Workwell Labs: The New Brand For People Leaders With Adam Markel

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof. Hey everyone, it's Adam

Markel. Today's podcast will be just a little bit different in that I'm not going to be interviewing anybody. I'm sort of going to be sharing a bit of good news, amazing news, actually. Something we've been working on for a very long time is coming to fruition, and that is that we are in the process of introducing our new brand to the world. And it's an interesting thing because our work is not new. In fact, We've been engaged in the work that I'm going to share a little bit more about in a moment for more than 8 years, but the brand itself is something that is brand new, which is really exciting, actually. So without further ado, let me just kind of set a little context and then share some information about this. And hopefully this will be something that is interesting and informative and a resource to all of you that are listening, or many of you that are listening. Yeah. So who is this intended for? This is intended for people that are people leaders, people that are in leadership roles or are aspiring to be in those leadership roles, people that are running organizations, whether that's an organization that you have founded or co-founded, one where you are involved operationally speaking, or where you are working in another organization that was created perhaps long ago by others. Yeah. And all these things have the same origin points, whether it's the biggest company you can think of, whether it's Apple, for example. We know the stories of companies like that, or Microsoft, or Hewlett-Packard, or any of these companies. They all kind of start in the same way. They start with an idea. They start with a person or more than one person that collaborate on that idea. Sometimes that collaboration occurs in a garage someplace. I mean, it's just one of the most exciting things about business, and I'm a lover of business. I've been a serial entrepreneur since I'm— Yeah. Probably 14 or 15 years old when I began collecting baseball cards and then selling them and reselling them and all kinds of things back as early as I can think about it. I'm in love with business. And why I love business is that there's nothing about it that is out of reach for anyone, meaning anybody can start a business. I like to think that there are places in the world where that is more easily done, Warren Buffett speaks about winning the ovarian lottery. Those are his words, which he's shared with audiences of people for years and years. And what he means by that is that having been born in the United States, he was given this privilege of being able to start a business or start several businesses, many businesses actually, and that if he had been born somewhere else in the world, that would've been much more difficult, if not nearly impossible. And that's coming from a guy who's born in the 1930s. And so he was literally born during the Great Depression, as it was called in the United States, and a period in between World War I and World War II. So to say he started with nothing and to say he started with certain strikes against him is true. And yet he recognizes the privilege that he had in being born in the US and being able to therefore begin an environment That was friendly to the self-starter and the person that wanted to create a business or create a path to wealth. And so that's what I love about business. Every one of them starts in the same way. It starts with this idea. It starts with collaboration. It starts sometimes in the most just common of environments. And then those ideas can blossom into something that changes the lives of so many, many people. Yeah. work in the space of assisting organizations to become more than what they are presently, meaning that in the area of helping those organizations to reach those greater aspirations for themselves is the area that we love to work in. And we have a specific niche in that. And by saying we, what I mean is our team of people that are truly expert facilitators, trainers, speakers and the like, people that love to work with others, whether it's through process and exercise, through coaching, through experiential trainings, through keynote speaking to audiences of folks virtually or in person. These are the people committed to those, to masterful facilitation, to that craft that are a part of our team. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. So, our is now a new brand, and the our is called Workwell, meaning who we are as a brand is called Workwell. Our unique orientation on business and on the world of business is derived from hundreds of years of collective experience. I know, as I said, I've been in business myself for 3 decades, both as a business owner, as a CEO, as a co-founder, as an attorney, having been in that space for a couple of dozen years as well. And our collective expertise has one particular through line, and that is that in every instance where myself and others on our team have been involved in business ourselves or supporting others in their businesses, we have found that there's a common thread to success. And that common thread to success is something that I've spoken about on this podcast for years now through more than 300 episodes. And that is Resiliency—that in every success story, resilience is the unsung hero. I have yet to find any business, whether it's large or small, public or private, whether it's a multi-billion dollar enterprise or it's a startup, where resilience isn't one of, if not the most important ingredient in why that business is still around and still serving. Others and adding value in the marketplace after the market has proven itself to be so disruptive to other models and where so many businesses have failed. The ones that are still here and will continue to be here and continue to thrive in the years to come are those organizations that are the most resilient. And by that, I mean not only organizationally speaking, but all of its component parts, And most importantly, its people. And so the through line for my work and the work of all the other members of our facilitation team really focused on what it takes to be at your best, even in the most challenging and uncertain times, like the ones that we're living in right now. And by that, we mean providing tools and skills, tangible things that add to the resiliency of the individuals that are working, and the organization as a whole. So whether that's talking about psychological safety or emotional intelligence or change management or wellbeing in the workplace, behavioral health, whether we're talking about AI adoption and how it is that AI in many ways is one of the greatest tools that we will ever receive and experience and be able to utilize. And yet it is also causing tremendous anxiety and stress when it comes to stress management, when it comes to How it is that we are able to perform at higher and higher levels over longer periods of time, what it actually means, a brain health standpoint or a neurological standpoint, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually speaking, to be more resilient in the face of change, to be able to perform at higher and higher levels in the face of constant, never-ending change. This is the arena that our team, works in. And the organization, the brand name of this collaboration, this collection of talent is called Workwell. And so, for those of you that would like to check out who we are and what we're doing and how our talents have collaborated and what it looks like in terms of case studies and the many, many people and organizations that we have already served for, as I say, collectively a long, long period of time. All you need to do is go to workwelllabs.com and you'll get to see more of that, more of who we are and what we do in the world and how we've added value already. One of the things I'll just quickly mention is our Resilient Leader Assessment. This assessment has actually been utilized by more than 7,000 leaders as of the date of the airing of this podcast. More than 7,000 leaders globally have taken our Resilient Leader Assessment, everything from Fortune 50 companies to startups. And what we've been able to determine through all of that research and data is really profound. We've got white papers and research studies that share the fundamentals of how you create a resilient organization. But one thing that I will tell you is clear is that we've got 2 choices. Organizations either lean into a, a watch your back or a got your back culture. It's that simple. So creating that got-your-back culture is really important. It's valuable. It's what we are so committed to at Workwell. So it's what drives me. So not so long ago, I should say, I was engaged in work that just didn't have a deep purpose for me, that just felt more about chasing money or chasing power than it did chasing impact. The work that I've been doing for more than a dozen years now has been the opposite of that. And the collection of amazing people that we have as part of our team, and it's an expanding team of people that have that same craving, that yearning to have greater purpose in their lives in what they do. That is so in alignment with our company's mission and with my own personal direction in life to help other people to find that as well. And that is our commitment, that when we go into an organization, We wanna meet them where they are. And often we see low engagement scores, high absenteeism, people that have sick days that we know is really related more to stress than it is to anything structural that's wrong in their lives. We see attrition, of course, and performance standards that are, are just not exemplary. And what that tells us in total is that people are not actually meeting their true potential, and that organization therefore isn't meeting its true potential. And you can have both. The fact of the matter is that companies are formed to produce profit. They're formed to produce a result for stakeholders. And it is not mutually exclusive that you can have performance and have the highest performance even, and also create longevity and an environment where there's loyalty, where people are getting their needs met and feel empowered and seen and heard. And are able to truly live into their own personal highest potential. Those things are not mutually exclusive. So to create work cultures of wellbeing is what Workwell is committed to. And I thought I'd just take a, a little bit of time here today to share what is really exciting news for us. I am an entrepreneur and our organization is not any different than any of the organizations that we study. Again, having done so much research and spent so much time with leaders, what we know for sure is that we're all just baked the same way. We're all just people, and our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being is vitally important. And so what I love is that we have solutions for those things— everything from curated monthly content and videos, virtual trainings, workshops, in-person events that really lift people up and give people resources to think differently and behave differently. And of course, longer-term opportunities for train-the-trainer and certifications and team norms and just a host of things that we have found over time truly moves the needle, helps people to make the kind of changes in their lives that create this greater wellbeing personally, and then ultimately contribute to their quality of their work at— and their experience at work. And so again, what we see is that all those metrics that we measure at the start of an engagement begin to improve engagement and attrition and how people feel about their work and how productive they are, how they perform, how they are able to innovate and work together, collaboratively speaking. All of those things begin to improve when that culture begins to shift from that watch-your-back environment to a got-your-back environment. Yeah. environment, that the context, it's everything. It's not just important, it truly is everything. So I want to thank you as always for being a listener to this podcast. Much of what I aspire to do with the podcast in terms of bringing on leaders to talk about change, to talk about becoming change-proof, just like the title of my most recent book, and earlier on to talk to people about their pivots, professional pivots and personal pivots, is to Create this kind of content that is ongoingly meeting the moment, that is relevant in the moment, because the moment is constantly changing. And talk about the future of work. The future of work is now, and it is in anticipation of change, further change and disruption and opportunity with a big capital O in that space of the unknown. And so many people have trouble, of course, living in that space of the unknown and of uncertainty. And yet we all in looking backwards, know that the future is always net positive, no matter how murky it looks and how shaky it may seem, whether it's market conditions or it's geopolitical or it's anything that might be causing fear in the moment. The future is always net positive. So I thank you so much for being a part of our community, a part of this show. If you know someone that is in a position where they're leading teams, whether in the HR function or in the training and development or talent functions at an organization that may want to improve in some way, which is pretty much every— I would think every organization, but not every organization is ready to put their money where their mouth is. Somebody said to me once that your budget is a reflection of your values. So if you have a budget for learning and development, if you have a budget to really develop talent, if you have a budget for wellness programs to meet people where they are and to recognize that they're probably taking themselves for granted in some respect, and whether that's their physical health or their mental health or their emotional, uh, well-being, to actually help. And not just in words, and not just during the month that these things are addressed, or on the day when it's Mental Health Awareness Day, but rather there's a longer-term commitment to resiliency and meeting people where they truly are, which is that they're in need of advocacy and support That when that is the commitment, then so many things shift and so many things change. And if you know somebody that is currently working in an organization that may have that level of commitment, then they'd be a perfect person to have listen to this show. And hopefully Workwell will be something they would consider as well as something you'd consider. So again, check out workwelllabs.com. And lastly, I'll say, if you want to check your own level of resilience right here, right now in the moment, A snapshot. It changes. So it's not something that's— it's the same one day as the next. Often you can see some changes even day to day, but often over periods of months, just taking into account some of the small changes that we advocate, some of the small changes that we talk about in prior episodes of this podcast even, what you can see are pretty profound changes. And if you'd like to check your own resilience level, go to rankmyresilience.com. And in 3 minutes, and I truly mean 3 minutes or less, You will get that assessment, your own score in those 4 key zones of resilience for the moment, as well as free resources that are ours to share and provide at no cost at all. So it's our honor and our privilege to do that. With that, once again, thank you so much for being a part of our community. Thank you for sharing this. Thank you for being so kind in your feedback as well. And whatever feedback, kind or otherwise, we are always open to that. Thank you. Feedback is like oxygen, so we all need it in order to thrive, not just to survive. All right, well, I'll just say thank you again and ciao for now.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof To get your own free resilience assessment, go to RankMyResilience.com. Thank you.