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Speaker 1: Pushkin. As fans of this show probably know, I've thought

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Speaker 1: a whole lot about happiness and academic settings, about how

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Speaker 1: teens and young adults can be happier at school or

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Speaker 1: in college. But when I attended the twenty twenty three

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Speaker 1: south By Southwest conference, I had a chance to take

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Speaker 1: part in a great panel which talked about the challenges

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Speaker 1: of maintaining our well being at work. So at this

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Speaker 1: year's south By Southwest I returned to give a special

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Speaker 1: talk about what science says we should do to thrive

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Speaker 1: and are rapidly changing workplaces. The audience in Austin really

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Speaker 1: seemed to enjoy it, so I wanted to share that

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Speaker 1: talk with you today. I hope you enjoy it. Hello,

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Speaker 1: Hello south By folks. Today we're going to be talking

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Speaker 1: about the future of work, because the landscape of work

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Speaker 1: is changing. You know, take the fact that we're kind

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Speaker 1: of dealing with technology changes, right, We're all trying to

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Speaker 1: figure out how these new tools like chat, GBT and

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Speaker 1: AI are going to change the landscape of how we

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Speaker 1: do our creative work, how we do knowledge work generally, right,

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Speaker 1: this is something that's kind of on our mind about

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Speaker 1: the future of work. On our mind about the future

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Speaker 1: of work is also the question of where we work,

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Speaker 1: you know, like the fact that we're no longer in

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Speaker 1: these big office buildings that so many companies have paid for,

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Speaker 1: Like the fact that we wind up working at home

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Speaker 1: with a lot of you know, destructions around us all

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Speaker 1: the time. But beyond that, we also have questions about

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Speaker 1: how the economy is shaping the future of work and

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Speaker 1: the fact that you know, some of us might not

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Speaker 1: be working in the same place that we were working,

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Speaker 1: you know, a couple of years ago. What does that

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Speaker 1: mean that these things are changing around, especially for the

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Speaker 1: folks who might have been laid off or had some

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Speaker 1: career changes, but also for the folks that are in

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Speaker 1: the same career that they were in before. If your

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Speaker 1: mindset is on your worries about leaving work, if your

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Speaker 1: mindset is on quiet quitting, what is that doing to

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Speaker 1: the nature of work and how we focus on it.

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Speaker 1: But this is a session on happiness and well being,

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Speaker 1: and so we're going to be focused on the question

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Speaker 1: of what the future of work says about happiness and

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Speaker 1: how our own mental health and our well being might

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Speaker 1: be involved in the future of work in ways that

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Speaker 1: we actually don't expect and I think it's fair to

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Speaker 1: say it's been basically a dumpster fire for the last

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Speaker 1: couple of years when it comes to our collective well being.

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Speaker 1: You know, for a variety of reasons, we have just

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Speaker 1: gotten through a global pandemic, We are facing a climate

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Speaker 1: crisis that is unprecedented. We have all these technologies that

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Speaker 1: are coming in that are spooking us about how we're

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Speaker 1: going to change work around, Like we're coming up on

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Speaker 1: a really terrifying election that is going to be taking

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Speaker 1: up all of our bandwidth. Right, twenty twenty four has

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Speaker 1: been a mess, But I also think twenty twenty four

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Speaker 1: has been a mess when it comes to thinking about work.

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Speaker 1: So many of us are feeling much more burned out,

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Speaker 1: much more overwhelmed, much more anxious about the certainty of

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Speaker 1: our work and the certainty of our workplaces than ever before.

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Speaker 1: And as an expert on the science of happiness, this

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Speaker 1: is actually something that worries me about the future of work,

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Speaker 1: because we know a lot about what happens to people's

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Speaker 1: work when their well being takes a dive, when they're

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Speaker 1: feeling a little bit burned out, when they're feeling a

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Speaker 1: little bit overwhelmed, and the answer is that it's not good.

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Speaker 1: And so when I got invited to kind of come

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Speaker 1: out to south By to have a conversation with you

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Speaker 1: about the science of happiness, I really wanted to focus

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Speaker 1: on work in particular, because when I do the thing

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Speaker 1: that most south By presenters do, we kind of put

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Speaker 1: on our south By glasses and we look to the future.

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Speaker 1: And my goal as a speaker is to give you, Okay,

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Speaker 1: what are we going to know? What do we know

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Speaker 1: right now that's going to change the future of the

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Speaker 1: workplace in five years from now? What do you want

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Speaker 1: to hear today that you're going to take with you

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Speaker 1: when you leave this place that's going to prepare you

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Speaker 1: for the next five years, the next decade and so on.

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Speaker 1: When I hear that question, I actually don't want to

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Speaker 1: talk about AI. I don't want to talk about layoffs.

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Speaker 1: What I want to talk about is happiness and mental health.

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Speaker 1: And the reason I want to talk about that is

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Speaker 1: that if you look at what the science suggests what

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Speaker 1: the biggest priority should be in the workplace of tomorrow,

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Speaker 1: how we want to think about the workplace of the future.

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Speaker 1: I think science gives us a clear answer, and it's

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Speaker 1: not that we need to focus on technologies or some

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Speaker 1: new kind of industry movement, whatever. The thing we need

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Speaker 1: to focus on is happiness. And that's because so much

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Speaker 1: data in the last few years have started showing the

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Speaker 1: importance of happiness for our workplace performance. In fact, what

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Speaker 1: science shows right now is that our happiness seems to

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Speaker 1: really matter for our productivity, for our flourishing in the office,

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Speaker 1: for what we do. How do we know this well,

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Speaker 1: we know this from some older studies. These are studies

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Speaker 1: from the nineties and the early two thousands that looked

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Speaker 1: at the kinds of things that predict your performance bottom line, right,

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Speaker 1: how you do in the workplace, Things like what are

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Speaker 1: the kinds of things you can do to make sure

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Speaker 1: you're going to get a job. We all think of

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Speaker 1: the normal LinkedIn things, Right, you got to boost your resume,

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Speaker 1: and you got to get certain skill sets and so on.

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Speaker 1: We don't tend to think that the thing that you

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Speaker 1: should prioritize is your happiness and your mental health. But

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Speaker 1: the data seems to suggest that's actually an important thing

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Speaker 1: to prioritize. One study by the University of Virginia psychologist

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Speaker 1: Ed Deaner actually looked at the kinds of things that

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Speaker 1: predict people's job obtainment, not necessarily right now, but at

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Speaker 1: times in the future. And the thing that ed Deener

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Speaker 1: decided to study was people's level of cheerfulness. He measured

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Speaker 1: cheerfulness in his undergrads at age eighteen and used that

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Speaker 1: level of cheerfulness to predict whether or not those undergrads

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Speaker 1: got a job, not when they were age eighteen, but

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Speaker 1: when they were aged twenty seven and later at age

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Speaker 1: thirty seven. And what he found, remarkably in a very

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Speaker 1: famous paper, is that your cheerfulness at age eighteen is predictive.

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Speaker 1: It's predictive of whether or not you get a job,

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Speaker 1: whether you get a job that you like, but also

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Speaker 1: whether or not you get a job where you're making

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Speaker 1: a decent amount of money. We often think that money

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Speaker 1: matters for happiness, but we don't think that the causal

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Speaker 1: arrow goes the other way, Like if I was happier,

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Speaker 1: I would be making more money. But the data actually

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Speaker 1: seemed to suggest that that seems to be the case. Now,

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Speaker 1: you might worry about the statistic. Some of you might

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Speaker 1: be in the HR field, and you might be saying

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Speaker 1: to yourself, are we paying the happy people more? Money.

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Speaker 1: That seems really sketchy. We got to get on top

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Speaker 1: of that, like, no, no, that's not actually what's happening.

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Speaker 1: What's happening is that happy people are performing better pretty

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Speaker 1: much by every metric of innovative performance. It seems like

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Speaker 1: happy people are actually doing better in their jobs. One

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Speaker 1: of my favorite studies that looked at this looked in

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Speaker 1: a particular industry profession. They brought doctors into the lab,

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Speaker 1: medical doctors, and gave doctors a sort of tough medical diagnosis.

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Speaker 1: If you're a fan of these like TV shows where

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Speaker 1: doctors do these weird things, like House or way back

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Speaker 1: in the day QUINCYMD, where they have these like weird

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Speaker 1: medical things. I watch these a lot in a bit

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Speaker 1: of a hypochondriac, so I'm familiar with these. These are

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Speaker 1: the problems that they gave doctors in this study. These

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Speaker 1: kind of hard like hard to figure out problems. But

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Speaker 1: half of the doctors in this study get to be

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Speaker 1: in a put in a good mood. First, they just

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Speaker 1: got to watch a couple of silly cat videos on YouTube.

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Speaker 1: What happens to people's performance? What the researchers find is

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Speaker 1: that the doctors who are in the good mood wind

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Speaker 1: up statistically coming up with better solutions, the more innovative solutions.

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Speaker 1: Just being in a good mood winds up, allowing us

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Speaker 1: to think a little bit more creatively. Now I'm telling

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Speaker 1: you the study on this, but in some ways I

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Speaker 1: didn't need to tell you that study. Right. Think to

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Speaker 1: the last time that you were feeling the opposite of

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Speaker 1: that cat video mood where you were just kind of

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Speaker 1: super overwhelmed and kind of you know, just really depressed

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Speaker 1: or anxious. You weren't thinking creatively, you were triaging. You're

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Speaker 1: taking all your ideas in the like tiniest form possible. Right,

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Speaker 1: Our minds narrow in when we're not feeling good, and

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Speaker 1: the data suggests that if we're not feeling good at work,

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Speaker 1: our minds are going to narrow in in ways that

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Speaker 1: might negatively affect our performance, and that finding a path

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Speaker 1: to positive emotion might be one of the best ways

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Speaker 1: to increase our productivity at work. And so that's all

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Speaker 1: the science showing that happiness matters for our performance. We've

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Speaker 1: kind of known about that and little fits and starts

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Speaker 1: over the past few years, but in just the last

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Speaker 1: year or so, we've been getting a different metric of

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Speaker 1: how happiness affects our performance, which is the but it

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Speaker 1: doesn't just affect the performance of individuals. A happiness at

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Speaker 1: work seems to be affecting a company's profits. And this

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Speaker 1: is the time when I think people start paying attention,

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Speaker 1: because as soon as it starts affecting the real bottom line,

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Speaker 1: like how much money a company is making, all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden, now people are starting to pay attention. And

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Speaker 1: I think this data is best shown in a really

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Speaker 1: cool recent working paper. This is my favorite working paper

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Speaker 1: of the last year in twenty twenty three, and it

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Speaker 1: was a paper that was put together by researchers at

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Speaker 1: the University of Oxford and a company that's of high

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Speaker 1: prominence here in Austin. Indeed, some of you might know, indeed,

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Speaker 1: some of you might have been on indeed, if you

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Speaker 1: haven't been on indeed, indeed is this job website where

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Speaker 1: you can look for jobs, but also you can rank

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Speaker 1: everything about your current job, or you can bring your

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Speaker 1: salary and your compensation, your work life balance, but also

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Speaker 1: your happiness. And so these researchers that indeed had this idea,

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Speaker 1: they said, hang on, there are fifteen million hosts plus

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Speaker 1: on indeed about people's happiness at work. Has anybody ever

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Speaker 1: actually looked at what that happiness at work predicts? For example,

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Speaker 1: does it predict how well companies are doing in terms

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Speaker 1: of their profits? Is there a correlation between people's happiness

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Speaker 1: at work or average happiness at work in an individual

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Speaker 1: company and the profits that that company is making. And

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Speaker 1: so they took these fifteen million plus data points over

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Speaker 1: thousands of different companies, and they looked and it turns

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Speaker 1: out these things are correlated. I'm showing you right now

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Speaker 1: the graph from their working paper, and what you're seeing

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Speaker 1: is the gross profits on one axis, and these indeed

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Speaker 1: well being score, which is kind of a metric of

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Speaker 1: people's happiness at work, their sense of purpose and so on.

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Speaker 1: But basically, what you see is this lovely correlation where

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Speaker 1: the companies who have the happiest workers are making the

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Speaker 1: most money. Now, all of a sudden, the c suite

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Speaker 1: folks are paying attention because this is mattering for their profits.

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Speaker 1: But these researchers didn't just do that. They actually did

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Speaker 1: one other thing that I love. I can't help again,

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Speaker 1: but kind of nerdily share with you the graph. They said, well,

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Speaker 1: if this is true that the happier companies are making

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Speaker 1: the most money. Maybe we need a different econom index.

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Speaker 1: Some of you might have heard about, like the SNP

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Speaker 1: five hundred, right, which is like, you know, these top

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Speaker 1: five hundred companies where if you invest you'll probably make

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Speaker 1: some money. They said, what if we make a kind

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Speaker 1: of SMP one hundred of the top one hundred happiest

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Speaker 1: companies in the INDEED data set, and we plot how

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Speaker 1: the stocks of that company did against maybe the SMP

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Speaker 1: five hundred and all these other indicators of economic success.

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Speaker 1: And that's the graph I'm going to show you. Now.

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Speaker 1: You'll see on the bottom are these orange, purple, and

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Speaker 1: green lines. That's the SMP five hundred, the Dow Jones,

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Speaker 1: the Nasdaq. Those are the normal things we see in

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Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal that are the indicators of economic success.

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Speaker 1: And I'm looking across time as though you'd invested one

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Speaker 1: thousand bucks back in January twenty twenty in these companies,

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Speaker 1: how would your money be doing over time? But you'll

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Speaker 1: notice there's that blue bar that tends to be at

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Speaker 1: the top of this graph. That's this INDEED top one

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Speaker 1: hundred kind of SMP one hundred of the happiest companies

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Speaker 1: and what they're finding is that pretty much at every

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Speaker 1: point in the economic cycle over the last couple of years,

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Speaker 1: these top one hundred companies we're beating out in terms

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Speaker 1: of how much money they're stock, We're breaking all these

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Speaker 1: other kind of indicators. What does this mean. This means

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Speaker 1: that what the research is showing is that happier companies

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Speaker 1: make more money. If your employees are happy, that might

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Speaker 1: be a critical factor. And whether your startup is going

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Speaker 1: to succeed, or whether your country, whether your company gets

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Speaker 1: out of the economic slump that we're all in right now,

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Speaker 1: these things matter. And so that's why I think, with

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Speaker 1: my kind of south By glasses on, we need to

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Speaker 1: be paying attention to well being. Yeah, AI and worries

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Speaker 1: about the economics and all this stuff that's important. But

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Speaker 1: I think that over the next five to ten years,

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Speaker 1: smart businesses are going to start paying attention to their

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Speaker 1: employee well being. Hopefully partly out of kind of doing

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Speaker 1: the moral thing for a company, because you want your

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Speaker 1: employees to feel good and succeed, but I think partly

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Speaker 1: out of a like fully purely capitalistic move of like,

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Speaker 1: how are we going to make the most company, how

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Speaker 1: are we going to make the most money. We make

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Speaker 1: the most money by having the happiest workers. But there's

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Speaker 1: a question of like how do we do that? And

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Speaker 1: that's what I'm going to talk to you about. In

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Speaker 1: the rest of this talk. We're going to kind of

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Speaker 1: dig into like, Okay, how do you make a happy workplace?

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Speaker 1: And how can we as individuals improve our own happiness

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Speaker 1: in the workplace so our individual performance can flourish and

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Speaker 1: thrive and so on. And so we're going to walk

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Speaker 1: through the five tips that science shows us about how

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Speaker 1: we can do that, how we can improve our well

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Speaker 1: being in the workplace. And each of these tips, I

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Speaker 1: should say, each of these tips have this feature where

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Speaker 1: we're going to walk through a misconception we have about

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Speaker 1: this right, We're going to see where our mind gets

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Speaker 1: it wrong about happiness in the workplace and what we

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Speaker 1: can do to do better, starting with tip number one,

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Speaker 1: which is, if we want to be happier in the workplace,

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Speaker 1: we need to find ways to acknowledge and use our

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Speaker 1: negative emotions a little bit more wisely. Right, Like, we're

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Speaker 1: all feeling a little overwhelmed, we're all feeling a little anxious,

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Speaker 1: we're all feeling a little bit upset, frustrated by what's

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Speaker 1: going on. That's kind of the general state of these things.

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Speaker 1: That's why, in this a conference where there's so many

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Speaker 1: other cool sessions this morning, y'all are filling the seats

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Speaker 1: in this one because we all want to deal with

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Speaker 1: these negative emotions. The problem, though, is that we have

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Speaker 1: this misconception about how we should do that. I think

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Speaker 1: we all think negative emotions not good at work, not

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Speaker 1: good in general, don't feel good. I'm gonna squish him down,

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Speaker 1: you know, stiff upper lip, hustle culture. I'll just pretend

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Speaker 1: I'm not feeling that overwhelmed or that sadness or that

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Speaker 1: frustration or whatever. Turns out, scientists have gone out and

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Speaker 1: studied what happens when we suppress our emotions. Does that

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Speaker 1: positively affect our performance? Turns out no, We know this

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Speaker 1: from some cleverest studies. One of my favorite it comes

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Speaker 1: from the neuroscientist James Gross at Stanford. He does these

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Speaker 1: studies where he brings subjects into the lab and has

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Speaker 1: them do the opposite of watching that funny cat video.

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Speaker 1: He has them watch really sad videos. But he tells subjects,

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Speaker 1: whatever you do, make it so that no one knows

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Speaker 1: you're feeling sad, so trying to suppress their emotions. Question is,

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Speaker 1: what's the consequences of doing this? And he tests a

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Speaker 1: few consequences, what happens to subjects performance on a memory task,

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Speaker 1: on a decision making task. The what he finds is

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Speaker 1: that subjects do really bad. Right if you're going to

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Speaker 1: using all your energy to hold down those emotions, you

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Speaker 1: can't remember stuff, you can't perform well. Our performance tanks

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Speaker 1: when we're suppressing our emotions, but we also have negative

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Speaker 1: consequences for our bodies. It turns out gross measures people's

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Speaker 1: cardiac stress and this short little laboratory task and he

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Speaker 1: finds that even suppressing your emotions, after this really tiny

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Speaker 1: negative video, you can actually see evidence that these subjects

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Speaker 1: are going through cardiac stress. Point is, our theory about

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Speaker 1: how we deal with negative emotions is kind of wrong.

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Speaker 1: We think, squish them down, pretend they're not there, We're

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Speaker 1: going to be fine, And the data suggests that doesn't work.

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Speaker 1: The data suggests we need a new way to think

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Speaker 1: about negative emotions, both at work and kind of in general.

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Speaker 1: And the way I think we need to think about

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Speaker 1: negative emotions is not to avoid them, but to use

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Speaker 1: them as the signal they are evolutionarily speaking, you know,

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Speaker 1: natural selection doesn't build in extraneous stuff to our psychological

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Speaker 1: systems that we don't need. Our negative emotions are kind

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Speaker 1: of like the alert system on our car. You know,

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Speaker 1: if your brake light goes on, your gas light goes on,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of a pain in the butt. It means

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Speaker 1: you have to deal with something, but it's an important

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Speaker 1: alert because if you don't deal with that thing, worse

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Speaker 1: things are going to happen. You're going to run out

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Speaker 1: of gas, so your engine's going to blow up on

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Speaker 1: the highway. That's what negative emotions are doing. They're trying

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Speaker 1: to be an alert signal that we need to pay

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Speaker 1: attention to so we can ask ourselves, how can we

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Speaker 1: nurture ourselves? What can we do to take care of ourselves.

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Speaker 1: That's how we need to reframe emotions, both in general

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Speaker 1: and at work. Our signals of overwhelm are telling us

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Speaker 1: something important. They're telling us we need to take something

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Speaker 1: off our plate. Our signals of anxiety or sadness are

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Speaker 1: telling us something important. They're telling us that something is

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Speaker 1: a miss that we need to take action and change.

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Speaker 1: And if we ignore that it's kind of like ignoring

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Speaker 1: the gaslight, you're going to run out of gas. And

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Speaker 1: so the question though, is, well, how can we do that?

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Speaker 1: What are some practical strategies we can use to kind

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Speaker 1: of notice those emotional signals, acknowledge them, and kind of

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Speaker 1: use them more wisely. And one of my favorite super

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Speaker 1: practical strategies comes from the meditation teacher Tara Brack, a

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Speaker 1: psychologist and meditation teacher. I'm going to flash up some

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Speaker 1: of these books and I think these are like essential

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Speaker 1: reading if you want to learn more about your well being.

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Speaker 1: But Tara Brack actually has a meditation practice she uses

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Speaker 1: to kind of allow and non judgmentally and kind of

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Speaker 1: allow your emotions. And it's a method that she calls RAIN,

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Speaker 1: which is an acronym for recognize, allow, investigate, and nurture.

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Speaker 1: And so, let's say you're at work and you receive

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Speaker 1: some email that makes you feel really frustrated, or you

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Speaker 1: look at the news and you read I don't know

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Speaker 1: literally anything, and you start to feel sad and anxious

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Speaker 1: and so on. Right, you remember, oh, yeah, south By

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Speaker 1: that Yale lady said I could use RAIN, and you've

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Speaker 1: already achieved the first step which is the R to recognize.

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Speaker 1: You just recognize what's happening. I'm experiencing a negative emotion

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Speaker 1: right now, and you get really curious. You categorize it.

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Speaker 1: You say, is this frustration with a side of anxiety? Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe it's pissed off with a little spirit in there

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Speaker 1: of loneliness, right Like, get really creative and use your

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Speaker 1: adjectives about how you're feeling. You can really describe it carefully.

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Speaker 1: That's the R step. But then you follow that with

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Speaker 1: the hard step. Allow. You say, all right, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: take five minutes. I'm just gonna sit here non judgmentally,

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Speaker 1: allow these feelings to be there just as there. I

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Speaker 1: don't have to love them, but I'm gonna sit with them.

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Speaker 1: The famous poet Roomy once talked about negative emotions. Is

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Speaker 1: this visitor who knocks on your door that you didn't

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Speaker 1: want to show up, kind of the annoying neighbor. Right,

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Speaker 1: But you don't kick them out. You sit them down.

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Speaker 1: You know, you invite them in. They're gonna eventually do

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Speaker 1: their thing and go. That's the allow step for your emotions.

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Speaker 1: You just commit to hanging out with your emotions for

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Speaker 1: a bit. But you kind of want to give your

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Speaker 1: mind something to do. When you're doing that allow step,

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Speaker 1: and that's the next step. Investigate, You say, all right,

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Speaker 1: how does it feel in my body when I'm feeling,

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Speaker 1: you know, pissed off with a side of lonely. Maybe

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Speaker 1: my chest is getting tight, maybe my brow is furrowing.

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Speaker 1: Maybe I have this enormous craving right, I want to

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Speaker 1: eat something, or I want to have a drink or

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Speaker 1: check my email. Don't do act on those just like, huh.

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Speaker 1: That is where my brain, my brain and my mind

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Speaker 1: goes when I'm feeling this stuff. And the beauty of

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Speaker 1: the investigate step is that so much evidence suggests that

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Speaker 1: emotions are kind of like a wave. This is in

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Speaker 1: clinical practice what's often called urge surfing, where if you

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Speaker 1: pay attention to an emotion, you'll feel it a little

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Speaker 1: bit more. It'll kind of go up like a wave,

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Speaker 1: but then it'll just kind of crash down and do

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Speaker 1: its thing. The problem is we never hang out with

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Speaker 1: our emotions, non judgmentally long enough for them to do that.

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Speaker 1: That's the investigate step, But the key is that you

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Speaker 1: don't stop there. There's one more letter in this rain

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Speaker 1: practice and for nurture and that's to do something nice

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Speaker 1: for yourself. Negative emotions don't feel good. What can you

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Speaker 1: take off your plate? What can you do to help

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Speaker 1: yourself take care of yourself? Right? Practice is like rain,

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Speaker 1: I love because they've actually been studied in laboratory settings. Rain,

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Speaker 1: but also a whole host of practice is like rain,

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Speaker 1: where you allow your emotions and non judgmentally say I'm

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Speaker 1: having a tough time, but I'm going to sit with it.

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Speaker 1: And research has shown that they can reduce burnout in

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Speaker 1: domains like palliative care workers and in industry is like

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Speaker 1: for first responders. Right, These are who are dealing with

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Speaker 1: negative emotions really on a daily basis, and practices like

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Speaker 1: these can help. So there are practices that can also

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Speaker 1: help us in all the industries that I'm seeing in

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Speaker 1: this room right. Finding ways to acknowledge our negative emotions

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Speaker 1: and use them wisely. That's tip number one. Now we

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Speaker 1: get to tip number two, which is a mindset shift.

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Speaker 1: We have to overcome misconceptions we have about our own productivity.

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Speaker 1: And that is the tip that we need to rethink

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Speaker 1: not just productivity, but how much we're protecting what social

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Speaker 1: scientists call our time affluence. What is time affluence. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of a strange term. Well, it's a term that

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Speaker 1: social scientists like the researcher Ashley Willin's at Harvard Business School,

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Speaker 1: have gotten really obsessed with lately. It's defined as the

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Speaker 1: subjective sense that you feel wealthy in time. You've got

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Speaker 1: lots of time on your hands. Right, some of you

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Speaker 1: are already furrowing. I can see. It's the opposite of

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Speaker 1: what many of you probably experience, which is time famine,

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Speaker 1: where you're literally starving for time. And the research shows

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Speaker 1: that time famine works a lot like hunger famine. It

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Speaker 1: puts our bodies into flight or flight mode. It's also

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Speaker 1: really terrible for our well being. In fact, Ashley Willens's

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Speaker 1: research suggests that if you self report being time famished

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Speaker 1: a lot of the time, that's as bad for your

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Speaker 1: well being as if you self report being unemployed. You know,

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Speaker 1: you lost your job tomorrow, that would suck. Just not

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Speaker 1: having any time, or feeling that you don't have any

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Speaker 1: time is as bad for your well being, which is bad.

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Speaker 1: Some of you are watching your faces like, you know

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Speaker 1: that's me. I feel so time famished. What can I do? Well?

430
00:20:41,156 --> 00:20:42,756
Speaker 1: I think to figure out what we can do? We

431
00:20:42,836 --> 00:20:45,876
Speaker 1: need to understand the misconceptions that drove us here. Why

432
00:20:45,916 --> 00:20:48,676
Speaker 1: are we feeling so strapped for time? And I think

433
00:20:48,716 --> 00:20:51,276
Speaker 1: it's not because we're massa kiss. I think we feel

434
00:20:51,276 --> 00:20:54,036
Speaker 1: strapped for time because we think that working as much

435
00:20:54,076 --> 00:20:56,516
Speaker 1: as we work all the time is essential for kind

436
00:20:56,556 --> 00:20:58,356
Speaker 1: of achieving the things we want to achieve in life.

437
00:20:58,356 --> 00:21:00,796
Speaker 1: We want to get to eleven in our careers and

438
00:21:00,836 --> 00:21:04,356
Speaker 1: our kind of creativity and so on, and we think, push, push, push,

439
00:21:04,516 --> 00:21:06,996
Speaker 1: and I'll just keep working all the time and then

440
00:21:07,036 --> 00:21:10,916
Speaker 1: I'll be quote unquote productive. But does that really work

441
00:21:10,996 --> 00:21:14,916
Speaker 1: or is this a misconception? My favorite recent articulation of

442
00:21:15,036 --> 00:21:18,436
Speaker 1: how much this is a misconception comes from this fabulous

443
00:21:18,436 --> 00:21:22,196
Speaker 1: book by Cal Newport called Slow Productivity. I just interviewed

444
00:21:22,276 --> 00:21:24,596
Speaker 1: Cal from my podcast The Happiness Lab, and I think

445
00:21:24,596 --> 00:21:27,676
Speaker 1: this book is also essential reading for everyone. But Cal

446
00:21:27,796 --> 00:21:29,956
Speaker 1: kind of walks through this idea that, like, you know,

447
00:21:30,196 --> 00:21:32,676
Speaker 1: these days, we don't really have a great sense of

448
00:21:32,716 --> 00:21:36,036
Speaker 1: what productivity is. We used to do, right, if you

449
00:21:36,076 --> 00:21:38,756
Speaker 1: think back to the industries that humans used to engage in,

450
00:21:39,036 --> 00:21:41,676
Speaker 1: like think like agriculture, we had a good way to

451
00:21:41,756 --> 00:21:44,836
Speaker 1: determine productivity. It was like amount of time and resources

452
00:21:44,876 --> 00:21:47,236
Speaker 1: per like corn, Like it was really easy thing you

453
00:21:47,276 --> 00:21:49,756
Speaker 1: measure like big bushel of corn that dude's doing good, right,

454
00:21:49,956 --> 00:21:54,196
Speaker 1: Or fast forward to industries like the assembly line and

455
00:21:54,396 --> 00:21:57,196
Speaker 1: kind of making stuff. That was another domain where we

456
00:21:57,276 --> 00:22:00,556
Speaker 1: had some pretty good ideas of productivity. Right, amount of

457
00:22:00,556 --> 00:22:03,596
Speaker 1: time per numbers of card top parts getting put on

458
00:22:03,636 --> 00:22:06,716
Speaker 1: these you know, chevies. That was a good measure of productivity.

459
00:22:07,076 --> 00:22:09,796
Speaker 1: We had those back then. But now how fast forward

460
00:22:09,836 --> 00:22:11,676
Speaker 1: to the kind of knowledge work that most of you

461
00:22:11,756 --> 00:22:14,316
Speaker 1: in the room do, and our definition of productivity gets

462
00:22:14,316 --> 00:22:17,476
Speaker 1: a little bit trickier. Like, you know, I'm a knowledge

463
00:22:17,516 --> 00:22:20,156
Speaker 1: worker in the podcast space, I'm a podcast host, So

464
00:22:20,236 --> 00:22:23,356
Speaker 1: like what counts as productivity for me? Is it number

465
00:22:23,356 --> 00:22:26,996
Speaker 1: of episodes I make per time? Is it the ratings?

466
00:22:27,076 --> 00:22:28,996
Speaker 1: Is it the amount of ad revenue I make? Right? Like,

467
00:22:29,036 --> 00:22:31,196
Speaker 1: we don't have these good measures of productivity. It's not

468
00:22:31,236 --> 00:22:34,076
Speaker 1: as easy as with corn or when we're producing cars

469
00:22:34,116 --> 00:22:37,276
Speaker 1: and so on. And Newport suggests that what we've done

470
00:22:37,316 --> 00:22:40,116
Speaker 1: as knowledge workers is that we've developed a sort of

471
00:22:40,156 --> 00:22:43,796
Speaker 1: proxy for our own productivity. It's what he calls pseudo

472
00:22:43,836 --> 00:22:48,836
Speaker 1: productivity or just extreme visual busyness. We feel like if

473
00:22:48,836 --> 00:22:51,276
Speaker 1: our gcals are filled with all these meetings and all

474
00:22:51,276 --> 00:22:53,796
Speaker 1: this stuff to do that must be productive. You know,

475
00:22:53,876 --> 00:22:55,996
Speaker 1: we even pick a particular time to do it, you know,

476
00:22:56,076 --> 00:22:58,196
Speaker 1: kind of nine to five where we fill that time

477
00:22:58,556 --> 00:23:00,796
Speaker 1: even if that's not our best, most productive time, because

478
00:23:00,796 --> 00:23:03,596
Speaker 1: that's like what you do. And Newport argues that this

479
00:23:03,676 --> 00:23:05,876
Speaker 1: is problematic because it means that what we're going to

480
00:23:05,956 --> 00:23:08,276
Speaker 1: reward ourselves with, or we're going to kind of make

481
00:23:08,356 --> 00:23:11,036
Speaker 1: kind of see really feel like we're being productive, is

482
00:23:11,076 --> 00:23:14,076
Speaker 1: whenever we're just like doing stuff that looks visually active.

483
00:23:14,396 --> 00:23:16,436
Speaker 1: He argues that this is why we load our days

484
00:23:16,476 --> 00:23:18,876
Speaker 1: filled with like email and slack messages and meetings at

485
00:23:18,876 --> 00:23:20,876
Speaker 1: work and team meetings, because it feels like we're doing

486
00:23:20,916 --> 00:23:23,596
Speaker 1: something the company can see us we're actually doing something. See.

487
00:23:23,876 --> 00:23:25,916
Speaker 1: But he's like, that's not the real knowledge work you

488
00:23:25,956 --> 00:23:27,956
Speaker 1: want to get done. We don't even know if this

489
00:23:27,996 --> 00:23:30,556
Speaker 1: stuff is actually contributing to the big projects you want

490
00:23:30,596 --> 00:23:33,196
Speaker 1: to get through. But it looks really visually busy, so

491
00:23:33,276 --> 00:23:35,876
Speaker 1: you feel kind of good about it. His argument is

492
00:23:35,876 --> 00:23:37,956
Speaker 1: that these kinds of things can be what he calls

493
00:23:37,996 --> 00:23:41,316
Speaker 1: productivity termites, where they kind of all those emails and

494
00:23:41,356 --> 00:23:44,036
Speaker 1: slack messages go into your calendar, and just like a

495
00:23:44,156 --> 00:23:46,316
Speaker 1: termite eating away at the house, they eat away at

496
00:23:46,316 --> 00:23:49,356
Speaker 1: the foundation of the free time you have, such that

497
00:23:49,396 --> 00:23:50,996
Speaker 1: when you kind of go back and say, all right,

498
00:23:51,036 --> 00:23:52,996
Speaker 1: I'm going to do the big project and that big

499
00:23:53,116 --> 00:23:55,516
Speaker 1: deep knowledge work I want to work on, you can't

500
00:23:55,556 --> 00:23:57,916
Speaker 1: do that because, like the whole structure of your calendar

501
00:23:57,956 --> 00:24:01,276
Speaker 1: is broken down by all these slack message answering and

502
00:24:01,356 --> 00:24:03,956
Speaker 1: these tiny meetings and these things. And that means that

503
00:24:03,996 --> 00:24:06,836
Speaker 1: we're not being as productive as we could be. Why.

504
00:24:07,236 --> 00:24:10,556
Speaker 1: Because we've made ourselves so tight I'm famished in an

505
00:24:10,596 --> 00:24:13,356
Speaker 1: effort to kind of feel productive, We've killed our own

506
00:24:13,396 --> 00:24:15,916
Speaker 1: time affluence. And so the answer is that we need

507
00:24:15,956 --> 00:24:18,516
Speaker 1: a new way to think about our time and our productivity.

508
00:24:18,996 --> 00:24:21,636
Speaker 1: But how do we do that well? I argue that

509
00:24:21,676 --> 00:24:23,396
Speaker 1: the way we do that is that we try to

510
00:24:23,436 --> 00:24:27,196
Speaker 1: embrace a little bit more time affluence, as uncomfortable as

511
00:24:27,196 --> 00:24:29,396
Speaker 1: that might be, and as many things as that means.

512
00:24:29,396 --> 00:24:31,956
Speaker 1: We need to take off our plate to feel like

513
00:24:31,996 --> 00:24:35,756
Speaker 1: we're a little bit less time famished. Strategies for doing

514
00:24:35,796 --> 00:24:38,316
Speaker 1: this involve kind of thinking about whether you can kind

515
00:24:38,316 --> 00:24:41,076
Speaker 1: of get rid of some of those productivity termites. What

516
00:24:41,156 --> 00:24:43,476
Speaker 1: can it look like to kind of push email or

517
00:24:43,516 --> 00:24:46,516
Speaker 1: push slack messages only to sometimes in the day, so

518
00:24:46,596 --> 00:24:48,756
Speaker 1: you can feel like you have these big stretches that

519
00:24:48,836 --> 00:24:52,396
Speaker 1: feel quite productive when you can work on things. Another

520
00:24:52,436 --> 00:24:56,316
Speaker 1: one of my favorite suggestions comes from the psychologist Gal Zuberman,

521
00:24:56,716 --> 00:24:59,116
Speaker 1: who talks a lot about what he calls the yes

522
00:24:59,276 --> 00:25:02,396
Speaker 1: damn effect. So the yes dam effect is like, you know,

523
00:25:02,556 --> 00:25:04,836
Speaker 1: months and months ago, somebody's like, hey, can you do

524
00:25:04,876 --> 00:25:06,916
Speaker 1: this project report? Or Hey can we set up this

525
00:25:06,996 --> 00:25:08,556
Speaker 1: meeting for a couple hours, or hey can you go

526
00:25:08,596 --> 00:25:10,996
Speaker 1: to this conference? And it seems like it's so far away,

527
00:25:11,036 --> 00:25:13,836
Speaker 1: you're like yes, But then time goes on and that

528
00:25:13,916 --> 00:25:15,796
Speaker 1: date shows up and you look in your calendar and

529
00:25:15,796 --> 00:25:18,036
Speaker 1: that stupid thing is there, and you're like, damn. That's

530
00:25:18,036 --> 00:25:22,676
Speaker 1: the yes damn effect. Zuberman suggests we should embrace a

531
00:25:22,716 --> 00:25:26,236
Speaker 1: different effect, which he calls the no yay effect. And

532
00:25:26,276 --> 00:25:28,916
Speaker 1: the way the no ye effect works, as you might guess,

533
00:25:28,956 --> 00:25:30,756
Speaker 1: is that person's like, hey can use project report? Can

534
00:25:30,756 --> 00:25:33,516
Speaker 1: you do this thing? You commit to saying no. You

535
00:25:33,556 --> 00:25:35,876
Speaker 1: literally put on your calendar how many no things you

536
00:25:35,916 --> 00:25:37,236
Speaker 1: want to have, and you have to tick them off

537
00:25:37,236 --> 00:25:40,076
Speaker 1: the list. But you don't just say no. You say,

538
00:25:40,116 --> 00:25:42,036
Speaker 1: and when was that project supposed to be due? The

539
00:25:42,116 --> 00:25:43,996
Speaker 1: one I said, no too, when was it due? Then

540
00:25:44,036 --> 00:25:46,516
Speaker 1: you go in your calendar and you put that on

541
00:25:46,556 --> 00:25:48,676
Speaker 1: that date, you know, Monday, three weeks from now. You're

542
00:25:48,716 --> 00:25:50,676
Speaker 1: supposed to have that thing that you had to do.

543
00:25:50,716 --> 00:25:51,876
Speaker 1: And you look and you're like, I don't have to

544
00:25:51,956 --> 00:25:54,676
Speaker 1: do that thing, and you say yay. That's the no

545
00:25:54,996 --> 00:25:57,756
Speaker 1: yay effect. The point is that what we're doing is

546
00:25:57,796 --> 00:26:02,116
Speaker 1: we are aggressively protecting our time. We are thinking about

547
00:26:02,116 --> 00:26:04,156
Speaker 1: our time and the same way we think about our

548
00:26:04,236 --> 00:26:07,436
Speaker 1: money where we want to prioritize it. And in fact,

549
00:26:07,516 --> 00:26:09,996
Speaker 1: research for Ashley Willand's and her coll suggest that the

550
00:26:10,036 --> 00:26:13,116
Speaker 1: more you focus on time and put your investment into

551
00:26:13,156 --> 00:26:16,036
Speaker 1: time rather than money, the happier you'll be. Most of

552
00:26:16,036 --> 00:26:17,756
Speaker 1: you are at south By because you have at least

553
00:26:17,796 --> 00:26:21,516
Speaker 1: some discretionary income to come to events like this. Willins's

554
00:26:21,516 --> 00:26:24,316
Speaker 1: work suggests that the more you spend your discretionary income

555
00:26:24,356 --> 00:26:26,476
Speaker 1: to get back time that you give up money to

556
00:26:26,516 --> 00:26:29,076
Speaker 1: get time, the happier you will be. And we can

557
00:26:29,116 --> 00:26:31,556
Speaker 1: do this in really silly ways that we often don't

558
00:26:31,596 --> 00:26:33,836
Speaker 1: even think about. I'm sure at some point some of

559
00:26:33,876 --> 00:26:36,276
Speaker 1: you in the working day, have gotten takeout or something

560
00:26:36,316 --> 00:26:38,556
Speaker 1: like that. We don't think of it as a savings

561
00:26:38,556 --> 00:26:41,636
Speaker 1: in time, but the research suggests we should. Right. You know,

562
00:26:41,756 --> 00:26:43,756
Speaker 1: say you go out and get pad tie or whatever,

563
00:26:43,996 --> 00:26:46,036
Speaker 1: that's noodles. You didn't have to cook, You didn't have

564
00:26:46,036 --> 00:26:47,636
Speaker 1: to look up the recipe and go to the grocery

565
00:26:47,636 --> 00:26:50,116
Speaker 1: store to get the peanut sauce. You probably saved what

566
00:26:50,476 --> 00:26:53,316
Speaker 1: hour and a half hour, forty five minutes? What'd you

567
00:26:53,356 --> 00:26:55,836
Speaker 1: do with that hour and forty five minutes? So that's

568
00:26:55,876 --> 00:26:58,276
Speaker 1: spending our money to get back more time, but also

569
00:26:58,356 --> 00:27:01,556
Speaker 1: making sure we're framing things like that. A final way

570
00:27:01,596 --> 00:27:04,116
Speaker 1: we can protect our time affluence is to make good

571
00:27:04,236 --> 00:27:06,916
Speaker 1: use of the time we do have. Our time. As

572
00:27:06,916 --> 00:27:09,916
Speaker 1: you heard in these top productivity termites, sometimes breaks our

573
00:27:09,956 --> 00:27:12,596
Speaker 1: time up into these little tiny chunks. This is what

574
00:27:12,676 --> 00:27:16,436
Speaker 1: journalists Bridget Schultz calls time confetti. It was little pieces

575
00:27:16,596 --> 00:27:18,716
Speaker 1: for you five minutes when that Zoom meeting ends, or

576
00:27:18,716 --> 00:27:21,436
Speaker 1: ten minutes if your kid falls asleep. We think those

577
00:27:21,436 --> 00:27:24,236
Speaker 1: are just such tiny periods we don't do anything with them.

578
00:27:24,716 --> 00:27:27,156
Speaker 1: But Schultz suggests that we might want to invest in

579
00:27:27,196 --> 00:27:29,516
Speaker 1: that time confetti because when you add it up, it's

580
00:27:29,556 --> 00:27:31,596
Speaker 1: a huge sheet of paper that is like kind of

581
00:27:31,716 --> 00:27:35,076
Speaker 1: broken into these tiny pieces, and so she recommends making

582
00:27:35,076 --> 00:27:38,036
Speaker 1: what she calls a time confetti wish list. This isn't

583
00:27:38,116 --> 00:27:40,116
Speaker 1: like work to dos, but like for you to do.

584
00:27:40,276 --> 00:27:42,476
Speaker 1: So maybe that's when you do your rain meditation or

585
00:27:42,596 --> 00:27:45,116
Speaker 1: some other self care practice. The key is that instead

586
00:27:45,116 --> 00:27:47,956
Speaker 1: of blowing that little piece of time confetti scrolling on

587
00:27:47,996 --> 00:27:50,716
Speaker 1: Reddit or Instagram or something like that, you actually do

588
00:27:50,796 --> 00:27:53,956
Speaker 1: something useful with it. It makes you feel a little

589
00:27:53,956 --> 00:27:56,756
Speaker 1: bit more time affluent. So that's top tip number two.

590
00:27:56,796 --> 00:28:00,676
Speaker 1: We need to rethink our idea that productivity is about

591
00:28:00,756 --> 00:28:03,436
Speaker 1: visible busyness. It's a filled calendar, it's all that stuff.

592
00:28:03,556 --> 00:28:06,956
Speaker 1: No to feel better, we need to embrace a slower

593
00:28:06,996 --> 00:28:09,556
Speaker 1: form of productivity, one that says no to a lot

594
00:28:09,596 --> 00:28:11,596
Speaker 1: of this stuff so that we can have a yes

595
00:28:11,676 --> 00:28:14,476
Speaker 1: for when we really need it. But it's worth noting

596
00:28:14,676 --> 00:28:17,116
Speaker 1: that as folks in the current culture that we're in,

597
00:28:17,436 --> 00:28:20,436
Speaker 1: where you know, busyness and lessl culture and girl boss

598
00:28:20,436 --> 00:28:24,836
Speaker 1: and eternalized capitalism rein zubream, that's hard, right. The act

599
00:28:24,836 --> 00:28:27,716
Speaker 1: of doing that, saying no more, is hard, and that's

600
00:28:27,756 --> 00:28:30,396
Speaker 1: why we need tip number three, which is another mindset

601
00:28:30,396 --> 00:28:32,596
Speaker 1: shift that can help us with this, which is that

602
00:28:32,636 --> 00:28:34,436
Speaker 1: if we really want to protect our time, if we

603
00:28:34,476 --> 00:28:37,316
Speaker 1: really want to work better, we need to motivate ourselves

604
00:28:37,356 --> 00:28:40,316
Speaker 1: in the way that science suggests work best, and that's

605
00:28:40,356 --> 00:28:43,516
Speaker 1: by motivating ourselves with what we're going to call self compassion.

606
00:28:44,356 --> 00:28:46,196
Speaker 1: As we mentioned, we all want to push ourselves. We

607
00:28:46,236 --> 00:28:48,076
Speaker 1: all want to get to eleven, right. I think that's

608
00:28:48,076 --> 00:28:50,876
Speaker 1: always been true, but lately, in the past five to

609
00:28:50,956 --> 00:28:54,916
Speaker 1: ten years, we've developed some mindset notions about how we

610
00:28:54,956 --> 00:28:57,596
Speaker 1: do that best, and I think those are best summed

611
00:28:57,676 --> 00:29:00,916
Speaker 1: up in the idea of hustle culture, right, keep pushing yourself,

612
00:29:00,996 --> 00:29:02,916
Speaker 1: sleep when you're dead. All these things, these are the

613
00:29:02,956 --> 00:29:06,356
Speaker 1: mantras that we pick up because we assume that's the

614
00:29:06,396 --> 00:29:09,596
Speaker 1: best way to motivate ourselves. But the research is starting

615
00:29:09,596 --> 00:29:11,756
Speaker 1: to show that that just doesn't work. That all these

616
00:29:11,836 --> 00:29:14,236
Speaker 1: kind of mantras that we have in our head is

617
00:29:14,316 --> 00:29:17,596
Speaker 1: kind of instagram like, you know, latching onto our brain

618
00:29:17,676 --> 00:29:19,916
Speaker 1: of how much we need to work more and keep grinding.

619
00:29:20,316 --> 00:29:23,756
Speaker 1: It actually doesn't work. It causes us to procrastinate, It

620
00:29:23,836 --> 00:29:26,676
Speaker 1: causes us to engage in a lot more self criticism

621
00:29:27,076 --> 00:29:29,156
Speaker 1: because we feel like our work is our worth, and

622
00:29:29,196 --> 00:29:31,476
Speaker 1: it's sort of never enough, right, you kind of just

623
00:29:31,556 --> 00:29:35,116
Speaker 1: keep pushing yourself and pushing ourselves. And so this is

624
00:29:35,156 --> 00:29:37,836
Speaker 1: the misconception that the way to motivate ourselves is to

625
00:29:37,916 --> 00:29:40,396
Speaker 1: kind of scream at ourselves like a drill instructor and

626
00:29:40,476 --> 00:29:43,196
Speaker 1: like some like hustle culture warrior. It kind of doesn't

627
00:29:43,196 --> 00:29:45,196
Speaker 1: work in the way we think. So how do we

628
00:29:45,276 --> 00:29:48,916
Speaker 1: fix this misconception. We need to develop a better way

629
00:29:49,036 --> 00:29:51,556
Speaker 1: to motivate ourselves, a better way to think about how

630
00:29:51,596 --> 00:29:54,196
Speaker 1: we motivate ourself and the way that we get from

631
00:29:54,236 --> 00:29:56,516
Speaker 1: a lot of recent science is that we need to

632
00:29:56,556 --> 00:30:01,276
Speaker 1: motivate ourselves better through self compassion. Another fabulous book if

633
00:30:01,276 --> 00:30:04,156
Speaker 1: you're interested in this, is book by Kristin Neff, who's

634
00:30:04,156 --> 00:30:06,476
Speaker 1: a professor here in Austin. She's at ut She has

635
00:30:06,516 --> 00:30:08,876
Speaker 1: this book about self compassion, and a lot of her

636
00:30:08,916 --> 00:30:11,036
Speaker 1: work suggest that if we want to engage in self

637
00:30:11,036 --> 00:30:14,076
Speaker 1: compassion to motivate ourselves, we need to remember that self

638
00:30:14,116 --> 00:30:17,276
Speaker 1: compassion has three parts. The first is something that should

639
00:30:17,316 --> 00:30:21,076
Speaker 1: be really familiar from Tip one, recognizing your negative emotions.

640
00:30:21,436 --> 00:30:24,316
Speaker 1: It's the practice of mindfulness. You gotta know what's going on.

641
00:30:24,516 --> 00:30:27,196
Speaker 1: This sucks right now, I'm having a really tired time,

642
00:30:27,396 --> 00:30:31,076
Speaker 1: I'm feeling really anxious, I'm feeling really ashamed. That's mindfulness.

643
00:30:31,116 --> 00:30:34,756
Speaker 1: You're recognizing what's happened, first step of self compassion. But

644
00:30:34,836 --> 00:30:37,516
Speaker 1: the second step is you do something with that mindfulness.

645
00:30:37,556 --> 00:30:40,956
Speaker 1: You then say, but that makes sense because I'm only human.

646
00:30:41,196 --> 00:30:44,556
Speaker 1: This is something that everybody goes through. It's normal to fail,

647
00:30:44,676 --> 00:30:47,316
Speaker 1: it's normal to screw up, it's normal to feel overwhelmed.

648
00:30:47,356 --> 00:30:50,436
Speaker 1: This is normal. It's a common human experience. That's step

649
00:30:50,516 --> 00:30:54,076
Speaker 1: number two, common humanity. But you don't end there. You

650
00:30:54,156 --> 00:30:56,996
Speaker 1: ask yourself what you can do to be kind to yourself.

651
00:30:57,116 --> 00:30:59,356
Speaker 1: You say, what can I take off my plate? How

652
00:30:59,356 --> 00:31:01,356
Speaker 1: can I help myself right now? What do I need

653
00:31:01,436 --> 00:31:04,676
Speaker 1: right now? You talk to yourself as though you were

654
00:31:04,716 --> 00:31:06,716
Speaker 1: a friend who'd showed up at your house having the

655
00:31:06,756 --> 00:31:09,116
Speaker 1: same problem, and you talk to yourself like you would

656
00:31:09,196 --> 00:31:11,556
Speaker 1: talk to that friend. And I love this idea of

657
00:31:11,596 --> 00:31:14,316
Speaker 1: talking to yourself like you'd talk to a friend, because

658
00:31:14,716 --> 00:31:17,076
Speaker 1: sometimes when we think of practice as like self compassion,

659
00:31:17,156 --> 00:31:20,276
Speaker 1: especially from the hustle culture mindset, we sometimes worry that

660
00:31:20,316 --> 00:31:23,436
Speaker 1: it's like self indulgence, like I'm being too nice to myself,

661
00:31:23,476 --> 00:31:25,876
Speaker 1: I'm letting myself off the hook. But if you think

662
00:31:25,956 --> 00:31:28,876
Speaker 1: about how you'd really talk to a friend that was struggling,

663
00:31:29,316 --> 00:31:31,676
Speaker 1: if they were really screwing up, you probably wouldn't let

664
00:31:31,716 --> 00:31:33,636
Speaker 1: them off the hook. You wouldn't scream at them like

665
00:31:33,636 --> 00:31:37,876
Speaker 1: some hustle culture warrior. You'd talk to them kindly, with curiosity.

666
00:31:37,916 --> 00:31:39,916
Speaker 1: You'd be like, I don't know what's happening, but I'm

667
00:31:39,956 --> 00:31:41,996
Speaker 1: really worried about you. What can we do to fix this?

668
00:31:42,116 --> 00:31:44,836
Speaker 1: You'd be curious and you'd be problem solving. That's how

669
00:31:44,836 --> 00:31:47,356
Speaker 1: you talk to yourself, not self indulgence. It's a form

670
00:31:47,356 --> 00:31:49,956
Speaker 1: of compassion, and it's a form of compassion that the

671
00:31:50,036 --> 00:31:53,716
Speaker 1: research suggests really works. In fact, Kristin Neff has tested

672
00:31:53,796 --> 00:31:56,996
Speaker 1: all the benefits of this practice of self compassion and

673
00:31:57,036 --> 00:32:00,396
Speaker 1: it has some incredibly compelling ones. She's, for example, done

674
00:32:00,396 --> 00:32:03,156
Speaker 1: work on whether or not practices like self compassion can

675
00:32:03,196 --> 00:32:07,036
Speaker 1: reduce PTSD in combat veterans, and she finds that both

676
00:32:07,076 --> 00:32:09,996
Speaker 1: with Iraqi and Afghani vetts, teaching them these strategies of

677
00:32:10,036 --> 00:32:12,876
Speaker 1: self compassion ahead of time can reduce the rates of

678
00:32:12,876 --> 00:32:15,436
Speaker 1: trauma that these individuals come back with. Right, these are

679
00:32:15,516 --> 00:32:18,796
Speaker 1: really negative, nasty emotions, but being nice to yourself through

680
00:32:18,796 --> 00:32:21,716
Speaker 1: it can be incredibly powerful. Kristin Neff also finds that

681
00:32:21,796 --> 00:32:23,836
Speaker 1: being nice to yourself can make it easier to be

682
00:32:24,076 --> 00:32:26,316
Speaker 1: nice to your future self. She finds that people who

683
00:32:26,316 --> 00:32:29,716
Speaker 1: engage in self compassion eat healthier, they save more for retirement,

684
00:32:29,836 --> 00:32:32,916
Speaker 1: they're better able to prioritize their future selves, and that

685
00:32:32,956 --> 00:32:35,196
Speaker 1: includes a future self that has to work at something

686
00:32:35,236 --> 00:32:38,156
Speaker 1: that's a little scary. She finds that practices like self

687
00:32:38,156 --> 00:32:41,356
Speaker 1: compassion can reduce things like procrastination, so it's a way

688
00:32:41,396 --> 00:32:43,396
Speaker 1: to get more done because you're not screaming at yourself

689
00:32:43,436 --> 00:32:45,796
Speaker 1: when you don't do things the way you think. She

690
00:32:45,876 --> 00:32:48,116
Speaker 1: also finds that self compassion is a great way to

691
00:32:48,156 --> 00:32:51,636
Speaker 1: practice compassion for other people. So people with more self

692
00:32:51,636 --> 00:32:54,956
Speaker 1: compassion show more self compassion and their romantic relationships with

693
00:32:55,036 --> 00:32:57,836
Speaker 1: their kids, with their teammates on the job. It's just

694
00:32:57,916 --> 00:33:01,116
Speaker 1: a powerful way of feeling better and so sounds great,

695
00:33:01,156 --> 00:33:03,556
Speaker 1: But what are some practical strategies we can use to

696
00:33:03,636 --> 00:33:06,876
Speaker 1: find more self compassion, especially if we're kind of infused

697
00:33:06,876 --> 00:33:09,116
Speaker 1: in that hustle culture. And one way that Christian RECs

698
00:33:09,156 --> 00:33:12,876
Speaker 1: amends that looks cheesy but it works, is to engage

699
00:33:13,036 --> 00:33:16,876
Speaker 1: in compassionate self touch. So think about the last time

700
00:33:17,036 --> 00:33:18,876
Speaker 1: you had a bad day. You know, if your parents

701
00:33:18,916 --> 00:33:21,356
Speaker 1: are still around, you might have called your mom, maybe

702
00:33:21,436 --> 00:33:23,716
Speaker 1: saw her for coffee, she gave you a hug or something,

703
00:33:23,996 --> 00:33:25,956
Speaker 1: or you saw a friend, your spouse. We tend to

704
00:33:25,996 --> 00:33:28,596
Speaker 1: comfort each other with a certain kind of touch. Kristin

705
00:33:28,636 --> 00:33:31,876
Speaker 1: Neff says, just do that to yourself. Look stupid, but

706
00:33:32,036 --> 00:33:34,316
Speaker 1: it works. Turns out your brains are dumb. They don't

707
00:33:34,316 --> 00:33:37,356
Speaker 1: know who's touching you. Right. It worked useful in other

708
00:33:37,396 --> 00:33:40,156
Speaker 1: context too, as we know. Right, but you just do

709
00:33:40,276 --> 00:33:42,996
Speaker 1: this to yourself. And because we need practice, I'm going

710
00:33:43,076 --> 00:33:44,516
Speaker 1: to ask all of you in the room now to

711
00:33:44,636 --> 00:33:47,196
Speaker 1: kind of do a little self hug, a little kind

712
00:33:47,236 --> 00:33:50,076
Speaker 1: of stroke on the arm. But then that is a

713
00:33:50,116 --> 00:33:52,636
Speaker 1: signal to you to engage in new self talk. This

714
00:33:52,676 --> 00:33:54,756
Speaker 1: is why I like this touch practice. It like reminds

715
00:33:54,796 --> 00:33:57,036
Speaker 1: you I got to talk to myself differently, and you

716
00:33:57,116 --> 00:34:00,596
Speaker 1: talk using those strategies mindfulness. This is really hard right now.

717
00:34:00,716 --> 00:34:04,396
Speaker 1: I am struggling. This sucks. I'm not doing well common humanity,

718
00:34:04,716 --> 00:34:07,676
Speaker 1: But that's normal, it's just human. Stress is a part

719
00:34:07,676 --> 00:34:11,476
Speaker 1: of life. Everyone struggles. And then self kindness. What can

720
00:34:11,516 --> 00:34:13,996
Speaker 1: I take off my plate. What do I need right now?

721
00:34:14,036 --> 00:34:16,116
Speaker 1: Just asking that question to yourself when you're struggling can

722
00:34:16,116 --> 00:34:18,476
Speaker 1: be so powerful, what do I need right now? Again,

723
00:34:18,756 --> 00:34:21,276
Speaker 1: the research shows that, even though we don't think it,

724
00:34:21,876 --> 00:34:24,556
Speaker 1: this kind of self kindness and self compassion is a

725
00:34:24,676 --> 00:34:27,516
Speaker 1: much better way to motivate ourselves than all that hustle

726
00:34:27,556 --> 00:34:31,476
Speaker 1: culture self criticism. So that's top insight number three. We

727
00:34:31,556 --> 00:34:35,796
Speaker 1: got to motivate ourself with self compassion. The question is,

728
00:34:35,836 --> 00:34:38,196
Speaker 1: of course, what is it we're motivating ourselves to do?

729
00:34:38,836 --> 00:34:40,836
Speaker 1: What things should we be doing more of it work

730
00:34:40,876 --> 00:34:44,076
Speaker 1: to increase our flourishing and reduce our risk of burnout.

731
00:34:44,596 --> 00:34:47,036
Speaker 1: You'll hear my best two tips on happiness at work

732
00:34:47,356 --> 00:34:53,916
Speaker 1: after the short break. So far in my south By

733
00:34:53,956 --> 00:34:57,116
Speaker 1: Southwest talk on happiness at work, I've covered the importance

734
00:34:57,156 --> 00:35:00,716
Speaker 1: of recognizing when we're feeling sad, why we should differentiate

735
00:35:00,756 --> 00:35:04,396
Speaker 1: between actual productivity and stressful busyness, and how we should

736
00:35:04,396 --> 00:35:07,956
Speaker 1: occasionally give ourselves a comforting hug. In the second half

737
00:35:07,956 --> 00:35:12,196
Speaker 1: of my talk to the topic of tackling burnout, and

738
00:35:12,236 --> 00:35:14,196
Speaker 1: that gets us to tip number four, which is that

739
00:35:14,236 --> 00:35:17,236
Speaker 1: if we really want to fight burnout, the research shows

740
00:35:17,236 --> 00:35:19,596
Speaker 1: we need to craft our job a bit so that

741
00:35:19,676 --> 00:35:22,636
Speaker 1: it becomes a calling. Burnout is something else that everybody's

742
00:35:22,676 --> 00:35:25,356
Speaker 1: talking about at south By because it's a thing. I

743
00:35:25,356 --> 00:35:27,036
Speaker 1: think this is also something we have a lot of

744
00:35:27,076 --> 00:35:30,796
Speaker 1: misconceptions about. We think it's just about emotional exhaustion, but

745
00:35:30,836 --> 00:35:33,236
Speaker 1: the research shows that burnout can be more like an

746
00:35:33,276 --> 00:35:36,756
Speaker 1: occupational problem. It's kind of an interaction between you and

747
00:35:36,796 --> 00:35:39,076
Speaker 1: your job that we need to understand. And we know

748
00:35:39,116 --> 00:35:41,516
Speaker 1: this from the lovely work of Christina Maslak. She is

749
00:35:41,556 --> 00:35:44,676
Speaker 1: the scientific expert on burnout, and she's walked through the

750
00:35:44,756 --> 00:35:47,716
Speaker 1: kind of steps that lead to burnout in an organization,

751
00:35:47,796 --> 00:35:50,156
Speaker 1: the kind of factors that wind up letting us feel

752
00:35:50,156 --> 00:35:53,436
Speaker 1: more burned out, and she's identified six. I think of

753
00:35:53,476 --> 00:35:55,796
Speaker 1: the six, there's ones that we often think of, so

754
00:35:55,916 --> 00:35:58,556
Speaker 1: things like workload, if your workload is too much, or

755
00:35:58,596 --> 00:36:00,836
Speaker 1: maybe the rewards aren't too much, you're not getting paid

756
00:36:00,916 --> 00:36:03,236
Speaker 1: enough for the work you're doing. But there's one on

757
00:36:03,276 --> 00:36:05,636
Speaker 1: this list that the science has really narrowed in on.

758
00:36:05,796 --> 00:36:09,636
Speaker 1: It's particularly important. It's this last one, values mismad. What's

759
00:36:09,676 --> 00:36:12,516
Speaker 1: that we get burned out when the values that we

760
00:36:12,636 --> 00:36:15,076
Speaker 1: signed up for to do a job don't match the

761
00:36:15,076 --> 00:36:17,716
Speaker 1: ones that we're experiencing in practice. I think this is

762
00:36:17,716 --> 00:36:20,676
Speaker 1: something that's really problematic. For example, and lots of industries,

763
00:36:20,676 --> 00:36:23,036
Speaker 1: but I'll just pick one the healthcare industry. You're a

764
00:36:23,116 --> 00:36:24,756
Speaker 1: nurse and you're a doctor. You got into it because

765
00:36:24,756 --> 00:36:26,836
Speaker 1: your value is helping people. But on the ground, it

766
00:36:26,836 --> 00:36:29,196
Speaker 1: feels like you're saving money for the insurance companies or

767
00:36:29,236 --> 00:36:31,196
Speaker 1: the hospital and you're getting patients in it, and it's

768
00:36:31,276 --> 00:36:34,116
Speaker 1: just like there's a mismatch there, and that's the one

769
00:36:34,116 --> 00:36:38,556
Speaker 1: that insidiously leads us to feel that yucky sense of burnout.

770
00:36:39,076 --> 00:36:40,876
Speaker 1: And so what that means is that we got to

771
00:36:40,916 --> 00:36:43,356
Speaker 1: get our values right right, that's the thing we might

772
00:36:43,356 --> 00:36:45,436
Speaker 1: need to focus on more than some of the other stuff,

773
00:36:45,996 --> 00:36:47,836
Speaker 1: but we often don't know how to do that. But

774
00:36:47,876 --> 00:36:50,116
Speaker 1: the good news is there's lots of research that's focused

775
00:36:50,156 --> 00:36:52,156
Speaker 1: on how we can, and a lot of it comes

776
00:36:52,196 --> 00:36:54,556
Speaker 1: from the work of Chris Peterson and Marty Seligman at

777
00:36:54,556 --> 00:36:57,756
Speaker 1: the University of Pennsylvania who focused on what they call

778
00:36:57,956 --> 00:37:01,636
Speaker 1: finding your signature Strengths. Their research has basically looked at like, well,

779
00:37:01,676 --> 00:37:03,876
Speaker 1: what are the values that people engage in, you know,

780
00:37:03,956 --> 00:37:05,676
Speaker 1: to do good in the world and their work and

781
00:37:05,716 --> 00:37:09,316
Speaker 1: their volunteerism and whatever. And they've looked cross culturally and

782
00:37:09,436 --> 00:37:13,836
Speaker 1: identified about twenty four different what they call character strengths,

783
00:37:13,876 --> 00:37:16,036
Speaker 1: basically this list of values. You look at the list,

784
00:37:16,116 --> 00:37:19,396
Speaker 1: you're like, oh yeah, like, you know, hope and persistence

785
00:37:19,556 --> 00:37:23,516
Speaker 1: or self restraining, zest for life, an appreciation of beauty, bravery.

786
00:37:23,596 --> 00:37:25,596
Speaker 1: They're kind of set of values that like, we can

787
00:37:25,636 --> 00:37:28,516
Speaker 1: all get behind. But as you scroll through that list,

788
00:37:28,556 --> 00:37:30,436
Speaker 1: there might be some of the things on the list

789
00:37:30,876 --> 00:37:34,276
Speaker 1: that you're like, you know, yeah, citizenship is good, but

790
00:37:34,356 --> 00:37:37,676
Speaker 1: I'm really into creativity or I'm really into humor, or

791
00:37:37,716 --> 00:37:39,916
Speaker 1: I'm really into zest for life. There might be one

792
00:37:40,436 --> 00:37:43,916
Speaker 1: that's like the particular one that you resonate with that

793
00:37:44,396 --> 00:37:47,116
Speaker 1: is what researchers would call your signature strength. But the

794
00:37:47,196 --> 00:37:49,676
Speaker 1: question is like, okay, well, what if my signature strength

795
00:37:49,716 --> 00:37:52,876
Speaker 1: is humor or bravery or citizenship or whatever, Like, how

796
00:37:52,876 --> 00:37:55,436
Speaker 1: do I engage that and the knowledge work that I'm

797
00:37:55,476 --> 00:37:57,476
Speaker 1: doing at work? Right? How do I do that a

798
00:37:57,516 --> 00:38:00,796
Speaker 1: little bit more? And here we have the lovely work

799
00:38:00,876 --> 00:38:03,716
Speaker 1: of Amy Resininski, who's another faculty member at the University

800
00:38:03,716 --> 00:38:07,396
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania who studies what she calls job crafting. Her

801
00:38:07,436 --> 00:38:09,436
Speaker 1: idea is that in any job, you can look your

802
00:38:09,476 --> 00:38:13,356
Speaker 1: job description and figure out with flexibility ways that you

803
00:38:13,356 --> 00:38:16,236
Speaker 1: can infuse these values in no matter what your job

804
00:38:16,276 --> 00:38:19,276
Speaker 1: description is. And I love Amy's work because she doesn't

805
00:38:19,316 --> 00:38:22,876
Speaker 1: do studies with people doing creative knowledge work in the

806
00:38:22,916 --> 00:38:26,356
Speaker 1: industries that I'm probably mostly seeing in the room. Most

807
00:38:26,356 --> 00:38:29,236
Speaker 1: of her work on job crafting is with hospital janitorial

808
00:38:29,276 --> 00:38:31,836
Speaker 1: staff workers, where you might think these folks don't actually

809
00:38:31,836 --> 00:38:33,996
Speaker 1: have a lot of creativity about how they can move

810
00:38:34,036 --> 00:38:36,596
Speaker 1: their job description around. These are people are like washing

811
00:38:36,676 --> 00:38:39,596
Speaker 1: linen in a hospital ward. But what she finds interestingly

812
00:38:39,636 --> 00:38:41,876
Speaker 1: is that a third of these hospital workers a third,

813
00:38:41,876 --> 00:38:45,036
Speaker 1: it's actually a pretty high number, say that they experience

814
00:38:45,076 --> 00:38:46,876
Speaker 1: their job as a calling. They love their job, they

815
00:38:46,876 --> 00:38:49,676
Speaker 1: wouldn't leave their job for something else. And the reason

816
00:38:50,076 --> 00:38:52,396
Speaker 1: she finds as she digs into what they're doing is

817
00:38:52,436 --> 00:38:55,836
Speaker 1: that they're constantly engaging in one of their signature strengths.

818
00:38:56,316 --> 00:38:59,596
Speaker 1: She tells these lovely stories of hospital janitorial staff workers who,

819
00:39:00,076 --> 00:39:03,396
Speaker 1: for example, one who engages in kind of helping others

820
00:39:03,516 --> 00:39:07,116
Speaker 1: and humor every day he worked in a chemotherapy ward. So,

821
00:39:07,196 --> 00:39:09,836
Speaker 1: if you've ever been unlucky enough to have to chemotherapy

822
00:39:09,916 --> 00:39:11,556
Speaker 1: or know someone who did you know that people often

823
00:39:11,596 --> 00:39:13,236
Speaker 1: get very sick, and so a lot of his job

824
00:39:13,356 --> 00:39:15,436
Speaker 1: was cleaning up vomit. And she doesn't sound like a

825
00:39:15,476 --> 00:39:16,996
Speaker 1: job where you could get a lot of these strengths in.

826
00:39:17,076 --> 00:39:19,196
Speaker 1: But he's like, no, no, no, My strength is really humor. Yeah,

827
00:39:19,196 --> 00:39:20,716
Speaker 1: I have to clean that up, but my real job

828
00:39:20,836 --> 00:39:23,596
Speaker 1: is I make the patient laugh. I'm like a comedian

829
00:39:23,596 --> 00:39:24,996
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get them to laugh even though

830
00:39:24,996 --> 00:39:26,716
Speaker 1: their day has been really crappy. And he had his

831
00:39:26,756 --> 00:39:28,796
Speaker 1: whole stick that he used to do where he'd say,

832
00:39:28,996 --> 00:39:31,356
Speaker 1: you know, we'd come into cleaning'd be like you keep vomiting,

833
00:39:31,356 --> 00:39:33,116
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get over time and like well, like you

834
00:39:33,116 --> 00:39:35,876
Speaker 1: know the secret handshit, you know, just like you laugh

835
00:39:35,956 --> 00:39:38,156
Speaker 1: the patient laugh and he's like, see, that's that's my

836
00:39:38,236 --> 00:39:41,916
Speaker 1: real job. Or another janitorial staff worker who worked in

837
00:39:41,916 --> 00:39:45,916
Speaker 1: a coma ward. So this staff member couldn't interact with patients,

838
00:39:46,556 --> 00:39:49,596
Speaker 1: but every day he would move the paintings around in

839
00:39:49,636 --> 00:39:51,836
Speaker 1: the room and like the plants, like switch them, and

840
00:39:51,836 --> 00:39:53,796
Speaker 1: that was strength of creativity. He just thought maybe it

841
00:39:53,796 --> 00:39:56,316
Speaker 1: would help. I don't know, these are nothing managers are

842
00:39:56,316 --> 00:39:59,636
Speaker 1: telling people to do. It's just they're infusing their strengths

843
00:39:59,636 --> 00:40:02,236
Speaker 1: into their job, and they wind up loving their job,

844
00:40:02,316 --> 00:40:04,596
Speaker 1: loving a job that many of us would think would

845
00:40:04,636 --> 00:40:06,276
Speaker 1: be a tough job to love in the ways that

846
00:40:06,316 --> 00:40:09,116
Speaker 1: they love it. But what's most important about job craft

847
00:40:09,196 --> 00:40:11,636
Speaker 1: thing is that the evidence suggests it can protect you

848
00:40:11,676 --> 00:40:14,796
Speaker 1: from burnout. It's a way to get your values lined up.

849
00:40:14,916 --> 00:40:17,356
Speaker 1: Even if they went askew before, you can bring them

850
00:40:17,356 --> 00:40:19,636
Speaker 1: back to an alignment in a way that will protect you.

851
00:40:19,916 --> 00:40:22,356
Speaker 1: And that is top tip number four. We need to

852
00:40:22,436 --> 00:40:25,236
Speaker 1: find ways to craft our job. That's how we turn

853
00:40:25,276 --> 00:40:28,436
Speaker 1: it into a calling. But there's one other scientific way

854
00:40:28,436 --> 00:40:30,756
Speaker 1: that we can turn our job into a calling, into

855
00:40:30,796 --> 00:40:33,236
Speaker 1: a job that we really love, and that gets us

856
00:40:33,276 --> 00:40:35,676
Speaker 1: to top tip number five, which is that the science

857
00:40:35,716 --> 00:40:38,116
Speaker 1: really shows that if we want to feel better at work,

858
00:40:38,516 --> 00:40:41,316
Speaker 1: we need to find ways to seek out more belonging,

859
00:40:41,756 --> 00:40:43,596
Speaker 1: and we do that by getting a little bit more

860
00:40:43,636 --> 00:40:46,916
Speaker 1: social than we're comfortable with. I started with that lovely

861
00:40:46,916 --> 00:40:50,556
Speaker 1: study from Indeed. I talked about how companies with happier

862
00:40:50,636 --> 00:40:53,076
Speaker 1: workers are making the most money. But what I didn't

863
00:40:53,076 --> 00:40:55,676
Speaker 1: tell you was the key feature, which is what makes

864
00:40:55,676 --> 00:40:57,996
Speaker 1: the workers happy? What are the factors that lead to

865
00:40:58,036 --> 00:41:00,356
Speaker 1: more happiness at work. In this big, huge data set

866
00:41:00,356 --> 00:41:04,516
Speaker 1: where we have people's spontaneous ratings, researcher yan Emmanuel Denev,

867
00:41:04,556 --> 00:41:06,916
Speaker 1: he's the Oxford researcher who led this study, said well,

868
00:41:06,996 --> 00:41:09,476
Speaker 1: let's let economists guess. We have the data from the

869
00:41:09,476 --> 00:41:12,236
Speaker 1: Indeed surveys, but let's let economists guess what do you

870
00:41:12,276 --> 00:41:15,156
Speaker 1: think makes people happy at work? And economists came up

871
00:41:15,196 --> 00:41:17,876
Speaker 1: with their usual top three. They said money, people who

872
00:41:17,916 --> 00:41:19,716
Speaker 1: get paid more are probably happier at work. That was

873
00:41:19,796 --> 00:41:23,196
Speaker 1: idea number one. Idea Number two was good management. We

874
00:41:23,236 --> 00:41:25,156
Speaker 1: pay all these people to go to business school, probably

875
00:41:25,156 --> 00:41:28,196
Speaker 1: they're learning something to make people happy at work. And

876
00:41:28,316 --> 00:41:30,716
Speaker 1: number three was some sense of like work life balance

877
00:41:30,796 --> 00:41:33,236
Speaker 1: or work life flexibility. That's what people want. That's what

878
00:41:33,276 --> 00:41:37,316
Speaker 1: people assumed made people happy at work. And these factors

879
00:41:37,316 --> 00:41:40,036
Speaker 1: did matter, but in the list of things that mattered,

880
00:41:40,036 --> 00:41:41,636
Speaker 1: they were kind of in the middle of the list.

881
00:41:41,756 --> 00:41:44,036
Speaker 1: Kind of think like number five, number six, number seven,

882
00:41:44,116 --> 00:41:46,796
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. The thing that mattered the most,

883
00:41:46,916 --> 00:41:50,636
Speaker 1: the thing that no economists predicted was people's sense of belonging.

884
00:41:51,036 --> 00:41:53,836
Speaker 1: And with the Indeed data, yan Emanuel Denv could kind

885
00:41:53,836 --> 00:41:56,996
Speaker 1: of dig into what this belonging measure included, and it

886
00:41:57,036 --> 00:42:01,956
Speaker 1: included three factors. The first is that you say people

887
00:42:02,276 --> 00:42:04,356
Speaker 1: care about you at work. You're not a cog in

888
00:42:04,396 --> 00:42:08,396
Speaker 1: the machine. You're someone who matters, right, People actually acknowledge

889
00:42:08,436 --> 00:42:11,116
Speaker 1: you you matter. The second thing is that the work

890
00:42:11,196 --> 00:42:14,196
Speaker 1: you do matters, right, so you're doing something that matters

891
00:42:14,196 --> 00:42:16,276
Speaker 1: to the company. You can sort of see your impact.

892
00:42:16,876 --> 00:42:19,796
Speaker 1: And the third factor, which kind of nobody predicted, is

893
00:42:19,836 --> 00:42:22,196
Speaker 1: that you answer yes to the question do you have

894
00:42:22,236 --> 00:42:24,236
Speaker 1: a best friend at work? If you have a best

895
00:42:24,276 --> 00:42:26,196
Speaker 1: friend at work, you're more likely to say you belong

896
00:42:26,236 --> 00:42:28,516
Speaker 1: and that the stuff you do matters there. This all

897
00:42:28,756 --> 00:42:31,316
Speaker 1: surprises the economists, but it made total sense to someone

898
00:42:31,316 --> 00:42:33,836
Speaker 1: who studies the science of happiness, because we've seen for

899
00:42:34,036 --> 00:42:37,476
Speaker 1: years that social connection and our social relationships are one

900
00:42:37,516 --> 00:42:39,996
Speaker 1: of the most important things that matter for our well being.

901
00:42:40,436 --> 00:42:42,436
Speaker 1: So of course it would make sense that these kinds

902
00:42:42,476 --> 00:42:45,476
Speaker 1: of social relationships matter at work. I think the problem

903
00:42:45,516 --> 00:42:48,076
Speaker 1: is that, yet again, here, like those economists, most of

904
00:42:48,156 --> 00:42:52,436
Speaker 1: us lay people have a particular misconception. We think, Okay, yeah,

905
00:42:52,516 --> 00:42:55,316
Speaker 1: friends matter outside the work, but in the office, it's

906
00:42:55,396 --> 00:42:58,076
Speaker 1: me working all the time. It's just like me kind

907
00:42:58,076 --> 00:42:59,876
Speaker 1: of you know, junking my head in the heck with

908
00:42:59,956 --> 00:43:02,636
Speaker 1: those like trust falls or like the silly office socials

909
00:43:02,956 --> 00:43:05,196
Speaker 1: like I'm just gonna get my work done. And one

910
00:43:05,236 --> 00:43:07,836
Speaker 1: of my favorite kind of versions of this claim came

911
00:43:07,836 --> 00:43:10,396
Speaker 1: from this viral Blots and Globe article that made the

912
00:43:10,396 --> 00:43:13,636
Speaker 1: claim gen Z, my generation is not looking to make

913
00:43:13,676 --> 00:43:16,076
Speaker 1: friends at work. Offices aren't social hubs anymore, and it's

914
00:43:16,116 --> 00:43:20,196
Speaker 1: better this way. And this article was really particularly painful

915
00:43:20,236 --> 00:43:22,876
Speaker 1: for me because the author, Catherine, who was a student

916
00:43:22,916 --> 00:43:24,916
Speaker 1: in my Yale Happiness class, like she should have know.

917
00:43:25,076 --> 00:43:26,796
Speaker 1: I was like, what have I taught you? Nothing? Have

918
00:43:26,836 --> 00:43:28,996
Speaker 1: I taught you nothing? I have a lovely interview with

919
00:43:29,036 --> 00:43:31,516
Speaker 1: her for my podcast, which I'll kind of sum up

920
00:43:31,516 --> 00:43:32,996
Speaker 1: in a second. But this is I think this is

921
00:43:32,996 --> 00:43:34,876
Speaker 1: a misconception that all of us have, right, It's a

922
00:43:34,956 --> 00:43:37,116
Speaker 1: nice to have, not a need to have. But these

923
00:43:37,156 --> 00:43:39,236
Speaker 1: data from the Indeed study suggests it's a need to have.

924
00:43:39,436 --> 00:43:42,316
Speaker 1: Maybe one of the reasons we're all so disengaged at work,

925
00:43:42,396 --> 00:43:45,076
Speaker 1: Maybe one of the reasons quiet quitting seems so appealing

926
00:43:45,716 --> 00:43:48,716
Speaker 1: is that we're actively not investing in the thing that

927
00:43:48,796 --> 00:43:51,516
Speaker 1: might matter the most for our happiness at work, which

928
00:43:51,556 --> 00:43:54,516
Speaker 1: is our connection with other people. And so the question is,

929
00:43:54,516 --> 00:43:57,236
Speaker 1: how can we overcome this misconception, how can we develop

930
00:43:57,276 --> 00:43:59,676
Speaker 1: a new way to think about connection at work? And

931
00:43:59,796 --> 00:44:03,156
Speaker 1: here I love the advice that comes from the kind

932
00:44:03,156 --> 00:44:05,876
Speaker 1: of business professional Shasta Nelson, who's this lovely book on

933
00:44:05,916 --> 00:44:08,556
Speaker 1: the Business of Friendship where she walks through the ways

934
00:44:08,556 --> 00:44:11,076
Speaker 1: we can actually make friends at work. Another great podcast

935
00:44:11,156 --> 00:44:14,036
Speaker 1: guest on my podcast, The Happiness Lab, and she talks

936
00:44:14,076 --> 00:44:16,396
Speaker 1: about three things we need to do to promote friendship.

937
00:44:16,436 --> 00:44:18,596
Speaker 1: It's not what we think. It's not like oversharing, you know,

938
00:44:18,636 --> 00:44:23,316
Speaker 1: over the water cooler. It's first positivity. Friends are made

939
00:44:23,396 --> 00:44:26,276
Speaker 1: at work when we have more positive interactions than negative ones.

940
00:44:26,356 --> 00:44:29,156
Speaker 1: This isn't toxic positivity. This isn't be nice all the time.

941
00:44:29,236 --> 00:44:31,836
Speaker 1: It's just like, in the ratio of emotions that you

942
00:44:31,956 --> 00:44:34,796
Speaker 1: generate for other people at work, make more positive ones

943
00:44:34,836 --> 00:44:37,116
Speaker 1: than negative ones. That's kind of data point number one.

944
00:44:37,116 --> 00:44:39,556
Speaker 1: The second thing she recommends is that friendships at work

945
00:44:39,676 --> 00:44:42,556
Speaker 1: come from consistency. You see the same people over time,

946
00:44:42,916 --> 00:44:44,596
Speaker 1: You know that those interactions are going to go a

947
00:44:44,636 --> 00:44:47,316
Speaker 1: particular way. It makes it easy to form the habit

948
00:44:47,356 --> 00:44:49,636
Speaker 1: of friendship. And I think this is a tricky one

949
00:44:49,676 --> 00:44:52,516
Speaker 1: because many of us aren't forming that consistent pattern in

950
00:44:52,556 --> 00:44:54,796
Speaker 1: the office. I think some people are going back to work,

951
00:44:54,836 --> 00:44:56,876
Speaker 1: but a lot of people are stuck trying to develop

952
00:44:56,916 --> 00:44:59,676
Speaker 1: their social connection and from remote work or hybrid work.

953
00:44:59,756 --> 00:45:02,516
Speaker 1: What can we do to make that consistent friendship like

954
00:45:02,556 --> 00:45:05,316
Speaker 1: interaction in these times? I think if we answer that

955
00:45:05,396 --> 00:45:08,276
Speaker 1: question by kind of putting more effort into talking to people,

956
00:45:08,396 --> 00:45:10,796
Speaker 1: not just in the norm meeting at teams, but other

957
00:45:10,836 --> 00:45:14,116
Speaker 1: ways of actually making that consistent connection, all the better.

958
00:45:14,676 --> 00:45:18,756
Speaker 1: So that's number one and number two more positivity, more consistency,

959
00:45:18,756 --> 00:45:21,876
Speaker 1: and interaction. But the third thing that Shasta suggests is

960
00:45:21,876 --> 00:45:23,756
Speaker 1: that we need to get a little bit more vulnerable,

961
00:45:23,996 --> 00:45:26,276
Speaker 1: not in the way we think, but just showing up

962
00:45:26,276 --> 00:45:29,796
Speaker 1: as a real human who has opinions, who has frailties,

963
00:45:29,836 --> 00:45:32,756
Speaker 1: all that self compassion stuff I talked about. Engaging with

964
00:45:32,796 --> 00:45:35,996
Speaker 1: that and recognizing that you're a normal human is powerful.

965
00:45:36,316 --> 00:45:38,316
Speaker 1: I think we sometimes think at work we need to

966
00:45:38,356 --> 00:45:41,596
Speaker 1: be this like AI robot who doesn't experience emotions, who

967
00:45:41,596 --> 00:45:44,116
Speaker 1: never has failures, who never asks for help, and so on.

968
00:45:44,636 --> 00:45:47,556
Speaker 1: And that's what vulnerability is about. It's avoiding that stuff.

969
00:45:47,876 --> 00:45:50,356
Speaker 1: It's really taking time to talk to your neighbors to

970
00:45:50,396 --> 00:45:53,916
Speaker 1: ask questions to get feedback. These are the moments of

971
00:45:53,996 --> 00:45:57,116
Speaker 1: vulnerability that seem to really matter when you gauge in them.

972
00:45:57,156 --> 00:45:59,596
Speaker 1: The data really suggests that you make more friends at

973
00:45:59,596 --> 00:46:02,476
Speaker 1: work and you wind up not just happier, but also,

974
00:46:02,556 --> 00:46:06,076
Speaker 1: as we've been mentioning, performing better. And so that's top

975
00:46:06,076 --> 00:46:08,396
Speaker 1: tip number five. I think we really want to experience

976
00:46:08,396 --> 00:46:10,876
Speaker 1: our work as a can. We need to overcome this

977
00:46:10,996 --> 00:46:13,876
Speaker 1: idea that well, you know, friendships happen outside the work,

978
00:46:13,916 --> 00:46:15,996
Speaker 1: and my work is just my work. We really need

979
00:46:16,036 --> 00:46:18,396
Speaker 1: to engage in belonging. It's the factor that seems to

980
00:46:18,436 --> 00:46:21,596
Speaker 1: matter for our sense of happiness at work, but also

981
00:46:21,796 --> 00:46:24,716
Speaker 1: for our performance at work, and also for companies happiness.

982
00:46:24,716 --> 00:46:26,756
Speaker 1: So I think this is a tip not just for individuals,

983
00:46:26,796 --> 00:46:29,396
Speaker 1: but for smart companies that are using the data too. Okay,

984
00:46:29,476 --> 00:46:31,516
Speaker 1: so you got through the five tips from Happiness. If

985
00:46:31,516 --> 00:46:33,836
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my gosh, I want tips six through ten,

986
00:46:34,196 --> 00:46:35,756
Speaker 1: you can do that. You can sign up for my

987
00:46:35,796 --> 00:46:38,116
Speaker 1: online course for free Coursera dot org. Just show of

988
00:46:38,196 --> 00:46:41,516
Speaker 1: hands anybody taken the course already. Oh my students, Hello students,

989
00:46:41,796 --> 00:46:44,436
Speaker 1: thank you for coming. And if you're like, oh my, gosh,

990
00:46:44,436 --> 00:46:46,156
Speaker 1: I'm burned out and overwhelmed. I don't want to take

991
00:46:46,156 --> 00:46:48,836
Speaker 1: another whole Yale class. We also have my lovely podcast,

992
00:46:48,876 --> 00:46:50,796
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab, which you should check out. And all

993
00:46:50,836 --> 00:46:53,076
Speaker 1: the folks I mentioned and that you wanted to hear

994
00:46:53,116 --> 00:46:54,996
Speaker 1: more about, they're all in the podcast. You can just

995
00:46:55,036 --> 00:46:57,156
Speaker 1: google their name and find it there. But what I

996
00:46:57,156 --> 00:46:58,756
Speaker 1: hope I've done is to convince you that in their

997
00:46:58,876 --> 00:47:00,676
Speaker 1: quest to kind of put the south By goggles on

998
00:47:00,716 --> 00:47:02,676
Speaker 1: and say, what's the future of work? What's going to matter?

999
00:47:03,236 --> 00:47:06,596
Speaker 1: What really actually matters isn't the stuff we normally think about.

1000
00:47:06,836 --> 00:47:09,676
Speaker 1: What might actually matter more is our mental health. And

1001
00:47:09,716 --> 00:47:11,796
Speaker 1: so if we promote that, and we get companies to

1002
00:47:11,836 --> 00:47:14,516
Speaker 1: promote that while be achieving in all the ways we

1003
00:47:14,556 --> 00:47:16,116
Speaker 1: want to succeed, and with that, I'll thank you. And

1004
00:47:16,156 --> 00:47:18,316
Speaker 1: I think we have a couple of minutes for questions,

1005
00:47:18,476 --> 00:47:20,596
Speaker 1: So thank you all, And if you haven't give me

1006
00:47:20,636 --> 00:47:29,596
Speaker 1: my slideo questions, do that now. Yeah. So I'm seeing

1007
00:47:29,596 --> 00:47:32,676
Speaker 1: the questions pop up. This is awesome. So first question,

1008
00:47:33,156 --> 00:47:35,596
Speaker 1: thoughts on the recent New York Times article that workplace

1009
00:47:35,676 --> 00:47:39,796
Speaker 1: wellness programs have little benefit. It seems contradictory. I think

1010
00:47:39,836 --> 00:47:43,276
Speaker 1: it isn't contradictory, because I would raise the question of

1011
00:47:43,316 --> 00:47:46,076
Speaker 1: whether or not any of the workplace wellness programs I

1012
00:47:46,196 --> 00:47:49,396
Speaker 1: mentioned talked about this stuff. A lot of workplace wellness

1013
00:47:49,396 --> 00:47:52,756
Speaker 1: programs focus on these kind of individual strategies that we

1014
00:47:52,756 --> 00:47:55,836
Speaker 1: can use to get better. So things like meditation, things

1015
00:47:55,876 --> 00:47:57,996
Speaker 1: like exercise, and so on. It's not that those things

1016
00:47:58,076 --> 00:48:00,876
Speaker 1: are bad, it's that those things might not be achieving

1017
00:48:00,916 --> 00:48:03,956
Speaker 1: the stuff that really matters. What's the stuff that really matters.

1018
00:48:04,196 --> 00:48:07,076
Speaker 1: It's you finding your own values and finding ways to

1019
00:48:07,116 --> 00:48:09,996
Speaker 1: engage with them. It's you try trying to figure out

1020
00:48:10,036 --> 00:48:12,956
Speaker 1: your vulnerability at work and really connecting with people. Most

1021
00:48:12,956 --> 00:48:17,156
Speaker 1: workplace well being programs don't have that. It's you navigating

1022
00:48:17,196 --> 00:48:20,236
Speaker 1: and acknowledging your negative emotions. I haven't seen any workplace

1023
00:48:20,236 --> 00:48:22,076
Speaker 1: well being program that's like, well, we need to bring

1024
00:48:22,076 --> 00:48:24,316
Speaker 1: to the force everyone's negative emotions, right, those are the

1025
00:48:24,316 --> 00:48:26,876
Speaker 1: things that matter, right, That's just not what these programs

1026
00:48:26,876 --> 00:48:28,796
Speaker 1: are doing. And so I think it's not so much

1027
00:48:28,796 --> 00:48:31,836
Speaker 1: a contradiction. It's that these well being programs are trying

1028
00:48:31,836 --> 00:48:33,956
Speaker 1: to do the best they could, but they might be

1029
00:48:34,036 --> 00:48:36,156
Speaker 1: missing what some of the latest science is showing. And

1030
00:48:36,196 --> 00:48:38,836
Speaker 1: that's why I think a more academic, scientific approach. If

1031
00:48:38,836 --> 00:48:42,236
Speaker 1: you could bring this stuff into these programs, if workplaces

1032
00:48:42,276 --> 00:48:45,076
Speaker 1: could make this stuff a priority all of a sudden,

1033
00:48:45,116 --> 00:48:47,476
Speaker 1: I think we would be seeing some real effects. Oh

1034
00:48:47,516 --> 00:48:51,076
Speaker 1: that was question number one, So next question. Generative AI

1035
00:48:51,196 --> 00:48:54,116
Speaker 1: promises a lot of productive wins, but employees are scared

1036
00:48:54,196 --> 00:48:56,796
Speaker 1: feel pressure to adopt it. What tips do you have

1037
00:48:56,956 --> 00:48:59,516
Speaker 1: for leaders who are managing this transition. I think the

1038
00:48:59,556 --> 00:49:03,036
Speaker 1: biggest tip is just don't pretend those emotions aren't happening.

1039
00:49:03,036 --> 00:49:05,596
Speaker 1: I think what happens as a leaders you say, everybody

1040
00:49:05,676 --> 00:49:08,716
Speaker 1: is freaked out, scared, feels pressured by this stuff, but

1041
00:49:08,716 --> 00:49:10,956
Speaker 1: we won't admit that. We'll just roll it out and

1042
00:49:10,956 --> 00:49:13,636
Speaker 1: pretend everybody's fine. We're just gonna squish the beach ball

1043
00:49:13,676 --> 00:49:15,956
Speaker 1: of all art at negative emotions about chat, GBT under

1044
00:49:15,956 --> 00:49:18,276
Speaker 1: the ground, and everybody would be cool. Right. You just

1045
00:49:18,316 --> 00:49:20,236
Speaker 1: saw that it'd be better to admit that. So I

1046
00:49:20,236 --> 00:49:22,596
Speaker 1: think as individuals you need to kind of sit with

1047
00:49:22,636 --> 00:49:25,316
Speaker 1: some of these emotions. It's normative to feel a little

1048
00:49:25,356 --> 00:49:27,356
Speaker 1: freaked out in the creative industry that we have these

1049
00:49:27,356 --> 00:49:30,636
Speaker 1: tools that can like write podcasts and screenplays and make

1050
00:49:30,676 --> 00:49:33,876
Speaker 1: amazing art. It's normal to be spooked by that. It's normative.

1051
00:49:34,236 --> 00:49:35,516
Speaker 1: So I think we need to sit with that and

1052
00:49:35,556 --> 00:49:38,676
Speaker 1: allow those negative emotions. I think as a leader, you

1053
00:49:38,836 --> 00:49:41,876
Speaker 1: do well by admitting this stuff, just coming out and

1054
00:49:41,916 --> 00:49:44,836
Speaker 1: saying it, like, I know this is probably freaking you out.

1055
00:49:44,956 --> 00:49:47,316
Speaker 1: It makes sense that this is freaking you out. We're

1056
00:49:47,316 --> 00:49:49,876
Speaker 1: gonna work through those kinds of negative emotions together. I

1057
00:49:49,916 --> 00:49:52,036
Speaker 1: feel like there's some benefits of going through it. Even

1058
00:49:52,076 --> 00:49:54,196
Speaker 1: though it feels a little scary. There are lots of

1059
00:49:54,196 --> 00:49:56,276
Speaker 1: things that are beneficial to us that feel a little

1060
00:49:56,276 --> 00:49:59,156
Speaker 1: scary at first. How can we acknowledge these negative emotions

1061
00:49:59,196 --> 00:50:01,196
Speaker 1: and get through it. I think the biggest problem was,

1062
00:50:01,196 --> 00:50:04,116
Speaker 1: like we're just pretending nobody's freaked out. It's just fine.

1063
00:50:04,316 --> 00:50:07,516
Speaker 1: No singularity here, like you know, rosy glasses. But I

1064
00:50:07,516 --> 00:50:11,236
Speaker 1: think once you acknowledge that stuff, recognize those emotions, you

1065
00:50:11,276 --> 00:50:14,116
Speaker 1: can use it, right. You can use that kind of engage,

1066
00:50:14,156 --> 00:50:16,076
Speaker 1: like the light on your engine, to tell us how

1067
00:50:16,156 --> 00:50:18,796
Speaker 1: we should deal with these emerging technologies in a way

1068
00:50:18,836 --> 00:50:21,876
Speaker 1: that's honest, right, that recognizes maybe this is a problem

1069
00:50:21,916 --> 00:50:24,196
Speaker 1: for my engine, and I had to think about it differently.

1070
00:50:24,396 --> 00:50:29,076
Speaker 1: So acknowledge the negative emotions. There next question anonymous. I

1071
00:50:29,076 --> 00:50:31,236
Speaker 1: love this person put it anonymous. I am that person

1072
00:50:31,236 --> 00:50:33,156
Speaker 1: who believes I don't want to make friends at work

1073
00:50:33,196 --> 00:50:36,076
Speaker 1: because the office gossip and pettiness. How do you move

1074
00:50:36,156 --> 00:50:38,316
Speaker 1: through that? First of all, you're not alone, right. That

1075
00:50:38,516 --> 00:50:41,436
Speaker 1: article of my students who went viral had like tens

1076
00:50:41,476 --> 00:50:44,316
Speaker 1: of thousands of comments, most of whom were like, you know,

1077
00:50:44,516 --> 00:50:48,236
Speaker 1: rallying behind her, right. And I think it's it's important

1078
00:50:48,236 --> 00:50:52,276
Speaker 1: to acknowledge, like the office gossip and the pettiness, that

1079
00:50:52,316 --> 00:50:54,716
Speaker 1: stuff feels kind of annoying. And it's true that it

1080
00:50:54,796 --> 00:50:58,116
Speaker 1: is annoying. It can contribute to negative emotions. But that

1081
00:50:58,236 --> 00:51:01,396
Speaker 1: might not be everybody in your office, right. There might

1082
00:51:01,396 --> 00:51:03,996
Speaker 1: be other people you can connect with that aren't participating

1083
00:51:03,996 --> 00:51:06,396
Speaker 1: as much in that stuff. Right. The idea that you

1084
00:51:06,436 --> 00:51:08,036
Speaker 1: have to make friends at work doesn't mean that you

1085
00:51:08,076 --> 00:51:10,596
Speaker 1: have to participate in that stuff. It just means you

1086
00:51:10,636 --> 00:51:13,076
Speaker 1: have to ask people, Hey, how is your weekend? I

1087
00:51:13,196 --> 00:51:14,716
Speaker 1: went to south By? Can I just tell you about

1088
00:51:14,716 --> 00:51:16,996
Speaker 1: this cool panel that I went to on well being

1089
00:51:16,996 --> 00:51:18,796
Speaker 1: at work? And let me tell you about it. It's

1090
00:51:19,036 --> 00:51:22,236
Speaker 1: asking for help, it's getting curious about their ideas. Right,

1091
00:51:22,756 --> 00:51:25,556
Speaker 1: That's what this friendship is about. I think we get wrong.

1092
00:51:25,596 --> 00:51:28,596
Speaker 1: We think friendship has to look like this terrible middle

1093
00:51:28,596 --> 00:51:30,956
Speaker 1: school click and that we have to go mean girls

1094
00:51:30,956 --> 00:51:32,956
Speaker 1: and that's the only way we can make friends. But

1095
00:51:32,996 --> 00:51:35,316
Speaker 1: if you really dig into what the science suggests about

1096
00:51:35,316 --> 00:51:39,236
Speaker 1: friendship at work, those are all our misconceptions. It's about positivity,

1097
00:51:39,716 --> 00:51:42,676
Speaker 1: just having normal, positive interactions with another human, just like

1098
00:51:42,716 --> 00:51:44,396
Speaker 1: you might with your friend or your spouse or a

1099
00:51:44,396 --> 00:51:48,356
Speaker 1: family member. It's about doing that relatively consistently and kind

1100
00:51:48,396 --> 00:51:51,396
Speaker 1: of vulnerably, sort of asking for help, getting curious and

1101
00:51:51,436 --> 00:51:53,676
Speaker 1: so on. So doesn't mean that you're embracing the mean

1102
00:51:53,716 --> 00:51:56,676
Speaker 1: girls'ness at work. And I guess another piece of advice

1103
00:51:56,676 --> 00:51:58,316
Speaker 1: I would have for folks who feel that way, and

1104
00:51:58,356 --> 00:52:00,356
Speaker 1: there's a lot of you out there, not just here,

1105
00:52:00,396 --> 00:52:02,756
Speaker 1: but again in the world, is to like try it

1106
00:52:02,796 --> 00:52:06,276
Speaker 1: in baby steps. If it feels uncomfortable, pick one person

1107
00:52:06,316 --> 00:52:09,796
Speaker 1: who feels safe, and try to have like one normal

1108
00:52:09,876 --> 00:52:12,556
Speaker 1: human conversation with that person, whether it's on zoom or not,

1109
00:52:13,116 --> 00:52:15,116
Speaker 1: and then work from there. Right, this is not dive

1110
00:52:15,196 --> 00:52:17,756
Speaker 1: into the like friendship at work deepen, It's like try

1111
00:52:17,756 --> 00:52:19,556
Speaker 1: it out a little bit and see how it feels.

1112
00:52:19,916 --> 00:52:22,876
Speaker 1: So that would be my advice. Next question, how can

1113
00:52:22,916 --> 00:52:25,916
Speaker 1: you communicate some of these elements upward to senior management

1114
00:52:26,036 --> 00:52:28,716
Speaker 1: to create more time for play and belonging, especially when

1115
00:52:28,716 --> 00:52:31,876
Speaker 1: they're resistant. But I think if you show them data

1116
00:52:31,996 --> 00:52:35,836
Speaker 1: from fifteen million workers and thousands of companies across literally

1117
00:52:35,876 --> 00:52:39,036
Speaker 1: every industry shows if you invest in happiness at time

1118
00:52:39,116 --> 00:52:43,276
Speaker 1: one that investment will show is correlated with higher stock

1119
00:52:43,316 --> 00:52:45,796
Speaker 1: prices down the line. I think that's the kind of

1120
00:52:45,876 --> 00:52:48,156
Speaker 1: thing that's going to change the minds of senior management.

1121
00:52:48,196 --> 00:52:50,236
Speaker 1: They're not going to move when it just is like

1122
00:52:50,276 --> 00:52:52,676
Speaker 1: a nice to do thing. But if it's a need

1123
00:52:52,756 --> 00:52:54,876
Speaker 1: to have for the bottom line, if it's the thing

1124
00:52:54,916 --> 00:52:57,556
Speaker 1: that's going to make us money, now, all of a sudden,

1125
00:52:57,636 --> 00:52:59,796
Speaker 1: it's gonna matter. I feel like I'm like, you know,

1126
00:52:59,836 --> 00:53:02,556
Speaker 1: some south By panel and like the early nineties, where

1127
00:53:02,596 --> 00:53:05,116
Speaker 1: I'm like, the Internet it's gonna be a thing, and

1128
00:53:05,156 --> 00:53:06,836
Speaker 1: all the cool south By people are like, but my

1129
00:53:06,956 --> 00:53:09,196
Speaker 1: senior management doesn't believe in the Internet. I'm like, well, well,

1130
00:53:09,236 --> 00:53:10,956
Speaker 1: it's going to be a thing whether they believe in

1131
00:53:10,996 --> 00:53:13,436
Speaker 1: it or not. I feel like the twenty twenty four

1132
00:53:13,556 --> 00:53:16,356
Speaker 1: version of that is on like mental health, super matters

1133
00:53:16,356 --> 00:53:18,956
Speaker 1: for productivity and you're like, my senior, I'm like, they're

1134
00:53:18,996 --> 00:53:21,196
Speaker 1: going to have to pay attention to it, because if

1135
00:53:21,196 --> 00:53:23,676
Speaker 1: the science is showing what the science is showing, they're

1136
00:53:23,756 --> 00:53:24,996
Speaker 1: kind of not going to have a choice. It's like

1137
00:53:25,076 --> 00:53:28,436
Speaker 1: lose money or pay attention to this. But share the graph.

1138
00:53:28,476 --> 00:53:31,636
Speaker 1: Go online, you can google just Indeed, well Being workplace study.

1139
00:53:31,676 --> 00:53:33,636
Speaker 1: You'll get it. You can share it, and I think

1140
00:53:33,796 --> 00:53:36,156
Speaker 1: slowly the c suite folks are going to get on board.

1141
00:53:37,396 --> 00:53:39,676
Speaker 1: Last quick question, So much of the research in this

1142
00:53:39,756 --> 00:53:43,156
Speaker 1: area is correlational or based on small laboratory studies. How

1143
00:53:43,156 --> 00:53:45,876
Speaker 1: can we get more data on these causal relationships? Well,

1144
00:53:45,916 --> 00:53:48,036
Speaker 1: I think that's a great question, and I think one

1145
00:53:48,036 --> 00:53:50,356
Speaker 1: of the reasons I love the Indeed study is that

1146
00:53:50,396 --> 00:53:53,436
Speaker 1: this is a huge data set, right, fifteen million workers,

1147
00:53:53,436 --> 00:53:55,676
Speaker 1: and it's not even people who necessarily thought they were

1148
00:53:55,716 --> 00:53:57,236
Speaker 1: going to be in a study. These are just people

1149
00:53:57,236 --> 00:53:59,556
Speaker 1: who were doing their normal ratings on Indeed. They're just

1150
00:53:59,636 --> 00:54:01,556
Speaker 1: data kind of taken from that. And I think this

1151
00:54:01,636 --> 00:54:05,316
Speaker 1: is a spot where collaborations between academics and companies can

1152
00:54:05,356 --> 00:54:08,076
Speaker 1: be so powerful. Right if you work for a small

1153
00:54:08,156 --> 00:54:11,076
Speaker 1: startup or even a big tech company, especially if you

1154
00:54:11,116 --> 00:54:14,756
Speaker 1: have some infiltration in HR folks like that partner up

1155
00:54:14,796 --> 00:54:17,676
Speaker 1: with one of these researchers, you engage in a belonging

1156
00:54:17,716 --> 00:54:20,756
Speaker 1: intervention where you can do a randomized control trial in

1157
00:54:20,796 --> 00:54:23,636
Speaker 1: the workplace, and these things are starting to happen. There's

1158
00:54:23,636 --> 00:54:26,036
Speaker 1: a work there's a working paper now that just came

1159
00:54:26,076 --> 00:54:29,436
Speaker 1: out on remote work. What are the best practices for it?

1160
00:54:29,516 --> 00:54:32,756
Speaker 1: This is a research team at NYU that partnered up

1161
00:54:32,796 --> 00:54:36,396
Speaker 1: with a large company that was naturally rolling out like

1162
00:54:36,436 --> 00:54:39,556
Speaker 1: they're remote practices, and they said, hey, can we study this?

1163
00:54:39,596 --> 00:54:41,756
Speaker 1: Can we look at happiness? Would you mind if we

1164
00:54:41,796 --> 00:54:43,876
Speaker 1: gave workers a choice so we can kind of RCT

1165
00:54:44,036 --> 00:54:46,956
Speaker 1: this like randomized controlled trial to test this. And so

1166
00:54:46,996 --> 00:54:49,436
Speaker 1: I think the way that we overcome some of these

1167
00:54:49,516 --> 00:54:52,676
Speaker 1: kind of small sample sizes and these things that are

1168
00:54:52,676 --> 00:54:54,476
Speaker 1: more in the Ivory Tower and less in the real

1169
00:54:54,516 --> 00:54:57,156
Speaker 1: world is to partner with the folks who are in

1170
00:54:57,196 --> 00:54:59,916
Speaker 1: the real world who have access to these big data sets,

1171
00:55:00,196 --> 00:55:02,396
Speaker 1: and then you can contribute not just to practices that

1172
00:55:02,436 --> 00:55:04,716
Speaker 1: we think will make your company better, you can also

1173
00:55:04,836 --> 00:55:07,516
Speaker 1: learn something that you can share with other companies too.

1174
00:55:07,796 --> 00:55:10,076
Speaker 1: And I think indeed did this honestly in a nice way.

1175
00:55:10,116 --> 00:55:12,596
Speaker 1: I've seen this making the rounds. I think people are

1176
00:55:12,676 --> 00:55:15,556
Speaker 1: talking positively about indeed, given that they were kind of

1177
00:55:15,636 --> 00:55:17,236
Speaker 1: able to share these data, and so I think the

1178
00:55:17,316 --> 00:55:21,196
Speaker 1: more companies that do that, the better. But I am

1179
00:55:21,316 --> 00:55:24,356
Speaker 1: at time unfortunately. I hope I've given you some strategies

1180
00:55:24,396 --> 00:55:26,436
Speaker 1: you can all use to promote your mental health at

1181
00:55:26,476 --> 00:55:28,836
Speaker 1: work that you can share with your companies and your teams,

1182
00:55:28,956 --> 00:55:31,036
Speaker 1: and I hope made you all a little happier. Thank

1183
00:55:31,036 --> 00:55:36,716
Speaker 1: you all so much. I hope you enjoyed that roundup

1184
00:55:36,756 --> 00:55:39,996
Speaker 1: of advice on workplace happiness. It's definitely a subject we'll

1185
00:55:39,996 --> 00:55:42,836
Speaker 1: be returning to very soon, but for now, the Happiness

1186
00:55:42,876 --> 00:55:45,436
Speaker 1: Lab will be taking a short break. We'll be back

1187
00:55:45,476 --> 00:55:48,676
Speaker 1: to celebrate the summer Olympics with some shows exploring mental

1188
00:55:48,716 --> 00:55:51,716
Speaker 1: health in sports, and we'll soon share a very special

1189
00:55:51,756 --> 00:55:54,116
Speaker 1: season that I've put my heart and soul into.

1190
00:55:54,556 --> 00:55:56,716
Speaker 2: So this is for a whole podcast season that we're

1191
00:55:56,716 --> 00:55:59,876
Speaker 2: doing on stuff that I'm bad at. Okay, this is

1192
00:55:59,876 --> 00:56:02,356
Speaker 2: a whole episode about boredom because I feel like I'm

1193
00:56:02,356 --> 00:56:04,476
Speaker 2: pretty bad at boredom. You are, but I feel like

1194
00:56:04,476 --> 00:56:06,996
Speaker 2: I'm bad at boredom because you're bad at boredom.

1195
00:56:07,116 --> 00:56:10,036
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I didn't do well with doing up all that.

1196
00:56:10,156 --> 00:56:13,116
Speaker 1: Coming very soon on the Happiness Lab would meet doctor

1197
00:56:13,196 --> 00:56:20,036
Speaker 1: Laurie Santos,