Eudaimonia as the Blueprint for Creating Flourishing Workplaces with Andrew Soren

It's not that the business of business is business, which was, you know, the Milton Friedman let's maximize shareholder investment. The business of business should be the betterment of humanity in the world. That's what it should be.

What becomes possible if we stop optimizing businesses for maximizing profits, but increasing Eudaimonia and flourishing for those who work in it. I'm Ashish Kothari, and on today's episode, I'm joined by Andrew Soran, founder of Eudemonic by Design, faculty member at University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology program, and one of the leading voices on designing organizations where people can truly flourish. Andrew draws from the ancient Greek idea of eudaimonia, the belief that good life isn't about maximizing pleasure, but about purpose, virtue, and growth. For over 15 years, he has been helping individuals and organizations close the gap between what we know about living well and the way we work is actually designed. In our conversation, we explored why so many workplaces are are like leaky boats that rod people of dignity, security and meaning. We discussed how reimagining work through the lens of decent work and flourishing transforms not only lives, but organizations themselves. We unpack the moral, competitive and productivity cases for putting human flourishing at the center of business strategy. This is a conversation about ethics, purpose, and the future of work that you don't want to miss. And it's a reminder that flourishing isn't a perk. Flourishing is the point. Andrew, it is so lovely to have you on our Happiness Squad podcast. Thank you for joining us.

Oh, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me, Ashish.

Andrew, I've been so looking forward to this conversation. I love the name of your company, Eudaimonic by Design. And for our listeners who might not know what eudaimania is, many people know what happiness is, what wellbeing is, what flourishing is, and all the opposite terms of that. But not many people know what eudaimania is unless they are lovers of Greek philosophy.

That is correct.

So why don't we start with describing for our listeners what is eudaimania?

Yeah, absolutely. Bonus points, by the way, for just even being able to figure out how to say it. Eudaimonia. It is one of those words that when I think I first felt found it, my mind was blown a little bit. I was like, wow, you know, there's a word to describe this. So it's a beautiful word. It's a beautiful word that I'm so attached to that I named my my company Half of it. But maybe, yes, you're Right. It is an ancient Greek word. The etymology of it, you can start there. U means good in ancient Greek. And then daimon. Daimon is like a spirit or a demon, a soul that lives within all of us. So this idea that there is a good spirit, a good soul that lives within all of us that just is waiting to be potentiated is kind of what Aristotle might have said eudaimonia is all about. And when they were talking about it, what they were really trying to talk about was what. What's a good life? What. What constitutes a good life? And so eudaimonia was one way of framing what a good life was, and another way of framing it might've been something like hedonia. The reality is, is that there are still very similar debates. Hedonia is kind of like pleasure. So a good life is one that's all about being able to maximize pleasure. Eudaimonia is, in many ways, all about a sense of purpose, growth, potentiation. This idea that a life well lived is one where every day you wake up and you try to figure out, how do I bring myself and the very best of myself to try to reach my full potential? That if you did that day in, day out, with really deliberate practice, that that would be a much better life than someone who just tried to have as much sex, drugs, and rock and roll as they possibly could. And. And so at least that was the debate, Right? That was the thing that Aristotle was trying to say, was that a eudaimonic life is probably going to be the best possible life that we could lead. And it's probably going to be hard, and it's probably going to be frustrating at times, and you're probably going to fail more often than you succeed at. At doing that. But if you try every single day, chances are you're going to feel like that was really worth the effort. And, yeah, that's what eudaimonia is.

Yeah. You know, I love it. I love that word, too, Andrew. And I discovered it around 2016, while I was searching for almost, you know, two years. I was waking up with anxiety every morning, and I was searching for what is making me anxious when my life has green lights in almost all dimensions. I was a partner at McKinsey. I had a loving family. My health was great. My relationships were great. I was living in Boulder. You know, I was just peaking in career. My clients loved me. Everything was amazing. Everything was green lights. And yet I was waking up with anxiety. And I had gone looking for answers in the fields of psychology, spirituality, neurosciences. Philosophy, tons of religious studies. I was reading continuously. I was learning to be a coach. And, you know, that's when I found the works of the Stoics. And this notion of living a virtuous life shows up, but, you know, it shows up so much earlier. So if you think about some of Buddha's teachings around life past suffering and the whole notion of the Eightfold Path is around how do you live a life which is about. And it's a path, right? And that's the beauty. It's not a destination, it's a path. And it's a path that can take us to being a Buddha, being liberated. And everybody has that in us. It's not an easy path. It doesn't mean that suffering is not. In fact, it is many times is, in Robert Frost's work, the road less trodden. But it is a path nonetheless that can bring longstanding peace, contentment, joy in our lives. Absolutely, yeah.

I mean, these are such ancient wisdoms. And I think it is amazing when we look across cultures. I mean, you talked about Buddhism. Absolutely, 100%. I think that there's so much alignment between things that Aristotle might have said and, and perspectives that are Buddhist perspectives or Confucianism. Confucianism and Aristotelian philosophy are actually really, really, really similar. There's, yeah, there's, there's a huge amount of parallels or if we look at indigenous cultures around the world, I mean, I'm based in Turtle island in Canada, and there are so many different indigenous wisdoms that are fundamentally grounded in a sense of virtue and this idea that a life well lived is a virtuous life, where we are constantly trying to think about so much more than just ourselves and our relationship with the, with the world around us, which is fundamental to what UW is all about, you.

Know, and I think I'm curious to get your take on it. Look, I mean, you chair the International Psychology association, you hold so many of these conferences, you're deeply steeped. You're one of the teachers in the MAP program, you know, in positive psychology at Penn. I've thought about this question of. We've known about this for thousands of years, Right. In fact, first of all, it was amazing that we'd known. And today we are as far away from practice in our day to day lives than we've ever been. Right. We have all this technology, we have so much knowledge, more knowledge than ever, and yet we are parched for practice. We are drowning in knowledge, we are parched for practice. And I was thinking about why is it? And my hypothesis was, you know, and I was looking at it from different fields and I was like, it's because when we go back in time, we lived in nature and hence there was not this notion of man and nature. We were nature. And nature has a rhythm, nature has a way of life. And so many of these, right, come like Buddha didn't discover Buddhahood, sitting in a palace surrounded by maidens, eating, it's under a tree. It's under a tree, right? It was under a tree. And so I think as we have gotten further and further in a way and consciously try to put more pleasure and more importantly, eliminate all kinds of suffering, diseases, scarcity of food, we have, you know, you can go to a grocery store and get food, I can order off my phone, right? As we have eliminated suffering and inconveniences from life, we have caged ourselves more and more and separated ourselves from nature where we are falling prey to our brain rather than our heart and our spirit. And the brain just wants us to have sex, drugs, food and rock and roll, right? Procreate and have a pleasurable life. But that is not a life of meaning. And actually it brings short term pleasure. But today I think most we have such, we have extended our lives and I think we have created so much suffering in people who are living longer with all these chronic ailments. So I'm just curious about my thinking and perspective on what are the sources behind this rise of suffering and unhappiness that we are seeing in the world is our increasingly alienation from nature and our imprisonment into more and more digital and our own mental world.

I wish I had an answer to the question, but let's just stay with philosophy for a second because I think that one of the things that you've just articulated, and this is what the foundation of Buddhism as far as I understand, is the idea that suffering is all around us. Life is suffering. Literally from the moment we are born, there is suffering all around us. And in many ways the question of Buddhism I think is how do you suffer? Well, and I think that that's the question of many ancient religions. I think that's the question of a lot of philosophy that's out there. And perhaps the thing that we have done wrong is to think that we shouldn't be suffering at all. And yes, I think that that's, that's in some ways the failure of our society is, and it goes back to this, you know, what happens when a society focuses so much on hedonism, on pleasure, on Maximizing pleasure and reducing pain to the extent that we ignore the fact that a fundamental part of being human, the fundamental part of being alive, is that there will be pain and that we have to find meaning in that pain. We have to find relationships in that pain. We have to find a sense of growth within that pain. Otherwise the pain's unbearable. But at the same time, the pain is inevitable. We are born on this earth to die. And if we don't try to appreciate that at some level, if we don't make the best of our time while we have it, we're missing the point. And so I actually think that it's a failure of predominantly Western societies and capitalist models and really enlightenment thinking that has had us veer away from some of those foundations which were so core to what almost all of the ancient religions and. And philosophies were about.

Yeah, no, I. Absolutely. One of the most common questions I get when I talk about Happiness Squad, the company I founded. Right. Oh, so does this mean we're going to be happy forever? I'm like, no, right There itself is happiness is not an emotion. I'm not. That's not what we are talking about. I have never quite articulated as, no, I want to help you suffer. Well, but, you know, I do talk about the fact that, no, this is about helping you be joyful rather than chase joy. Right, exactly. Stop chasing joy and expecting that to be the state, but be joyful regardless of what is being served to you today in this moment right now. Yeah, right. It's an attitude. So, my friend, tell me a little bit about eudaimanic design and really the work you do with organizations to design organizations and work systems around these principles. And I want to get into the principles as well, but just tell me about why this matters.

So I've been focusing on this idea of Eudaimonia for a really long time, I guess, in different ways. I've been thinking about it probably throughout most of my working career, but specifically for the last 15 years or so, I've been really interested in this idea of meaning, purpose, potentiation, Eudaimonia, let's. Let's call it, you know, any number of different words, but I'd say the first tranche of that period of time was in relation to the individual. I was. I was a coach, I was working at an individual level. I was working with managers, with people, I was working with professionals, and I was helping them think about how are they learning and understanding and discovering what their sense of meaning and purpose might be, what eudaimonia might look like at an individual level. And I think that the more work that I did in that space, especially the more work that I did in organizations and especially the more work that I did with individuals who were genuinely trying to lead a eudaimonic life or do eudaimonic work work, the more that it became clear that there are structural barriers that prevent us from doing that kind of good work constantly in our face. And those barriers are very real. I mean, they're at a very fundamental level. Things like, are we paid a living wage and enough money that we can actually have time to think about what is meaningful and purposeful in our lives? Do we think that we're gonna have a job tomorrow? Is there so much, you know, insecurity about whether my job is just gonna be ripped away that I can't think about anything else? Do I feel like I have freedom? Well, freedom from things like psychological harm, but also. Or physical harm, but also freedom to exercise my voice, to speak up, to. To try to bring my best self to work, and then, like, fundamentally, dignity. Do I feel like I'm being treated like a human being, or am I just a witcher in my organization? And I would say all of those things are what, you know, the international labor association of the United nations would call decent work. Right? Freedom, equity, security, dignity. These are things that are fundamental enablers of us being able to. To have a sense of decency in our lives, and especially in a work context. And often the people who are doing the most eudaimonic kinds of work are often in situations where that level of decency is actually shockingly low. And all you need to do is think about, like, teachers or nurses or international aid workers or. Or even just nonprofit workers in general. Like, I. I'm in Canada. There was a recent survey that just went out to nonprofit workers throughout Canada called the Changemaker survey. And it looked. The Changemaker wellbeing survey. And what it sound was that about 50% of nonprofit workers in Canada do not earn a living wage. They're suffering from food insecurity. Like, fit. One out of two people who work in nonprofits in Canada don't earn enough money to be able to buy groceries.

Heartbreaking, right?

But, like, I mean, this is. This is the reality for so many people who do deeply meaningful work. I mean, you know, I'm in. I'm in Halifax right now, and university workers are on strike. I mean, universities are pretty good. But if you're. You're a PhD student, if you're. If you're a junior faculty member. Like, you're not earning a living wage. Like, these are such big problems. One in three workers around the world. One in three workers around the world do not earn a living wage. And so when I think about, you know, eudaimonic design, I'm really thinking about it at two levels. One level is how do we make sure that we give people a fighting chance to be able to experience eudaimonia at work? And that really does mean creating the conditions where they might have decent work within their organizations and making sure that organizations are thinking about that in very concrete, strategic ways and understand the realities and also the advantages of being able to think in that way about creating good jobs. And then the second part is saying, great, like, if that's the baseline, like, just getting to the decent work level isn't actually going to create the conditions of eudaimonia. Certainly it will be harder to be eudaimonic if you don't have those conditions. But then what else do we need? I like to think about it a little bit like a boat, right? Like the. The metaphor of a boat. Like those decent work conditions are kind of like the hull of the boat. If that hull is filled with holes, just gonna be bailing water the whole entire time. But just having a haul of a boat isn't gonna actually take you anywhere. You need sails, you need masts, you need, you know, a crew of people who are taking you somewhere and working together and trying to be effective and actually trying to get somewhere. You need a destination in and of itself. And all of those are the things that are a part of eudaimonic design as well within organizations, how do we create the conditions where we can actually have momentum that takes this idea of eudaimonia and gives it a platform to be able to actually go somewhere to power the organization? And so those are things that I think about a lot in terms of what are the systems and policies, what are the leadership behaviors, what kind of culture is needed in an organization that would give someone the true power to be able to take their eudaimonia and go somewhere with it?

I love that analogy of the hull and all of the other elements in a boat. Right. If you have a leaky hull, right. My wife once tried to take me into the middle of the ocean in a leaky hull boat. But that'll be for another conv. Another conversation. I got off it, right? I didn't decide to get in it, and she didn't get in it when she realized that the hole Wasn't plugged, wasn't going to go far. But today, Andrew, most organizations have leaky hulls. Forget leaky hulls. They have probably more holes than actually hulls. And they're stuffed with people who are trying to get somewhere. Right? You just shared some of the stacks in not for profits, for profits, blue collar workers, people working in manufacturing settings, people working in, you know, restaurants and others. They're struggling, right? There is so much struggle. So organizations today are not eudaimonic by far stretch. How do you convince an organization beyond appealing to their heart? And this is the right thing to do, this is the decent thing to do, to take action?

I think that there's three ways of potentially framing that argument. And here I'm going to take a page from Zeynep Tan. Zeynep is a professor at MIT and she runs the Good Jobs Institute. And she's done a like her book the Case for Good Jobs is kind of a must read for anybody who's interested in this topic. And she would say, look, there's three major reasons why somebody in a boardroom should be thinking about building the conditions for decent work first in their organization. And the first of that is frankly, a productivity answer. Like you will be operationally more effective if the workers who are working for you are able to focus on the work that they're doing, are feeling like they're being paid, you know, enough money that they can afford to eat, are not worried about the security of their kids. You know, they'll be more present, they'll take less sick leaves, they'll be more effective on the job if you focus on those things. So her first answer would probably be a productivity answer like think about productivity. And if you want the most productive workers, you want those decent work things to be true, right? You want to allow them to be innovative, you want to allow them to be present and engaged and effective. Great argument. Number two is competitive. And you could take this from different, different lenses. You could take it from a talent competitiveness. If you want the best talent, you want to make sure that you're hiring people who want to work for your organization. People who will want to work for your organization are more likely to think that they'll have well being in your organization. If they do in a fierce talent market, then you want to compete for the best talent. And therefore you want to make sure that you have conditions that will allow people to experience well being in your organization. Then you could also look at it at a market perspective. You might have buyers, you might have markets you know, the whole B corp movement is kind of based on this. I think a lot of conscious capitalism is kind of based on this. There's definitely a world of people who want to buy products and services in a kind of environmental, social and governance lens to them. And the social part is a really important part. You know, that work organizations that foster well being both of people and also of the planet are probably in the long run, good sustainable bets in a competitive perspective. But then the third, and then the third, and then I'll stop the third. That, I think is actually, quite frankly more important is the moral argument, which is again, we're talking about one in three people in the world who don't feel like they're earning enough money to be able to buy groceries, to take care of their kids, to be able to live in good ways. Like these are moral arguments in terms of what are we trying to do here? Like, what is the purpose of business? What's the purpose of society? You know, shouldn't, shouldn't in some ways the organizations that we create be morally situated to be improving everybody's lives? Isn't that something that we would all ideally want in the kind of world that we live and the kind of place that we work? And I think that very few people focus on that moral argument. I think people tend to focus in this space on the competitive or productivity or performance lens. And there's good reasons. Like there is a business case, but it feels very un eudaimonic to focus on the business case and to leave for grabs the virtuous part of this equation.

We hope you're enjoying this episode and would love your help in spreading awareness and furthering our mission to help a billion people Rewire for happiness. Please consider leaving us a review and sharing this podcast with others in your personal and professional life who you feel could benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend and spread positivity. Also, check out Rewire, our proprietary offering to move you from knowing to doing. On the Happiness Squad website, www.happinesssquad.com. rewire uses the science of habit formation and the power of community to help you build happier habits in five minutes or less daily. Now back to the episode. Yeah, you know, we. With two other folks, actually three other folks, we started the Conscious Capitalism chapter for Denver, Africa Colorado and I was there two days ago with Timothy, who's now the chief enablement officer for the movement internationally. He just took the reins not that long ago and we were talking about the arguments around Productivity, the arguments around performance, both from flourishing work, wellbeing work as well as from purpose and all the conscious capitalism moves in a 20 year movement. You know, B Corp is a, I think that's around the same, maybe a little bit, a little bit different. The data on the impact on this, on performance, competitiveness, productivity is as clear as the earth is round today. Right, we've done that. But getting leaders to take the journey from the head to the heart, to actually take action on it versus say yeah, yeah, yeah, all that is great, but I'm going to actually focus on profits and continue to kind of push this boat through pure muscle and trotting to get where we need to get to or ignore the moral argument or like just try and put a blind side. In fact, I remember a conversation I was having with, with somebody who was in the human resources department actually at this company and we had a question around in the survey we ran on flourishing on. I experience financial stress in my life and it was from rarely to most of the time. He said I don't wanna ask that question. And they have a lot of attrition. And I'm like why don't you wanna ask that question? And he's like I know the answer, I don't wanna ask that question. I said I don't get it. Do you know the answer? She's like no, but I know, like I just know. I said then why don't you wanna ask the question? He's like because I don't. You know, it was this whole notion of like I don't care and I don't want to move on it. I'm like that is crazy. If people are showing up worried about how food is going to put on their table. This is in a manufacturing setting. Are they giving you your best work? Are you getting the full of the person? And why would you actually even do that for them, right? Like, you know, that's the situation. Right? So anyway, it was an interesting discussion, but I am so with you. I think the moral argument is an important argument. In addition, I gave a TedX talk four weeks ago and I ended the talk by saying flourishing is not a benefit, is not a perk, it is the point. You know, businesses exist so we can actually elevate humanity, we can serve humanity, we can create more value. And I mean doing and serving others or pursuing profits at the cost of the people who are actually contributing to it seems like the biggest failure, you know, of the system, right? That the system is not working. We need to change the System.

I mean, let's go, let's go back to the first part of this conversation where we were talking about eudaimonia and Aristotle and ancient Greece. And Aristotle wrote about eudaimonia in two major places. He wrote about it in his work on ethics, and he wrote about it in his work on politics. And so eudaimonia is defined, he defines it virtuous activity moderated by the soul in his work in Nicomachean ethics. And it is about, you know, what do I need to do to be able to live a good life? What does that mean? But when he writes about eudaimonia in the context of the polis or the society, the polis was kind of the ancient Greek word for social society. The whole idea was that the whole entire purpose of society is to create the maximum amount of possibility for eudaimonite. In fact, eudaimonia at the individual level, the purpose of politics, the purpose of a society is to create as much eudaimonia as possible for the citizens of that society. Now let's put aside for a sec that in Aristotle's world, citizens did not include slaves, they did not include women, they did not include children. But the fact remains is that we've lost sight of all of that. So much of our emphasis has become about personal growth, right? It's so focused on me and how much money can we make and what is the economic potential of that? How do we maximize shareholder investment? How do we focus on the benefits of that one individual as opposed to how do we create the conditions where all of us can experience flourishing, as you just said, or well being or eudaimonia? How do we think about that? And, and the fact is, is that organizations, especially big organizations, big corporations, are far more like Aristotle's idea of a polis than our nation states are today. It would behoove us in so many ways for leaders of those organizations to really think, look, the reason why I'm here, the business of business is the well being of those we serve, right? This is the fundamental argument of conscious capitalism and the difference between Milton Friedman's stakeholder versus shareholder capitalism model. It's not that the business of business is business, which was, you know, the Milton Friedman, you know, let's maximize shareholder investment. The business of business should be the betterment of humanity in the world, right? Like that's what it should be. And theoretically, if we do that well, we should also be able to, to do well as well, right? That this triple bottom line reality, I mean that that should be the way that we should have more shoulds, let's.

Put it that way. Yeah. No, for sure. Right, Yeah. I mean, I do see that there is so much, I think too much of a focus on self at the cost of inter being. Right. The more we focus on self, the more we lose the other. And then we don't care about the other as much. Whether that other is anybody who looks different, who's outside my family, you can decide how small of a circle you want to create around it. And I think also losing the forest from the trees. Reality of human life is you're born with nothing and you go with nothing. And yet most of the life we spend accumulating power, titles, money, things which we can't take anywhere at the cost of so much else, when the only way to live forward is in the hearts of other people. Right. I think we've lost the forest for the trees. Timothy said this beautifully. We need oxygen to live, but we don't live to breathe oxygen. Right. Businesses need profits to thrive, but profits is not the reason businesses exist. Businesses exist to provide value to others that they are then exchanging for money. So if we orient around the value and hence how we create the value through our people, I think that is a different story there of what's possible. What are some companies, Andrew, as I said, many companies are not eudaimonic by design. What are some companies that you hold up and are worth companies studying for that are eudaimonic by design? What comes to mind for you?

I honestly can't give you the company that I think is doing this well.

Cause I'm not.

I'm not sure that that's even the way that I like to think about it. Cause again, I think that this is, this is all a journey that we can all be on. Right. Like, I mean, tell me who a Eudaimonic individual is and I'm not sure that I can tell you.

Yeah. Who are on the journey who at least think about these principles. Living them right.

Living them. Right. I think that we can look at places like B Corpse and Conscious Capitalism and see lots of examples of organizations that are trying. And by no means, just because you have a B Corp certification does not mean that you are actually a unique organization. Um, there's a lot of greenwashing that goes out there. Nonetheless, let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater there. There are a lot of companies, you know, we can look at the big ones like the Patagonias of the world that are actually trying to do good and are trying to do well at the same time and are doing their best to be able to walk the talk on that. There are the giant ones that we've seen in the past, like Unilever, there are tons of, of small ones that are trying at a social enterprise level to be able to make a difference. I think that we have so many examples of what good can look like here. And look, I spent years working at BMO Financial Group, the Bank of Montreal. And what I can say, I mean banks are not all great, but I can also tell you that there, there was a lot that BMO did that was trying to row in the right direction. There were groups of people, there were purpose driven folks who saw the whole entire business of banking as fundamentally about enabling people's dreams and seeing their work as ultimately creating eudaimonic conditions for people. All of which to say, I think that what our job is in general in this kind of a context is to look for positive deviants wherever we are. And I'm sure that we can all think of them, we can all think of businesses, of individuals, of maybe single leaders that we've encountered who really do just do whatever they can to help the growth of those around them who stand up for the little guy, who try to ultimately act with virtue in every single way that they possibly can. And I think that finding those examples are actually much more effective than shining just the spotlight on the Patagonia or the Paul Pullman, which is great. Like we need the big examples of giant organizations that we can shine a spotlight on, but we also need the really local examples because I think those are the ones that actually build self efficacy. Right. The belief that I can do this, it's. I want to be able to find an organization in my local community who's trying to do this and get inspired by them and see, oh well, if they can do it, I can probably do it too. Rather than just saying, well I, I could never be a Patagonia.

Yeah, I think that is such a beautiful way to put it. Just like humans can be on the eudaimonic path, right? Walk a path of virtue. We will not always succeed, but we can pick ourselves up and walk down the pathway and invitations for leaders and companies to think about walking that virtuous path, you know, that path that provides meaning to people. Freedom, equity, security, dignity. I love that aspiration to just say think about those, right? Think about those from those lenses and you might not always get it right and you might not be in a position to do something about it right now. But don't lose sight of that.

Absolutely.

Don't lose sight of that. Right. Tell me a little bit about the process because I know there is no playbook, per se, that somebody could like everybody wants silver bullets in playbooks. Okay, tell me, Andrew, five ways in which I can go do it. I know they don't exist, but what is a process and an approach? If a leader looking at this says, hmm, I am up for that challenge. Yeah, I'm up for that challenge, how do I go about doing it? What's the process they could take?

Andrew, I'll give you an answer that I think is the leadership answer. And then I'm going to give you an answer that I think is the organizational systems answer, because I think there aren't silver bullets. You're absolutely right. And there's actually a lot of research about what does work. So, for example, we know that if you are a manager of people, you can just show care. Like that actually goes a huge long way. Like you can make someone just feel like they matter. You can help someone know that they are valued and valuable. You can help foster care or help foster growth. Right? Like give someone an opportunity to learn. You can create a psychologically space, safe, safe space where somebody just knows you've got their back. They can say what they need to say. They, you can show up with values and, you know, try to exercise wisdom. Like, those are all things that you can do. None of those things are magic. All of those things are things that you can just do in your daily life and they will make an outsized difference in the lives of everybody that you work with. They're fundamentally human traits. I mean, they're, they're what it means to be eudaimonia. You're basically, you're basically just trying to, to be a good human being with the people that are your direct reports. So that's my answer. At the, at the leadership level, in the organizational level, again, I think that we have a lot of really good models to work with. I'm particularly a fan of Vivek Murthy and the former Surgeon General of the United States. His model of wellbeing and mental health in the workplace, I think was terrific. So is the American Psychological association. And there's a number of different models that have been put out there that basically say, look, if you want to create more conditions for eudaimonia in your workplace, there are some pretty bare bones things that you can do. So for, number one, make sure that you're giving people a chance to participate in how decisions get made. Like, that's actually a really massive thing and it often doesn't happen. So what are the different kinds of structures that you can do in your organization that give people voice and choice? How do you deal with. Do things like, you know, think about the psychosocial health realities of the people that are working with you. How do you think about structuring recognition programs in your organization so that they do know that they're matter, that they matter, that they're valued and valuable? How do we build growth and development into the talent life cycle? How do we make sure that there's fundamentally good communication practices in your organization? Like, these are the kind of foundational things that really do make a huge difference in organizations. All of which is kind of like ordinary magic, you know, maybe one way of being able to phrase it. But if you actually do those things, they make a huge difference.

Yeah, you know, it's. We are so singing from the same sheet of music. Andrew. Right. One of my tenants, one of the pillars I offered in my talk was measure what matters. If you care about it, measure it right. And genuinely measure it once a year. Engagement surveys is not measuring anything. It's checking the box measuring means for every dashboard. At the team function, BU level, you measure performance, you measure sales, you measure what happened. Right. Measure. What's the state of flourishing? Measure the state of eudaimonia. Right. How are people doing even if you don't take action? You know, seeing the state will. We are compassionate by nature, might move some people to action. So I love that. What I also loved is your invitation for leaders. And you said, and I'm just going to add some words because, you know, you use managers and leaders. Everybody is a leader. Everybody can choose to be a leader. And this is where, like you, I'm blessed to be a part of the center for positive organization scholarship. That's how I actually first discovered your name, Vijayane. Huge mentor of mine and Kim's work. Every person, you know, there is a lot of like on organization. There is a lot of like, oh, it's the individual's responsibility. And I think that is also on the other side, which is true. Most individuals say, what can I do? That's the leadership. That's the organization. I don't have a choice. You always have a choice. You can choose to be a positive energizer, to borrow Kim's words, to be a eudemonic person. Right. Don't try and live eudaimonia outside of work. Live it in work. That's where you spend most of your time. You can choose to show up with care, right? Monica's work highlights compassion at work. You can choose to have conversations to infuse meaning in every person who leads. Jane and Amy Wrisniewski's work. You can choose to create psychological safety. You know, Amy Edmondson's work. You can choose to create more inclusive workplaces. Stephanie Johnson's work. We can all choose to do these things. We don't need anybody's permission. So I love that call to action from you too that if you want, yes, there isn't a silver bullet, but there is research backed ways and oh by the way, if you do them, they will help you flourish, they will help others flourish and they will through that actually help the organization flourish. Because the link between purpose and profits is through people, my friend, keeping an eye on time. This is thank you. Thank you for the work that you're doing. Thank you for the last 15 years that you've dedicated to this pathway. I'm grateful for this conversation, I'm grateful to know you and I really hold in my heart that we get a chance to collaborate on some great things together to help organizations make flourishing the point of why they exist versus a side hustle. Thank you.

Here's to that. Thank you Ashish.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and fill your life with more joy, health, love and meaning. Please consider leaving us Review and share the podcast with anyone in your professional or personal life who you feel will benefit from some of these very insights. It's a really simple way to extend support and spread positivity. Take care and remember, happiness is a choice that's available to you moment to moment in the here and now. Take care and see you next week.