00:54:52,836
Speaker 1: our waking lives a third of our actual lives, if

1139
00:54:52,916 --> 00:54:55,756
Speaker 1: not more, at work, And so if we're not finding

1140
00:54:55,796 --> 00:54:58,676
Speaker 1: ways to build those big connections at work, then we're

1141
00:54:58,676 --> 00:55:01,116
Speaker 1: probably missing out on a lot of the possible, like

1142
00:55:01,236 --> 00:55:05,396
Speaker 1: opportunities for social connection that oftentimes people aren't getting elsewhere.

1143
00:55:05,756 --> 00:55:08,516
Speaker 1: And so I think kind of giving workers the opportunities

1144
00:55:08,596 --> 00:55:11,796
Speaker 1: to connect is something that managers could do better, but

1145
00:55:11,876 --> 00:55:14,436
Speaker 1: also something that would help everyone thrive because a lot

1146
00:55:14,436 --> 00:55:16,916
Speaker 1: of jan Emanuel Denv's work suggests that like when you

1147
00:55:16,996 --> 00:55:19,316
Speaker 1: can allow for social connection at work as a manager,

1148
00:55:19,676 --> 00:55:23,316
Speaker 1: you wind up improving everybody's performance and actually ultimately making

1149
00:55:23,356 --> 00:55:25,836
Speaker 1: a company more money. He actually has data from this

1150
00:55:25,916 --> 00:55:28,476
Speaker 1: Indeed survey that connects having a best friend at work

1151
00:55:28,836 --> 00:55:31,836
Speaker 1: to the stock performance of different companies. So companies that

1152
00:55:32,156 --> 00:55:35,036
Speaker 1: allow for more best friendships at work make the most money.

1153
00:55:35,516 --> 00:55:37,716
Speaker 1: And so I think this is another situation where it's

1154
00:55:37,756 --> 00:55:40,036
Speaker 1: kind of counterintuitive. You wouldn't think that that mattered so

1155
00:55:40,116 --> 00:55:42,436
Speaker 1: much for a performance, but ultimately it's the kind of

1156
00:55:42,476 --> 00:55:45,156
Speaker 1: thing that you do that improves performance but also makes

1157
00:55:45,156 --> 00:55:46,956
Speaker 1: everybody feel better when they're on the job too.

1158
00:55:47,076 --> 00:55:47,956
Speaker 3: That's so compelling.

1159
00:55:48,036 --> 00:55:50,876
Speaker 2: But so what do I For example, my company, I

1160
00:55:50,956 --> 00:55:53,436
Speaker 2: have about ten people between working on the podcast and

1161
00:55:53,796 --> 00:55:57,036
Speaker 2: working on my sub stack, and there's about ten people

1162
00:55:57,156 --> 00:56:03,476
Speaker 2: all told, everybody's remote, how would I foster an environment

1163
00:56:03,556 --> 00:56:07,196
Speaker 2: where somebody could even come close to making a best

1164
00:56:07,236 --> 00:56:08,236
Speaker 2: friend in that environment?

1165
00:56:08,516 --> 00:56:11,916
Speaker 1: Yeah, One thing that folks suggest is to try to

1166
00:56:12,356 --> 00:56:15,916
Speaker 1: turn the virtual world into as much like the office

1167
00:56:15,996 --> 00:56:19,316
Speaker 1: situation like in real life as possible. And one of

1168
00:56:19,356 --> 00:56:21,156
Speaker 1: the things that I think we do badly in virtual

1169
00:56:21,236 --> 00:56:23,876
Speaker 1: situations is like we lose out on what would the

1170
00:56:23,996 --> 00:56:27,956
Speaker 1: normal social connection that would happen in a meeting type situation. Right, So,

1171
00:56:28,076 --> 00:56:29,876
Speaker 1: if you're in a physical office and you show up

1172
00:56:29,916 --> 00:56:32,116
Speaker 1: for a meeting and everybody sits around at the desks,

1173
00:56:32,516 --> 00:56:35,916
Speaker 1: nobody is just like silently staring forward like you might

1174
00:56:35,956 --> 00:56:37,676
Speaker 1: do on a Teams meeting or at a Zoom meeting.

1175
00:56:38,116 --> 00:56:40,356
Speaker 1: You're kind of chit chatting like oh that's a nice shirt,

1176
00:56:40,436 --> 00:56:42,756
Speaker 1: Like oh, how is your weekend, and blah blah blah.

1177
00:56:43,076 --> 00:56:44,556
Speaker 1: I think we do that a little bit less in

1178
00:56:44,676 --> 00:56:46,796
Speaker 1: virtual environments because it's kind of just a sort of

1179
00:56:46,876 --> 00:56:49,796
Speaker 1: strange environment. I think it's not as psychologically rich to

1180
00:56:49,836 --> 00:56:51,836
Speaker 1: have these kind of connections or the things you'd naturally

1181
00:56:51,876 --> 00:56:54,836
Speaker 1: talk about. But a lot of workplace psychologists who focus

1182
00:56:54,876 --> 00:56:57,956
Speaker 1: on social connection recommend start your meeting with ten minutes

1183
00:56:57,996 --> 00:57:00,156
Speaker 1: of that, it might feel like you're losing out on

1184
00:57:00,276 --> 00:57:02,556
Speaker 1: time and you're missing out in these important opportunities to

1185
00:57:02,636 --> 00:57:04,916
Speaker 1: do the work of the day. But the data on

1186
00:57:04,996 --> 00:57:06,796
Speaker 1: best friends at work suggest that if you make those

1187
00:57:06,836 --> 00:57:10,516
Speaker 1: social connections, you'll wind up kind of the performance benefits

1188
00:57:10,556 --> 00:57:13,116
Speaker 1: that come with it. A second thing that promotes mattering

1189
00:57:13,236 --> 00:57:16,236
Speaker 1: is to really just kind of call out those moments

1190
00:57:16,276 --> 00:57:19,436
Speaker 1: where somebody does something great or somebody does something that

1191
00:57:19,516 --> 00:57:22,556
Speaker 1: you really appreciate. And this is especially true for the boss.

1192
00:57:22,676 --> 00:57:25,316
Speaker 1: So you talked about kind of being grateful when people,

1193
00:57:25,836 --> 00:57:27,956
Speaker 1: you know, make the hard point or say something that's

1194
00:57:27,996 --> 00:57:32,156
Speaker 1: really vulnerable. I think expressing that really openly and especially

1195
00:57:32,316 --> 00:57:34,636
Speaker 1: point about gratitude is doing that in a way with

1196
00:57:34,796 --> 00:57:37,676
Speaker 1: reasons of why you appreciated it so much can be

1197
00:57:37,796 --> 00:57:39,916
Speaker 1: really powerful. So, you know, I just want to say

1198
00:57:39,916 --> 00:57:41,716
Speaker 1: that I really appreciated when you brought that up. It

1199
00:57:41,796 --> 00:57:43,716
Speaker 1: made me think a little bit differently because the X, Y,

1200
00:57:43,756 --> 00:57:46,396
Speaker 1: and Z reasons and now it's actually going to cause

1201
00:57:46,436 --> 00:57:48,276
Speaker 1: me to do something different, and so thank you so

1202
00:57:48,396 --> 00:57:51,036
Speaker 1: much for bringing that up. That is just a subtle

1203
00:57:51,036 --> 00:57:53,596
Speaker 1: way of teaching people that what they did matters. If

1204
00:57:53,596 --> 00:57:55,956
Speaker 1: their performance did something it mattered to somebody else at

1205
00:57:55,996 --> 00:57:59,316
Speaker 1: the company. Another way to show mattering is just to

1206
00:57:59,436 --> 00:58:02,036
Speaker 1: kind of take into account people's day to days and

1207
00:58:02,116 --> 00:58:05,036
Speaker 1: ways that you might not expect. I was at a

1208
00:58:05,156 --> 00:58:07,436
Speaker 1: kind of corporate talk recently where I ran into a

1209
00:58:07,556 --> 00:58:09,996
Speaker 1: CEO who said that she US is a strategy. It

1210
00:58:10,076 --> 00:58:12,076
Speaker 1: is a really much bigger organization than yours. It wasn't

1211
00:58:12,116 --> 00:58:14,596
Speaker 1: ten people, it was like two hundred people of writing

1212
00:58:14,676 --> 00:58:17,716
Speaker 1: down everybody's birthday and spending the first ten minutes of

1213
00:58:17,796 --> 00:58:20,956
Speaker 1: the day wishing whoever's birthday. It was a happy birthday

1214
00:58:21,036 --> 00:58:24,196
Speaker 1: via email. And in addition to just say like happy birthday,

1215
00:58:24,316 --> 00:58:26,916
Speaker 1: one thing about what they've done. You know, I just

1216
00:58:26,956 --> 00:58:28,916
Speaker 1: want to say, hey, happy birthday. You know I noticed

1217
00:58:29,116 --> 00:58:31,196
Speaker 1: that you did well on the Q two orport. You know,

1218
00:58:31,356 --> 00:58:33,116
Speaker 1: it's great that you guys are put in so much work.

1219
00:58:33,196 --> 00:58:35,836
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. And what she said was that, yeah,

1220
00:58:35,836 --> 00:58:37,636
Speaker 1: it's ten minutes of the day that she could have started,

1221
00:58:37,756 --> 00:58:39,956
Speaker 1: you know, diving to the normal work stuff. But she'd

1222
00:58:39,996 --> 00:58:41,796
Speaker 1: get back at email from each of those people that

1223
00:58:41,916 --> 00:58:44,396
Speaker 1: got that birthday email that said, oh my god, you

1224
00:58:44,516 --> 00:58:47,516
Speaker 1: made my day, thanks so much. Rights person's shock that

1225
00:58:47,636 --> 00:58:49,796
Speaker 1: the CEO of this big company knows her birthday and

1226
00:58:49,916 --> 00:58:52,476
Speaker 1: is saying something nice. Those are the simple kind of

1227
00:58:52,516 --> 00:58:56,396
Speaker 1: psychological techniques that make people feel like it mattered that

1228
00:58:56,476 --> 00:58:58,716
Speaker 1: I showed up at work today, Like my behaviors on

1229
00:58:58,796 --> 00:59:01,116
Speaker 1: the job are making a difference for somebody, maybe not

1230
00:59:01,276 --> 00:59:04,036
Speaker 1: like making a profit, but like people are paying attention.

1231
00:59:04,516 --> 00:59:07,476
Speaker 1: And I think those kind of expressions can seem silly

1232
00:59:07,676 --> 00:59:09,996
Speaker 1: or they seem like they don't really matter. They're superfluous,

1233
00:59:10,036 --> 00:59:11,556
Speaker 1: and they take away from the real work that we

1234
00:59:11,636 --> 00:59:14,636
Speaker 1: have to do on the job, but psychologically that they're

1235
00:59:14,796 --> 00:59:17,756
Speaker 1: really important. They contribute to mattering, and they made people

1236
00:59:17,876 --> 00:59:19,596
Speaker 1: kind of feel like the work they do is kind

1237
00:59:19,636 --> 00:59:21,716
Speaker 1: of critical, that there's psyched to show up to work.

1238
00:59:21,796 --> 00:59:24,156
Speaker 2: I'm humbled as I listened to all this because I'm

1239
00:59:24,156 --> 00:59:28,676
Speaker 2: realizing that even my ten person team, that I can

1240
00:59:28,956 --> 00:59:32,316
Speaker 2: fall short quite severely on this, and so it's really

1241
00:59:32,436 --> 00:59:34,956
Speaker 2: helpful for me personally to listen to everything you've said

1242
00:59:35,036 --> 00:59:38,756
Speaker 2: and just I'm just remembering a story, very brief story

1243
00:59:38,836 --> 00:59:42,156
Speaker 2: of when my son was born almost ten years ago,

1244
00:59:42,436 --> 00:59:45,676
Speaker 2: and Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, sent me an

1245
00:59:45,756 --> 00:59:50,236
Speaker 2: email and I was like a CEA level anchorman at

1246
00:59:50,316 --> 00:59:54,116
Speaker 2: a very small part of Disney, you know, at ABC News,

1247
00:59:54,156 --> 00:59:58,516
Speaker 2: which is a tiny, tiny part of what Disney does.

1248
00:59:58,876 --> 01:00:01,396
Speaker 2: He sent me an email and I replied, and he replied,

1249
01:00:01,436 --> 01:00:04,356
Speaker 2: and I replied. We he actually took, you know, a

1250
01:00:04,436 --> 01:00:06,636
Speaker 2: non trivial amount of his time as the CEO of

1251
01:00:06,716 --> 01:00:10,196
Speaker 2: one of the biggest corporations on earth to really correspond

1252
01:00:10,276 --> 01:00:12,036
Speaker 2: with me about the birth of my child. And then

1253
01:00:12,076 --> 01:00:15,556
Speaker 2: I extrapolate from that to how often I failed to

1254
01:00:15,596 --> 01:00:17,636
Speaker 2: do that on my tiny team. And it's really a

1255
01:00:17,716 --> 01:00:18,716
Speaker 2: good learning for me.

1256
01:00:18,996 --> 01:00:21,676
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's tricky, right, because those managers you're

1257
01:00:21,756 --> 01:00:25,396
Speaker 1: often you know, you're stressed out, you're time famished, you're like,

1258
01:00:25,596 --> 01:00:27,596
Speaker 1: you know, kind of running around doing all this stuff

1259
01:00:27,596 --> 01:00:29,676
Speaker 1: that feels like it has to get done. And I

1260
01:00:29,756 --> 01:00:32,996
Speaker 1: think we just need to frame the social connection mattering

1261
01:00:33,076 --> 01:00:35,436
Speaker 1: parts of stuff that has to get done too. And

1262
01:00:35,756 --> 01:00:38,236
Speaker 1: the kicker though, is that, ultimately, you know, that felt

1263
01:00:38,276 --> 01:00:40,316
Speaker 1: great for you that Bob sent you this email. I

1264
01:00:40,436 --> 01:00:42,636
Speaker 1: bet his day was made better, Right. There are these

1265
01:00:42,716 --> 01:00:44,756
Speaker 1: kind of win wins that we're missing out on on

1266
01:00:44,876 --> 01:00:47,396
Speaker 1: the job because we're not focused on this stuff. But

1267
01:00:47,516 --> 01:00:49,996
Speaker 1: ultimately we get kind of a kickback of that happiness

1268
01:00:50,036 --> 01:00:52,716
Speaker 1: boost as a manager by kind of doing more of

1269
01:00:52,796 --> 01:00:55,076
Speaker 1: this kind stuff and the sort of inclusive stuff for

1270
01:00:55,116 --> 01:00:56,036
Speaker 1: our employees too.

1271
01:00:56,076 --> 01:00:59,316
Speaker 3: Make you a very convincing case. Lori Scanos well.

1272
01:00:59,316 --> 01:01:01,756
Speaker 1: Dan, thank you so much. I'm so grateful that you

1273
01:01:01,836 --> 01:01:03,756
Speaker 1: took the time to chat with me. I learned something

1274
01:01:03,876 --> 01:01:05,796
Speaker 1: new every single time I talked to you, and I

1275
01:01:05,876 --> 01:01:08,916
Speaker 1: did this time as well, and so just huge gratitude,

1276
01:01:09,196 --> 01:01:10,156
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show.

1277
01:01:10,316 --> 01:01:12,436
Speaker 2: Likewise, I send that gratitude right back at you, and

1278
01:01:12,596 --> 01:01:15,276
Speaker 2: I learn a ton of listening to you, especially in

1279
01:01:15,356 --> 01:01:17,036
Speaker 2: these last five to seven minutes.

1280
01:01:17,076 --> 01:01:17,556
Speaker 3: So thank you.