Improving Wellbeing at Work Dr. Samata Vasisht

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspiration to help you operate at your fullest potential. Integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. I'm your host, Ashish Kothari, the founder and CEO of Happiness Squad and author of the best selling book Hardwired for Happiness. I will be your personal guide on your journey to explore the many facets of happiness, well being and flourishing, from personal growth to building more positive environments at work. In each episode, we will share powerful insight, tips and stories from our guests who are leading experts, company executives, and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge. Whether you're looking to overcome life's challenges, to go from good to great, or to enhance your team's performance through flourishing, this podcast is the place for you to find more joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Join us every week as we rewire for happiness together. Hi Samatha, it's so nice to be with you and record this episode around flourishing and well being at work.

Absolutely. Ashish, it's always a delight to meet you. I see you and I notice the happiness within me.

Well, that's kind of you. So, my friend. So we always start this podcast with a question that we ask all our guests, which is, what is happiness for you? And how has that definition changed over time?

I smile because as soon as you ask, you know, I'm looking at a younger me, which would say happiness is getting what I want, right? So I feel good because I got exactly what I wanted, but that's not how my life actually worked out. Right. But over the years, recognizing that, of course, happiness still was, you know, being good, doing good and feeling good. And still as life continued to grow, there were times that I was not feeling good. There were times that I was not doing as well as I would. Initially, I would think that being the best that I can is happiness. But I also noticed as I grew up being a doctor, I started to see more and more people. The definition of happiness started to shift into acceptance, contentment, gratitude that, you know, life is bigger than I am and there are things that I can do and that there are things that I can't do. So I would say more humility. That's where I came to. Happiness is harmony with what is.

I love that. Because what you're saying is, you know, it's the classic if then else game that so many people are stuck in, especially in our younger years. Right. I was, we were just with a yoga teacher training program that we had actually taking them through the rewire so they can bring this work to their students. And you know, that if then else was so present actually, you know, for so many, they said, yeah, we, you know, it's, it's a lot of if I get this, then I'm going to be happy versus I can just choose to be happy in the year and now and from that joyful state navigate life. And I really like your notion of, you know, we all at a certain age come to realize and tune into surrendering, truly surrendering to what's happening. You know, Professor Shekumar Rao, who we had on our podcast a little while earlier, he has this beautiful, you know, know, phrase. He says, you know, imagine what if you assumed. Because really we don't ever know for true. But he said, what if you assume that the universe is actually conscious, is positively inclined towards you and everything that you are getting, you're getting it because you need it, even if that might not be in that moment what you want. And so I see that echoed back from you in terms of surrendering and accepting and humility.

But I'd love to respond to what you just said because, you know, this is something the way I like to phrase and talk about, I like to simplify things and sometimes oversimplify. But that's okay. I'm sure you'll get the message because I feel as a human being, and I love what you're saying, that life happens for you. I heard Katie Byron say that years ago. It's not about life is happening to you, but life is happening for you. And from that place, I thought life has an autocorrect mechanism. As a human being, I think there's always an autocorrect mechanism. And, and what I recognized is, and this is something that, how I like to phrase my work and I, we can talk more about it. But as a human being, I think there are two innate drives within us. One is towards becoming. Like there's a seed in me, and I want to blossom and flower and flourish, to become that samta that I could be. But along with that, there is this need for belonging. So between becoming and belonging, you know, there is this two innate complementary drives, and within that is the human being. So for me, what I want to say is as a human being, I will continuously be dancing between the becoming and belonging. And I might, you know, want to become too much. And then life has its autocratic mechanism. It'll just quickly kick me back into belonging. So that's where I would say that Yes, I agree with Life happens for you.

Becoming and belonging. Beautiful.

Yes, yes.

You know, for those who don't know you, you, you know, Samatha, you're a medical doctor, you know, who in 2009 decided to make a shift from the individual healing to collective healing and working in systems. You know, you're a leadership coach. And I would love for you to share with our listeners what inspired you to shift your focus on this field of flourishing and wellbeing, but especially in the context of workplace health.

Yeah, and I would not have used the word inspiration when I started. It was more a desperation, it was more a quest. And I'm going to be super candid. I used to be married. Beautiful marriage. 10 years, two lovely children. And in those days, this is 2008, nine. My ex husband was a C suite executive for a large organization that does not need to be named because that's not the point. And in classic, now I can see he was really burnt out, but that's something that he didn't recognize, I didn't recognize. And we came to a point where nothing seemed to work between us as well as for him at his workplace. And I thought I was being rejected. I thought he was not interested. I thought he was just. It was a very difficult one year till we reached a point and he said, you know what? I just can't cope and I can't do my work, I can't look after my family and I need out. And I took it very personally. I thought I was being rejected. And 2009, 10 were very, very difficult years because. Because I did not see that coming. A divorce, I did not see that coming. And then I was here, a doctor, talented, well experienced, well educated, but I did not need a screen at all and had two young children. So it led me to the path, why would a perfectly amazing human do something like that? And then I started to kind of go down that hole to find out. And then to my utter shock at the clinic that where I was, I saw more and more younger and younger people come to me with lifestyle disorders, mental health disorders. And I started to see, where is this coming from? And it was very clear that more and more aspiration, more and more workplace people were coming to us. And so I said, why not address this other route?

It's beautiful. And Samantha, I have to tell you, there have been, you know, two very recent indications, you know, which are very similar experiences. One was actually Dr. Neha Sangwan, who you also know. And she explained her own burnout, right? She burnt out and she was not recognizing that she was burnt out. So this notion, this burnout, you know, is. It's a. It's a silent epidemic. It's actually a silent, you know, the people going through it don't realize it, even though other people oftentimes see the science. And then the second thing that I would highlight is, you know, I was actually in a conversation with the COO of a large company and we were going through and he's a dear old friend and I've known him for a long time and he was describing, you know, how he was feeling and how day to day life. Now this is one of the most positive, filled with life person that I've always known. I've known him for 20 years. And I said to him, hey, can I ask you to rate yourself, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10 on these three key questions for me? And I said, the first one I used basically the Christina Maslach and Wintry burnout questions. I said, you know, tell me a little bit about your, you know, tell me a little bit about your work. He's like, I've never felt more cynical about my work than I am right now.

Classic, right?

I asked him about how effective are you? And he said, you know, I am actually. I'm working so hard, but I feel that I'm not at my best, right? So this notion around professional efficacy. And I asked him about cognitive and emotional, you know, in terms of where are you? Detachment and same, right? So. And I was like, listen, Sebastian, I'm going to send you an article. I want you to read it and I want you to think about this and say, you know, I think you're, you know, I think you're close. You're experiencing burnout or you're close to it. And so I want you to explore it. And that was, you know, so that was the second one. And in fact, now we are actually working. I just got approached by our university and they are actually training people. They're basically doing the fellowship for gynecology and oncology, right? So gynecologists who become oncologists. And so stress and burnout is a huge issue for them. And so they wanted to work with us to explore how do we actually equip these doctors to not be burnt out. Because he said, you know, there is a personal cost to this, but the bigger cost is people don't realize they're close to it and they are making these life big mistakes. No, but they're making life and death decisions. Life and Death decisions for people, and we can't have them not be at their fully cognitive best to be able to make those decisions. So I think it's an important lesson here, friendship. We oftentimes and our colleagues are experiencing burnout and we don't even see it. We think it's okay.

No, we notice that something is different, but now there's more and more awareness. And I'm so glad that there are more people talking about it. There are more of these things and more of people like you providing really catered solutions. So that's just awesome.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit. You know, we talk about burnout, we talk about flourishing, and they have very different connotations and meanings, you know, Samatha, for people. But from your point of view, you've been in this field for now 13 to 14 years, you know, and actually even before that, first as a doctor, but then specifically somebody who's doing flourishing work. And I know you've done some amazing work for great clients. How do you define flourishing and well being in the context of the world and in the work that we are doing?

Right. So, you know, as we all know, these are concepts which people go at from different lengths and different angles. And I must say that I've also evolved in my own understanding from what I understood before and what I understand now. So for me, flourishing, I like to simplify things. And because I'm very, very big on well being, so that's really my keyword. So I call flourishing as, well, being in action. So, you know, we may know what wellbeing is, but am I really practicing? Am I really making those behaviors every day? As I continue to put, well, being in action, I continue to flourish. So I really simplified things. Flourishing is, well, being in action for me. So now you'll ask me what is well being? Right. Yeah. So well being has a little more nuance because I've really sat with it for like 30 years now since I graduated as a physician. I've been sitting and asking questions around well being. So for me, it's really an experience. And to very, very simply say to be well being is being at ease. Yeah. So I'm not disease, but I'm at ease. So what am I at ease with? I'm at ease with myself, others, and the world at large. So I'm really looking at well being at ease or harmony or wholeness. Nothing is missing. Nothing is missing.

Yeah. So this notion of wholeness that comes up.

Yes.

Comfort with self, comfort with other. And for sure, it's the absence, you know, it's not just absence of disease, but so much more, so much more.

The positive connotation of that and not, you know, I used to think it was just about feeling good, but no, I want to really embrace the wholeness because life has everything going beautiful.

And I know in the framework you built, Samantha, and which has been the basis of so much of your work, you actually break well being into a whole range of different dimensions. So bring that to life for our listeners. You know, what are all the domains as we think about well being? It's not just a single construct, but there are multiple aspects of it.

So, you know, and I must, I'd love to say this, this was 2010 is when, and I'm going to be super honest here, I didn't know much about these things, right? Wellbeing was something that I was really clear about. But I had never worked for an organization. I did not know anything about sales or marketing or hr. None of this I knew. And I land up to start working and we'll talk about that. I land up working with organization well being. I said, how do you make it relevant to these people who've got deadlines? I never had deadlines. I was sitting in this big chair and being a doctor, right? So I had to start to think about it in different manners. And I started to look up some literature and stuff like that. I don't know if you remember, but 2010-12 Gallup came up with a lot of things on wellbeing dimensions. So I started to look up that study and for me what was missing was we were talking about the outcomes of well being, like physical well being, community well being, social wellbeing, financial well being and occupational wellbeing. For me, these are outputs. So then I asked myself, so what according to me is the input for well being? So that's the question that I was interested in knowing. What is it that creates all of this? And then what I really came to and a lot of my work comes from, I'm lucky to be born in Indian and having access to a lot of spiritual teachings in India. So. And I did study a lot. I've been very fortunate to have many spiritual mentors. And so what really came is that what is the input for well being? And that's really brought me to consciousness and awareness. So what is your self awareness and what is your higher awareness? How do you give meaning to life? How do you perceive life? So that became a very important. That's the input to well being. And along with that what is that seed inside you? What is that potential inside you that you were born with? Uniquely as ashish as something. So what is it? So what is consciousness? What is your potential and how do you engage with the environment outside you? So for me, this is what was different in the way I conceptualized well being. The outputs remain the same like everyone talks about.

I love that. And you know, awareness as, you know, sometimes at the heart of the Sunflower model and hardwired for happiness, that was kind of where I came to as well, where, you know, we can talk about all the other elements. But truly self awareness is critical to be able to even access so many of them. Self awareness is critical to be able to unlock and understand the obstacles that we are creating, you know, through actions that we might be taking that are actually hurting our own well being is so pivotal and I think it's so critical for even organizations. Right. People don't know the state of well being and what's actually causing it.

Yes. And you know what, I'm going to be super honest. Not that I knew all of this, but I mean, I've been through my own sufferings, I've been through my own challenges. And to tell you the truth, the time when I went through my divorce was probably the most difficult time. And if then you asked me about it, I would say it's the worst thing that's happened to me. But over the years I would literally say that was one of the most pivotal times. That was a time for growth, that was a time for really noticing that life happens for you. It's for my own evolution. So that's where my wellbeing conceptualization is around. Like yours. I love your book. It's really at the center. There's a lot of parallels between what you and I are talking about. So absolutely. At the heart is consciousness and evolving consciousness.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit something. You've done this work, you know, at amazing clients. I know you, you know, you served Unilever and did amazing work with them across the Middle East. You've done several other really big form, you know, really known companies. So share with me a little bit of the case study, maybe even the Unilever case study of the work you led and give our listeners a little bit of context around what was the problem you were trying to solve, how did you go about doing it and what was the construct, if you will, of how you ran the program to really create an environment of flourishing in those places.

Sure. So I'll pick from where I Said I was venturing into why are amazingly good leaders going through this? You know, that was my question. It was very personal to me. I really wanted to know because it was a personal quest for me. And keeping that in mind, you know, I'm from Bombay, right? I'm born and raised in Bombay. That was the time I moved back from Dubai to Bombay. And I thought, you know, it felt more easy, more at home. I started to work as a physician in Hinduja Hospital. And I thought I was doing the best thing ever. I started an executive stress clinic and I ran that for one year and it failed miserably. Nobody wanted to come see us. None of the doctors. None of the doctors wanted to refer to us because, you know, what, what the hell are you doing? How does it matter? And I realized, this is not working. This is failing. So that's when I thought, maybe I want to go into organizations, but I didn't know how. So that was the beginning of Unilever. I was part of this Indian association of Occupational Health Physicians. And I knew a lot of people who were doing good work, especially a particular global head of Unilever was a very dear friend of mine, Dr. John Cooper. And he was then inquiring within the question that what will give more vitality to my leaders? This was, mind you, 2000, he started asking the question where he started the first ever Lamplighter program. I met him in 2009. Until then, he had tried everything. I mean, even Reiki in Unilever offices in London, or counseling psychologists and what have you. And when I met him, he was asking the question, what is it that will help my leaders gain more vitality and especially manage stress? Because as you and I know, 2008, nine were difficult times, lot of disruption, and people had to do much more with less. He said, how do I get my leaders to do much more with much less resources, much less time? That was his whole thing. And that's when he awarded me the first pilot. Not easily. Took me one year to get him to award me a pilot. And by then I was very deep into we need to work with the whole person. We need to work with body, mind and spirit. That's where. And whereas for him, that was a very foreign concept. And it took me one year to talk through him. He said, I don't mind. I know whatever you do, you will do good. So he said, but I need data. I need before and after. I need to see real results happening. I said, no problem. 2010, we started with Egypt, and the whole idea was we started with holistic well being at the foundation of everything that we did. We took a leadership journey, we took the top 20 people and we took them through a journey of six months with phenomenal results. I mean, so much so that we had the Unilever doctor as part of it. He had taken the physical parameters, we had the HR leader who had the leadership parameters and we had the MD who had the performance parameters. Now mind you, I never agreed that they will get performance because I had no competence to say that. So I said I'm talking about well being. That's what I'm talking about. And if that leads to performance, I'm not claiming that because that's something that I didn't want to get into a loop. And so what I think over the years starting in 2010, what I recognize is as we started to work with well being of people, we came across many barriers that were there within the teams, within their job descriptions and within organization at large. And I didn't know these things, but I had a wonderful co facilitator, my partner who was well equipped with OD organization development. And that's when we learned about that Individual well being is not really going to help shift the needle unless we started to do something with teams, leadership teams with the culture, with their job descriptions, with flexibility and also with our people. Really inspired and committed and motivated by the organization. Thankfully Unilever was because and that was the biggest thing that was. I don't know if you know about the USLP which was revealed in 2009. It was the first sustainable living plan and that was my inspiration. And I used to stalk Paul Paulmer like for forever, for all his interviews and everything. But what I'm saying is that is something that gave meaning to employees. They really believed they were working at a good company. So we recognized from 2010 almost till Covid 9 years I served Unilever in different business units starting with Egypt, then Dubai, then Saudi Arabia, then Morocco, almost the entire North Africa, Middle east and it was just fantastic.

We hope you're enjoying this episode. If you'd like to start building habits and integrating the Hardwired for happiness practices into your life, come check out Rewire our program on the Happiness Squad website. Rewired contains 35 minute micro practices that can help you truly build habits for a happier, healthier life. Filled with more love and meaning. The program uses the science of habit formation and the power of community to support you in moving from knowing to doing to being. Now back to the episode. So friends, as you Listen to the story as you listen to the journeys, you'll notice a couple of things. By the way, let me give you the data behind what Samatha is talking about. There's a very recent report from McKinsey that actually studied 30 different countries, 30,000 people sample set and they were really looking at well being and burnout as two distinct measure of where are we and what are the drivers behind it. And that research report really highlights the core problem with the world of well being in which we live. Despite significant increases in well being spend across companies, stress, anxiety, burnout continue to be issues plague geographies and countries and companies. And the reason is following there is most well being programs, as Samatha herself started in 2009, focus on the individual. They're individual interventions and they're often things like I'll give you a headspace app or here's something for nutrition. Even employee assistant programs are employee assistant, we're going to give you assistant if you are struggling with mental health. The research report clearly highlighted that when it came to well being, holistic well being, the individual interventions only accounted for 28%. The rest of it was all job, team and organizational level interventions and factors come and affect well being. The contrast is even stark when it comes to burnout. When it comes to contributors of burnout, only 3%, 3% is individual. Let me repeat that only 3% is individual. 97% has to do with the team, the job and organization. So that's the crux of it, dear friends, why, if you look at most well being investments have zero roi. I know this is very, very hard to hear, but two weeks ago there was a study from Oxford that also proved and validated this that most individual well being interventions around mental health, et cetera, don't resort to anything. Why? Because we are fundamentally not addressing the job, the team and the organization. You know, the toxicity, not feeling valued as an individual, not finding meaning in what you're doing, feeling tremendous amount of pressure in terms of job time, resources to get doing that, not feeling psychologically safe. There are so many of these factors that are missing. And so unless we build these into well being programs, we're not gonna move the needle, we're just not gonna move the needle.

Yeah, and I'm so glad when I read that report, it just everything made sense. But the fact is we started in 2009, 10 and over the nine years we'd literally learned by doing so. We've got a three step approach which is energize, empower and enlighten and I had written that approach in 2010. Not I didn't even know this is how it's going to be played out. But it did Energize was literally the individual well being piece. Empower was more of the team and resilient team. So we did well being team. Resilience and leadership was around the org. How do you shift the culture? And with Unilever, we did start with well being, then we did resilience and then we did culture and values and DNA. So that's what we did. So we literally learned through doing over nine years in different regions with, with great, my best of my friends, even today of the Unilever. And that's one organization was my anchor clan. And I learned a lot and they always knew that we were learning together. So I had no pressure to show, you know, I've done it all and I know it all.

Yeah. So you know, you started. You know, we have some stats that on our end. But I'm curious, you know, you mentioned in your Unilever story, we started, we said we're going to improve well being, we're going to help you reduce stress. You said, I'm not going to measure productivity.

Yes.

So what were the actual end results, the before and after from that pilot program? How much increase in productivity did you experience? How much improvement in stress, how much in well being? Give us a little bit of that.

Sure. So there were three things. As I said, there's always an occupational health position within such large organizations. It was his job, not mine. And he was watching the parameters around health, physical health, actually numbers. That was one. And we also saw a shift in that number two, the leadership was obviously just doing things, their leadership practices. There was a leadership model within Unilever that they were doing. And as I said, I did not claim to do performance, but I did two things. Two things that I committed to. One was subjective well being. So around the Energize program, which is the well being program, I do have a 100 item questionnaire which speaks about subjective well being, all different 10 dimensions of well being. So that was one. We had a before and after. And the second thing that we had promised was resilience. So I had two KPIs to prove to the organization. One was subjective well being and the second was resilience. And as you know, resilience has many skills. But for ease, for ease, I had used a very simple one which is called the Brief Resilience Scale. It's got just five statements with it. And because I wanted to use a validated instrument for that. But we also had a self assessment where people spoke about, you know, where they were in terms of performance, productivity, engagement, relationships. So we have a self assessment which shifted over six months of our journey within a particular set of leaders.

And so what scale of impact, what quantified set of impact did you all see?

Yeah, so the thing is, you know, then I was very early and we were not in 2000s, so I did not really go to the revenue side and really see that what is the impact. But the well being and resilience were the two things that we were measuring and we found great interest in that. But we've got lots of qualitative feedback, we've got videoers, we've got testimonials where people literally speak about life changing. People speak about, you know, especially, I'm sure you remember the Arab Spring, when Tahrir Square, Egypt went through that. It's strange that the following month we were running a resilience workshop and two skeptic leaders said, what's the point of this resilience workshop sitting in this five star hotel, I've got my people out there and there's a revolution going on. We continue to do the resilience workshop. At the end of it, they won the Unilever Compass award, which is the most prestigious award globally, because Egypt, that business unit, despite the revolution, hit quarter on quarter as well as month on month. They exceeded expectations. So that's, I was not measuring, but they were measuring it.

Beautiful. So, friends, since the last 10, 15 years, right, the science, the quantitative part of the work has caught up and I wanted to share a couple of stats externally that can really help you. And if these stats are not showing up in your organization that has a well being program, I invite you to actually ask for these. So one is done by Alex Edmonds, who we also had on our podcast, so you can go back and listen to his work, who proved in 2007 that actually employee satisfaction is truly something that grows the pie. Two to three and a half percent higher shareholder returns for companies which are top places to work. Often that top places to work is also correlated with, they are, you know, flourishing and they are enjoying the work because if there's a place with high burnout, they're not going to be a place with showing up in top places to work. And it's a causation effect, two to three and a half percent when we look across different studies. Here is the business case I offer my clients and you should Be measuring your wellbeing programs against this. And if you don't have this data, you need to ask for it or you need to rejigger them. Companies that have flourishing cultures, which means companies that actually have flourishing work environments, people are flourishing. They have 2x higher stock market returns, they have 21% higher profitability, 12 to 30% higher productivity. They have 3x higher creativity and 65% lower attrition. These numbers are validated across Gallup, Microsoft, McKinsey, Oxford, so many other places. So the science behind the impact of flourishing on productivity, on creativity and to business performance is not anymore something that we can hand wave. There is very clear evidence and we have to figure out a way to link it and in our programs integrate it. Because without data, how do we know if they're working or not?

Absolutely. You're so correct. Absolutely, yes. And I've been very fortunate in the last, in the recent years. I've really had the privilege of working with very large clients like Webden, Microsoft, MasterCard, HSBC and Shell. I think things are shifting. People are becoming more aware and they are taking more data, informed approaches and people are taking responsibility. I think there's a lot of promise, lot of optimism I have with the way organizations are going. There are more conscious organizations.

So talk to me a little bit for our listeners. When you look at the leaders in this space who are doing this the right way and making significant strides, what are three to five strategies or proven things that you are doing that you wish more clients actually integrated into their well being programs?

I would say first thing, super simple, take responsibility of your own well being, take responsibility of your own growth, ask for what you need and let people know what success looks like. So for leaders, obviously we all say walk the talk, but in what way? Literally commit to it. Show them what you're doing and engage with them in that way. Let them know, let your teams know, how do you manage, how do you struggle, how do you rebound vulnerability?

And role modeling is a really big element of what you highlight.

Absolutely. And responsibility and accountability is what I'm saying. Be responsible for yourself and take accountability also, is what I'm saying.

What else, Samantha, what are some other specific things that you see leaders do that others should emulate?

Absolutely. And especially I think we all talk about psychological safety and I also feel sometimes we get lost in fixing things. So I'm a very big proponent of what's working right, being appreciated and really spotting. I love to say something like, you know, wear glasses of appreciation, like rather than catching people do things wrong. Can we catch people do things right? Because we know about the flourishing ratio, the positivity ratio. Three is to one. And again, there's a unilever story. They've got something three is to one for their performance appraisal. And when I brought in the positivity ratio, we need to say something and maybe this, there's difficult feelings around it. See to it that they create an environment where people feel excess joy, access, you know, bonding, access friendship and they're able to have fun together. So that's what I would say. Really create a culture where people know that they have friends at the workplace. They're able to really relate to them, they're able to share with them, ask for support and have strength based conversations. And also have those difficult conversations. Nip them in the budget, let them know what you need, let them know what you think. They'll be thankful to you.

Beautiful. So you're highlighting three key things. One, being vulnerable, taking responsibility, really showing it. You know, you also highlighted recognizing the strengths and what's working. So celebrate those. Right? Really celebrate those pieces that are working. And your third point was highlighting also.

Nipping difficult conversations in the bud.

Nipping difficult conversations? Yeah, don't just focus on the positive, actually address energy drains that exist.

Yeah, I like, I like that framing. You're right. Absolutely. And you know, maybe it's just too simple, but have an adult to adult conversation. Trust that people are resourceful and they will be thankful that you let them know. It might be difficult, but learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I also really liked, you know, your example around this notion that it is actually integrated teams who are actually doing this work rather than just individuals. Right. So there is power in peer learning that can be tapped into.

Absolutely, absolutely. And most people, and you know that I've done work on leadership level and we really encourage people meeting off work and really connecting as humans, knowing each other, having that trust, having that bond, you know that you've got my back, right? There's nothing like feeling somebody's got my back. So that bit I would say, and obviously be open to feedback, actually solicit feedback. I think one of the leaders that I really respect is when you actually go out and solicit feedback. I mean it's great to put it as a monthly and as a review, but actually go do it.

So Samatha, it would be remiss to not ask you this question. What are three to five personal well being practices that you have integrated into your life that continue to kind of Create that spark, that energy, that light that comes through you.

So the first thing I think I would say is I think I wasn't like this years ago, probably even 15. I think I'm big on faith now. And when I say faith, what I really mean, I trust. I have an implicit faith that there's divinity in each one of us. And I remember that within me and the other person. So I believe that the universe is benevolent. I believe that we are looked after. I believe that, you know, there's divinity in you and me and everyone. So that faith has been quite a guiding light in my life. So that's one second learning, especially from my two wonderful children. The day I had children, I changed as a human. And trust me, none of this would have been possible without being a single parent. The amount that I've learned in being a single parent to my daughter and son. So the second thing for my well being, I really, really respect. I think children are infinite beings just in a finite body, mind. So what if they are in a smaller packet? So second is learning and humility. First is faith. Second is learning and humility. So I literally speak to my children and say, what can I learn from you today? And that's like a constant thing.

I call my son my teacher.

Absolutely. And you know, my kids are named like that. My son is Rishi, the learned one, and Asta is faith. So as I said, you know, faith is my first practice and learning is my second practice. Third is meeting lovely friends. I think what keeps me alive is working, connecting with people that I enjoy working with, I enjoy meeting. One of them is you, Ashish.

Oh, you kind. Same here, my friend.

Yeah, so you know, people that I care about and people with whom I feel happy and I want to do something together. So keeping social connections, offering help, taking help, really helps me keep my wellbeing. And fourth, Bollywood dancing. I love Bollywood dancing. So that's my movement. I hate going to a gym, but I love Bollywood dancing.

I love all of those four, you know, and they're so beautiful, right? Faith. I mean, there is so much decline in both religion and spirituality. And I'm reminded of this beautiful book, the Awakened Brain. And I'm forgetting the name of the author right now. It is actually right on one of my bookshelves. And she really studied the effect of faith and spirituality on actually on stress, our ability to bounce forward, on cognitive decline, all of that. And she found that truly an awakened brain, a spiritual life actually is a healthier brain.

I would go with that totally. I haven't read it, but I'd love for you to share that with me later.

It's a beautiful, beautiful piece of work and it's very grounded in neuroscience, right? So it's amazing. And I really also love, you know, your notion of learning, right, Being a lifelong learner, but also humility. I think we can learn so much. You know, in fact, I am reminded when, you know, in this whole space of happiness, in the whole space of mindfulness, in all space of not taking yourself too seriously, you know, I'm reminded of our children. I'm reminded of Ashwin when he was younger and so many children. You know, the state of children, especially when they're younger, is of presence. They can be immersed in something for hours in that play. The state of children is pure joy. Something needs to happen to make us unhappy. And somehow, as we grown up, all of us are doing the if then else thing. Something needs to happen to make us happy, you know, so we can learn so much from children. Just watch a child play. And this whole thing around learning and not being worried about what others think when we fail, right? Imagine a child who's learning to walk. If they worried about how they look every time they fall down, none of us, none of them, none of us would be walking, right?

Their gluteal muscles will not develop to give them. Give them a powerful gait. But I'd love to share a very dear story. It's a short story. I'd love to share that bit. My son was probably 6, so he was Rishi. And I think I got upset about something. I think I probably got angry. I can't remember what, but I told him off. So he went to his room really quietly and I was like, oh, come on, you know, he can't be doing this. I was. I was still upset. He comes out after five minutes and he starts to talk about something else. He says, mama, what about Da? And I'm like, I told you to go in your room. But he's saying, mama, you already told that to me five minutes ago. I was in my room and I said, but, you know, you did this, but you already shouted at me for that thing. But what are you shouting about now? I don't understand. He was so innocent. And I thought about it. It's true. That was over five minutes ago. Why am I still stuck to it? He's forgotten. He has moved on. And he's saying, mom, what are you shouting about now? Can you please repeat? And I said, no, I'm sorry. There's really nothing Else it's done, that's over.

It's so beautiful. So beautiful. We hold onto things. We have a rule at our house. No matter what the argument, no matter what the disagreement, we don't go to sleep angry at each other. Right? We will. And it doesn't matter who was right, who was wrong. Let's just apologize, let's just learn, let's just move on. Because, you know, there is really no space, if you will. Life is too short. We live as if we're going to live forever. Friends, we don't know, you know, we might go to sleep and we might. There might be a tree that crashes or something that happens and we don't see the other one. Life is too short to hold grudges, to hold resentments. And so I love the story, Samantha, of you saying, you come back five minutes, you're like, hey, mom, what are you upset at me now? I did go, I think it's time, let's move on.

You know, and there's so many such stories with both my children. Oh my God. And what I've learned is, you know, I've learned to say, learn to be curious and learn that, you know what, they are not here. They are literally, they're as divine, as beautiful, as human as you and I. And just so what if they're in a smaller packet, right? They have the same infinite being within them.

Beautiful. Beautiful. So as we wrap up, Samatha, one question that comes up for me. You know, you are very unique. You worked across geographies. You worked in the US, in Dubai, in Europe. You've actually worked a lot in India. You're a doctor. You're also a wellbeing, flourishing expert at work. You're a leadership coach. I mean, you are so many things. You've actually seen this. I've say, you know, you really looked at flourishing from a 360 degree angle. Right. You've seen it in small companies, medium large. What I want you to articulate for us, oftentimes, well being programs and well being work is, you know, it's employee benefit to learning and development, but typically in hr. And I want you to highlight for us, what role do you think? Leadership. Like business unit leaders and real leadership, you know, team leaders and people leaders. What role do they play in promoting the well being? Talk about the criticality of that for me.

Sure. I think the first thing that I would do, one now that I've begun to do is literally, I love the McKinsey Health Institute report because it just makes the data super Clear, I don't need to sell it in any way. It's a clear damn business case. And if I have to bottom line it, well being equals performance. If you just get that, Mitch, performance at the cost of well being is really going to be super costly. So if one could remember, well being equals performance. I'm not being good or altruistic as a leader. If I. And please do not hand out those yoga coupons and those, you know, tarot readers or some ridiculous thing like that. I mean, that's not the well being that they don't have time. Your employees don't have time. Please do not take away more time from them, but instead make it a strategic, integrated imperative within your performance management system so that it goes like from top to bottom. It is aligned. It should be. One of the core pillars in your strategy is employee well being. And that needs to be measured and reviewed and evaluated consistently. It's not just about running a program, but really seeing what's working, what's not working, what's coming in the way. So getting that commitment and I would say, of course, leadership commitment rocks. And to really get him or her to be the champion.

Yeah, beautiful, right? So treat it truly like a value creation strategy that it can be 2 to 3.5% Stock market returns versus peers over 10 years is friends close to 50% higher Shareholder value creation. Run it like any other transformation, measure it, make it the responsibility of the line leaders, not the HR and the employee benefits and learn, learn, use data to learn and guide and drive the interventions is I think what I'm hearing from you, Sumatha, from all of your experience.

And actually, you know, I have had good experiences with HR people and not such great experiences with HR people. But what I've understood is if I've managed to coach an HR leader to be really an enlightened HR leader, they really take it very well. They partner very beautifully in really running because we want an internal champion. We want somebody to kind of. Because we can't be there all the time. Right.

And I actually truly feel, you know, all the work that I've done, you know, most people get into HR because they really want to make a positive impact on people. And I haven't come across too many HR folks who don't really care about that. I think the pushback, the issue that we really need to solve here is the true responsibility and true understanding of business leaders around the job of flourishing is their job and really helping leverage their HR business partners to take something from what's end of the line, what's the minimum I can do to truly to say, hey, help coach my leaders, help integrate well being into my work and I think they will be there, you know. So I think the real challenge is actually the business inviting and taking a different mindset.

True. But aren't you noticing as I am? I think more and more business leaders are becoming quite aware and conscious. They can see it. I don't think it's a hard sell anymore. It was 10 years ago. It's not anymore.

Beautiful. Well, my friend, keeping an eye on the clock. Thank you. This was such an amazing conversation with you. I'm so excited about the work you're doing, about the impact you're having and I really look forward to hopefully finding ways for us to collaborate in the years to come to amplify each other's work and yeah, really turn back the clock on the stress burnout epidemic that we are in.

But I'm going to take some coaching from you, Ashish, because you know, I've. I've been meaning to write my book. I've just begun that. So I need some coaching from you for my book which is upcoming and I'm hoping to get this out in 2024.

So all the best. We'll be waiting for it and I'm here. I'm always happy to help. Take care and have an amazing day.

Thank you so much, Ashish. It was wonderful talking to you.

Cheers. Bye. 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.