Promoting Workplace Wellness with Dr. Steven MacGregor

You know, we're always so busy as managers and leaders these days, but sometimes it's just taking a step back, getting on the balcony, walking around, being much calmer and you get much more powerful insight from that.

Hey there friends. Welcome to Happiness Squad. This is the podcast dedicated to helping you unlock your full potential by mastering the art and science of happiness. We bring on the best leading experts on these topics to help you unlock your true potential and live with more joy, health, love and meaning in your life. Your host is no other than the star combo of Ashish Kothari and Anil Ramjiani who are both on a mission to provide you with an unfair advantage to be the masters of your experience and leaders in your industry. Get ready to be moved, challenged and enlightened on this podcast. It may change your life. Thanks for being here and joining the squad.

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Squad it's great to have you with Ashish and I as we host guests who are industry leaders helping individuals and organizations unlock their inner happiness and flourishing. Are you ready to learn tips and tricks to unlock your well being and performance at work? Our next guest shares his expertise and so much more. Meet Dr. Steven McGregor, a teacher who's taught over 30,000 executives face to face and a further 250,000 online through his Sustaining Executive Performance Program. He's included teaching at IMD in Lausanne and CIBS in Shanghai. Amongst his many and varied clients include McKinsey, Salesforce and Uber. This global exposure has given him a keen sense of cultural awareness and a deep understanding of of how to inspire and change behavior. He's currently an Adjunct professor at Madrid's IE Business School and is a prolific author who over the past 11 years has either authored or co authored a total of six books of these Sustaining Executive Performance and Chief Wellbeing Officer and the Daily Reset Guess what? In this episode we're going to Discuss an upcoming 30 daily nudges that are coming out in January of next year and you're going to hear a few of them here first. In this session we discuss well being and sustained leadership at work as we enter hybrid working models and focus on work life integration. How can leaders model and incorporate specific practices or tips into their daily lives to encourage this integration amongst their employees in order to promote a healthier work life balance that enhances happiness and job satisfaction. Remember, wellbeing is not only wellness, it's how we can leverage it in order to unlock our performance and our potential. Because guess what? We need to thrive rather than just survive at work. So join us and I as we welcome Stephen to the Happiness Squad podcast. Hey, good evening, everyone. Ashish, Steven. It's a pleasure to be with both of you. Steven, you and I are on this side of the pond. Stephen, you're in Barcelona. I'm in Amsterdam. Ashish is in Boulder, Colorado. We've got some proper international conversations happening here. I'm excited. How are you two doing?

I'm great. I'm just. I'm delighted to talk to you both. I feel this is a real show. You know, I've been on a lot of podcasts over the years, and it's been two people, so just the fact that there's three of us, I think that's. That's awesome. I'm looking forward to this.

Yeah. And it's so amazing to have you, Steven. We started exchanging emails, you know, almost a year ago, and we obviously have so much of a shared history with McKinsey and others, so I am just so excited for this conversation together.

Me too. Me too.

Nice one. Well, you know, to get us started, our favorite question to ask even our guests to start is, what's your definition of happiness? And how has it changed for you since your younger years?

Yeah, it's a good one to kick off. Right? I mean, for me, it's a lot to do with fulfillment and believing that I'm living my purpose. I think there's other issues in there in terms of utility and am I being of use to the world and all these kind of things. Right. Do I feel that I'm really using my talents, things like that? And I think in terms of how it's changed over the years, I think when I was younger, and I don't think this is unusual, but, you know, I think you're really looking at achievement, perhaps, and striving and external reward. And I think that's still important. Right. I'm still attuned to the importance of progress and what I'm doing. And, you know, am I really moving forward or am I going around in circles? Am I going backwards? Right. But I think the difference now is that I'm less concerned about those kind of external shows of achievement, and I'm enjoying the process more now. And I talk about this a lot in my work and leadership development work and my writing about just learning to love the process and not just outcome. So I think if I put it in a nutshell, it's still about fulfillment and purpose, but when I was a kid, it was. It was all about the outcome. Right. It was all about the finish line. And I also I was a competitive athlete, so I was kind of driven in that respect. And I think now I'm appreciating the nuance of the process, and I love that I'm able to do that. I can do it every time. Sometimes I think the natural tendency as human beings is to be pushed towards the outcome. But I try and remind myself and just say, no, no, no. Just stay in the moment, enjoy the process.

Well, I think it's so important, Stephen, what you're highlighting, and it is so true. Right? And so there are two or three things that come to me. I think the first, a lot of people, when they think about happiness, when they think about happy, they're like, they immediately go to happy, go lucky, right? Or so you don't care. You just want to be like kind of this, you know, you're shallow. Come on, you're a shallow person. You just want to be happy. What good comes from just being happy? Well, that's not what you're saying, and that's not what happiness is about. Right? So we're so synced up. What you're saying is, if your happiness is driven by outcomes, think back to your life about those moments which have truly made you happy. Okay? Now think about all the moments leading up to the moments where you were miserable, you became happy, and then you were starting to go after the next milestone. So I think this notion of loving the process and being happier with the actions that you're putting, rather than just the outcomes, makes the whole thing worth it. And that's what this work is about. That's point number one. Right? Point number two is the research is very clear. If we make happiness a way of being, enjoying the process, the means, we can pursue any end, right? Any end versus worrying about is the outcome going to happen, what's getting in the way? All of that notion, I think you can be focused on where you want to go, you know, and you'll get there faster. Right? Happier people are more successful, are more adaptable, are more resilient, all of that. And then the last one, which is really important is what you also highlighted so beautifully, Steven, is this notion that we love to be in control, right? We love to be in control. We love. But think about it. In today's world, the only thing you control is what Steven highlighted. Your actions that you can control 100%. You fall down, you control. Whether you choose to stand up and go again or give up, you control your actions. There are 10,000 different variables that get in the way of the outcome, getting whether what you want or not. So you don't control the outcome, you control the action. And that is also one of the deepest learnings and teachings from Gita and so many other spiritual texts, which is focus on your actions, don't worry about outcomes. And if you are, then you are happier. And unfortunately for a lot of people, it takes a lifetime to learn it. And most of the world doesn't tune into that. We just keep hustling and working harder and harder. Right. Try to be happier. You can't pursue happiness through fame, control and money.

Totally. And I think that view, I mean, I love those comments, Ashish. And I think that view also allows us, it builds that resilience, right, because you're going to be up and you're going to be down. And even I had this kind of earlier this year that it was one of the first times that something kind of. And you can frame it as being some kind of negative occurrence in, in, in, in my life. And it was, I guess, but I was still in a way grateful for it. Right. I kind of was able to reframe it pretty quickly. And I know that we can often reframe with the benefit of distance and hindsight and when the pain has kind of dissipated after something that happens to you that is, you know, negative. But this was pretty quick and I was, I was kind of proud of myself. I thought, this really sucks what happened. But look, man, I'm alive and that's part of the richness of life. And the next time I get a win, I'm going to appreciate that even more. And so I give thanks for it as well. And I think that is very much in line with those three things that you mentioned and how we conceptualize and live happiness in our day to day.

So how do you reframe in the moment? I mean, is there something specific, Stephen, you've done that you've picked up on that's worked for you?

It's interesting. I've been writing about this week, right. And I think that the framing of the context was I was working in a workshop about digital distraction with busy managers and we were talking about the habit loop and how you implement habits and recognizing that we are often triggered. So it's not just a habit that we need to be aware of. It is what is the signal to do the thing and then what is the reward. Then of course, in this day and age, you know, digital devices are the biggest culprit in triggering us. Right. But in general life, and especially in your busy business life, you can be triggered by other people, right? You can be triggered by an email, you can be triggered by a conversation with a client, you can be triggered by a circumstance. And often it's distinguishing the difference between reacting and responding, right? And I think we've, we've evolved and our brains have evolved with that amygdala hijack, right? That when you're perceived, you have this perceived threat and on an evolutionary level it was that physical threat, right, that you actually triggered immediately, you have that immediate reaction. And it's often not in your best interest in the long term. And so I've been thinking about that a lot and often it's just time, right, that you just give it a pause, right? You know, with good reason. You just count to 10 and breathe and you allow that kind of prefrontal cortex part of your brain to take over. And it's just looking at the bigger picture, looking at it more rationally. So I think over the piece, and even that example that I gave, I'm just recognizing the difference between reacting and responding. And I think even before that happens to you in the moment, I think often a useful exercise is to just think about your life, right? And just think, when are you normally triggered? What are the circumstances? You know, you're driving in the morning, you're going crazy with other drivers, which I often do, or is there other circumstances that you are more kind of vulnerable to that triggering, to that immediate reaction. But no, hold on, let's take a moment, let's process this and respond more measuredly. And happiness is going to come from that, I think.

Absolutely. And it's powerful to you. And I'm going to repeat this back for you listeners, because even though this is something we've heard over and over and over again, I don't think it's a practice habit. It is becoming a practice habit for me, but I'm still nowhere close to fully being there, which is the power of breathing. We take so many breaths every day, completely unconsciously. And the breath is the link between the conscious and the unconscious. The breath is the link between in the past, future and the present moment. The breath is the link between our sympathetic system, which is the fight, flight, freeze triggered, scared five year old sick person system versus the parasympathetic, the rest and digest system. The breath is the lake. So this notion of breathing 10 times or even 30 times, if you tend to be more of the explosive kind sometimes, like I am in certain situations, to really then, to only really then respond rather than react out of our habit nature of what we already do, really, really important. Breath is the key. It is so simple and yet so difficult for most of us because we don't even fully breathe deeply. We don't recognize we are breathing. And breath can be the signal that, hey, something is bothering you right now.

Yeah, it's those signals, right? It's those signals of stress, that shallow breathing that you lose control of your breathing. And I love the whole focus on breath. And I love that we are putting more and more legitimacy into that in the workplace. Ashish. If I go back, I remember it was one of these hospital dramas from the US and it was Grey's Anatomy or something like that. And I always remember the quote in it. It was, they were doing a surgery around the table, and it was one of the junior residents who was getting really kind of out of breath or really nervous. And one of the senior surgeons said, look, just take a breath. And what they said is, when you stop breathing, you stop thinking. And that primitive part of our brain takes over. Doesn't need to take a lot of time. That belly breathing, when you're in the middle of a zoom or whatever, you're in a high pressure meeting, displacement of your belly, just put a touch to your waist. Oh, wow. I mean, so impactful, right?

Yeah. I don't even realize, you know, it's actually something that just came to me. And then I want to kind of reflect this and think, you know, share this with you because you're an athlete, you run all the time. You know, what came to me is at least when I look at myself, right? I recognize that majority of the time when I'm not conscious, I'm only breathing from my 25% of the lungs. I really am maybe 30 if I'm being too generous to myself, right? But definitely 70% of it, I'm not breathing. So that's point number one. I know when you're a triathlete, you run. You kind of obviously are a lot more regulated with your breathing, and that's the way you're able to go as far as you are. But, you know, what also comes to me is I just had this reflection because, you know me, I always get distracted looking. You know, even I literally, what's opposite me is a tree, and there are birds eating and, you know, rabbits and squirrels and all kinds of, you know, things roaming around. But you know, what I've also noticed is if you ever notice wildlife outside or any life outside other than humans, you know, sometimes you look at them and you wonder how peaceful they are. And when you recognize that they're not that peaceful when they sense a threat. Right. But otherwise they're peaceful in the moment. And I wonder that they have not built the habit of being up here, that the habit of always breathing deeply is what makes them be present with what they are doing. Right? Because I bet an antelope running when it sees a tiger is not breathing and is that peaceful. It is the fastest thing that's moving. But avoid that threat. It is. But I think as humans, we are always running around like the antelope. We never are peaceful.

I just came off a session and we were talking about mindfulness with a group of leaders. And I gave them the story of my dog. And I said, I started to learn a lot about being mindful from my dog. And in one level, I started to become more and more aware of my own emotions and energy in the moment because it was reflected in my dog. You know, dogs and animals are mirrors. They pick up in your energy, they pick up in your emotions. And so if I was anxious or if I was kind of high energy, or even if I was low energy, my dog would reflect that and bounce it back to me. And I was really amazed by that. And then I started to pay more attention in terms of, you know, dogs are not thinking about, like, what they're going to do tomorrow or later that night or what they've just done in the past. They're just, you know, they're often hungry and they're just looking for something to eat, but they're always just thinking about the present moment. And then what I started to do is I started to take my dog on programs. So it was residential programs with leaders, and we would do a lot of sessions in the class, but we had the privilege of being in the middle of a natural park in a forest. And we would do these mindfulness walks and we would just walk around. And I said to people, I said, look, don't take your phones. Keep talking to a minimum, at least if you're talking, make reference to what is around you. But pay attention to my dog and watch how she acts, right? And part of that mindfulness is, you know, they're at peace, they're engaging their senses as well, their different senses. And I think we can all be more dog a little bit, right? And just pay more attention to that. And if I can just give one more example, right? Because I think just in terms of being at peace, being at mindful, and the awareness and the power that that gives us, I'm here in Barcelona and Leo Messi, right? So fantastic football player, soccer for our American friends. He's Miami, right? But, you know, if anyone has watched him play, the amazing thing is that he walks for most of the match, right? I mean, super explosive, great skills, scores wonderful goals. But if you watch him, he's walking most of the time. And that came from kind of the start of his career when he was hugely, incredibly nervous. He'd be physically sick at the start of a match. And so he walked not to get carried away, right, and keep his breathing under control and all the different things. But that then became his superpower because what it allowed him to do was kind of do a really powerful diagnostic into what was going on. And Pep Guardiola, who was his coach at Barcelona, he said he spends that time to sniff out the weaknesses in the back four. He gets this panorama in his brain, and then he's able to exploit those weaknesses as he goes through the match. So I just think in terms of, you know, we're always so busy as managers and leaders these days, but sometimes it's just taking a step back, getting on the balcony, walking around, being much calmer, and you get much more powerful insight from that. So I think that Leo Messi walking example is just super interesting.

I love that. I mean, as a fellow football lover, and yes, I've moved over 17 years and I no longer use the S word. I'm an F word kind of guy. Pun unintended, folks. I love that because I think the sporting analogy of how you would always expect an athlete to be explosive, you would always expect them to be on the go, on the move, ready to pounce. But the fact is, no pause. Take a deep breath, get a gaze of what's happening around you, and then measured, as you said earlier, response rather than reacting and probably making mistakes because you'll know what you need to do next time. I think what I'd love to do, Stephen, is I'd love to shift to your last book, which was the Daily Reset. And I'm someone who loves nudges, actually. In fact, in our Rewire program, we offer daily nudges to folks, and it's linked to one of our 9 Hardware for Happiness practices. And the reason why I feel daily nudges are important is it's an opportunity, like we just discussed, to take a pause in your day and do something that can actually benefit you. And so I would love to know, what is your favorite top three most impactful nudges? And maybe for our guests, sorry, our listeners, you might be kind to share from your upcoming book in January, one of your new nudges. So I'm going to leave it to you top three nudges from your current book or from your upcoming book.

So yeah, there's a few there, I think and I hope this connects with the reader. It's the most personal of my three books. Right. You know, I put a lot of personal stories into that. You know, on one level the Daily Reset is like a kind of encyclopedia. I try to cover all the bases, right, in terms of well being and what are the things that are interesting. So there's every month as a theme. So August is purpose, March is sleep, April is energy. And so I've tried to cover all the things that I think are important to develop well being in our lives, let's say. So there's studies and all these different things. But I most enjoy sharing the personal stories and you know, I've made myself very vulnerable. I've talked about a lot of my own fears and some of those stories and some personal things. Right. So there's a couple that I think would come to mind before I get to the personal ones because I'll probably finish on them. But I think one regards failure and I think it links back to that first concept that we were talking about, process versus outcome. And it's a mountain biker, so staying on sports, but mountain biker from the Isle of Skye, originally in Scotland. His name is Danny MacAskill and he's a trials biker. So he does he sponsored by Red Bull and organizations like that. And he's got a couple of million followers on Instagram and he does all these kind of crazy tricks on his bike. I watch his videos on Instagram and the hugely interesting thing is that he films not just the successful stunt, but all of the failed attempts that led up to that one successful execution. So it's not a sanitized outcome driven. It's about, hey man, I just fell in my ass 20 times. But I'm going to laugh about it because I'm having so much fun and I'm loving the process. And there was one specific example that I thought was fantastic. He rode his bike across a metal chain that connected two blocks of concrete at a beach in Blackpool in England. So the metal chain was significantly thinner than the tread thickness of the tire and it was only a couple of bike lengths long. So the stunt only took maybe eight or nine seconds. But he talked in the post about how he'd been looking for the perfect chain for over 10 years. Right. And then when he did it. It took him like three days. He took over 100 attempts, and he fell off, like, high 90s or maybe about 100 times. And I just thought that was amazing. It was like. And think about, you know, the whole importance of kind of perseverance or grit, let's say, in our lives. But for him, he was just having fun. And I think maybe sometimes in our life, if you're going to fall on our ass 90 times, we have to be aware of, okay, maybe it's time to call it quits and move on to something else. But I was just amazed by this experience that he just kept going, kept going, and then he got that successful execution on that 100th try or whatever it was. So that, for me, was about trying new things. I'll pause there. I don't know if that brings any comments for you guys.

You know, Steven, what I also like is, you know, you're talking about this. There's an implicit piece of play and joy and having fun in what you're doing. And also not afraid to look stupid because it's not like he was doing it in the comfort of his house. Nobody can see, right? This is a very public action. I'm assuming there were enough people looking like, oh, my God, here we go again. It's powerful. It's also what babies who learn to walk do. How many times do they fall before they walk? They're not thinking, oh, my God, I fell down again. What is all by all these people around me thinking, otherwise they would never walk. Right? But yet, one, we don't do it that often because, again, we're focused on the outcome and what does it mean? And if I achieve it, what do I become and what people think of me, or if I'm failing, what am I appearing to be rather than enjoying? Coming back to our original piece of the process, and we definitely, you know, even this notion of work and play, why can't work be play? You want people to take risks, make it playful. And look, you have to define the boundaries of where risk is acceptable versus not. But when you tell somebody, make it play, that's kind of one of the things that kind of really comes up for me. Anil, what does it come up for you?

Yeah, no, I want to share a brief reflection off of. I do triathlons. Stephen and I did my third 70.3 in Barcelona in Calla in 2015. And the other day, one of the leaders asked, you know, as an icebreaker in a meeting, which I love, icebreakers. So for folks looking for Tips on how to start a meeting on a light note. Icebreakers are great. My most memorable achievement in sporting. And I said actually, my achievement is actually flipping the script. I failed by having an outcome of a DNF I did not finish. And rather than giving up, I said okay, fine. I felt the emotion. I then spent the summer going back to basics and I actually started exploring doing shorter distance triathlons to build up my speed, to build up my pace, to build up my technique. And what I found on the back of that was okay. Sometimes it may actually be the failure that could actually be your biggest achievement. And it's okay to make mistakes, it's okay not to finish because guess what? You know, as we say Nike, there is no finish line. It's just about your next race. And I, so I love that as your first nudge, my friend. I think that that's beautiful. It's just how we look at failure and, and how we least embrace it rather than fear it.

Yeah, no, thanks for sharing that. The obstacle is the way. Right. If we think about that well known book from Ryan Holiday and sometimes it's when things happen in our life, it just is there for a reason. Right. And we, we win in the longer term. I think another one, and I'll keep this one shorter is about learning. And I put this in the Resilience month and it's one of the personal ones and the nudge is called Love Learning and it talks basically. It's a very short kind of passage. But I just talk about when my kid was 7 and he bought his first skateboard and I decided to buy a skateboard at the same time and I'd never skated. And so it was the first skateboard in both of our lives. And I talked about just falling on my ass. So it's linked to the failure part. But I think it was about continuing on that learning journey. Right. Because. And this came to me actually in another circumstance when it was like the weekend and I dropped my kid off at swimming class and I went for a cup of coffee and I thought, what am I doing? I'm just drinking coffee. And not really. I mean, yeah, it's important to relax and not always be kind of, you know, driven by self improvement. I think that can tip over into self absorption sometimes. But I thought when did I stop thinking about just developing myself? Right. And so what we've done since then, it's not just been skateboarding, but we've been playing basketball, we've been playing made up games, we've been Playing catch. And in many ways we're in similar kind of situation. I mean, I've got the natural benefit of just being a bigger human being and stronger physically and all these different things, but his rate of learning compared to mine is just incredible. Right. And in many ways I'm just trying to hang on to his coattails. Right. So I talked about loving learning and it just, it doesn't always have to be in that purely cerebral kind of information based work level, but just learning in any area. I think we need to keep doing that in life and that's going to make us more resilient as well. So he's my biggest inspiration to keep learning and developing.

Hi friends. We hope you're enjoying the tips discussed in this episode. If you're on the career treadmill, seeking the next promotion, experiencing stress and anxiety, or reached the top of your career and wondering if the sacrifices to get there were worth it, Ashish and I have been there and we're ready to support you. The Happiness Squad rewire program is designed to integrate the nine hardwired for happiness practices into your day. Within five minutes form proven habits to experience more success, resilience, satisfaction and creativity. You won't be alone in your journey. Check out the rewire link in the show notes. Make happiness your competitive edge to achieve your goals. Now back to the episode.

Yeah, this notion of, you know, we create and we notice what we pay attention to. So in that moment when we fall, are we focused on the fall? Are we focused on the script in your head that you're saying you're not enough, you don't know how to do it? Are you focused on I don't have what I need to be successful here. Victim, I don't know how to do this. I am not good enough for this fixed mindset. Instead you can focus on what can I learn from this growth mindset, right? By Carol Dweck I can focus on what becomes possible. What's the smallest step? Right? What am I learning from this? What's the smallest step that I can actually take here to make a difference? I might not control all of it, but what's the smallest. That's agents versus victim, right? And this mindset, the most important, the mindset of always learning, making meaning in what we are doing. So important for resilience. You know, we, when I was at McKinsey, I, we spent a bunch of time studying resilience. In fact, resilient mindsets. Stephen, you talk a lot about it in your book too, is these are mindsets that we can build as habits. We absolutely. Resilience is something we can learn. Anti fragility is something we can become antifragile. It's all about what we pay attention to and how we reframe in the moment. Because what we pay attention to becomes our reality. So tell us one of your nudges, my friend, from the new 30 nudges. I mean, you already have, you know, folks who can't probably see this. I have Stephen's book here on my table. He already had 366 brilliant nudges. I mean, they're amazing. So I'm curious, what are some of the 30 new ones that you created that come out on January 1st?

So you're right. When I published that it was December 2021, I felt that those 366, yeah, they were strong. I was happy. And even at that moment, I remember thinking at the beginning, I'm never going to get to 366. I thought, I'm going to have to invite a whole bunch of contributors, do like a guest month. And before I knew it, I was throwing out maybe at that time, maybe another 20 or 30. I got close to 400, but at that time I was happy. And then just in the last couple of months and we talked about this actually the other week. Right. I started to become aware that, you know, the whole logic and intent of the book was to move people forward from the pandemic. But the more that we've moved on for the pandemic, and then I looked again at the content. You know, the irony was that a lot of the nudges were probably making people stuck within that reality. You know, it was written in the shadow of the pandemic. I wrote most of the book in the summer of 2021 and you know, even when the book was released, I couldn't do any in person events. People were still having very strict mask mandates and all these different things. And so I had that realization and we did an analysis on the 366. There were over 60 had the word pandemic or Covid or lockdown. And I thought, man, that's too much. We're not going to move. And so I just wanted a more positive sense. And so half of them, you can just edit a line and we've basically done that and they become, I think there's still a lot of value in those nudges and it doesn't necessarily need to mention the pandemic. And then the other 30 were very much focused on that time and place. And that context. And I thought, no, let's freshen it up. So as you say, there's about 30 new ones and we're still kind of wrestling with them in the editing process out 1st of January 2024. But one I want to share and I think links to these comments on resilience that you just made, Ashish, on thinking, first of all on failure and then the personal story on learning. And then this one is on community and being a proud Scotsman. This one is called People Make Glasgow. And so this one, it talks about the amount of positive interactions that you get with people that you don't know when you travel to Glasgow. And you can say I am biased, right? But I think people worldwide, they tend to have this belief. And so every summer, you know, I've been living over 20 years in Spain, but every summer I'll go back to Scotland and I'll spend the summer in Glasgow. Better than the winters. But anyway, it's, you know, but I would have each day between four to six positive, spontaneous, meaningful conversations with people I have never met in Barcelona. That is about one to two per week. And I'm not being disparaging at Barcelona. I just think that's typical for a city. I think Glasgow is an outlier, it's an international community and it's the warmth of the people. Maybe it makes up for the climate or whatever, but. And I think we need that community more than ever in today's society when it is driven by division and the things that make us different. The city of Glasgow is such a welcoming place on so many levels, right? Regardless of where you're from or what language you speak or what kind of level of social, demographic status or whatever, it's just such an inclusive place. And so they had this crowd, this marketing campaign a few years ago and they said, what makes Glasgow special? And that was the slogan that came out, it was people. And so people make Glasgow. You see everywhere around the city, it's in bright pink neon, in bus stations and train stations and all the rest of it. And I think the importance of community, we need that for our well being, right? Wellbeing is one of these things that of course starts with herself. What can we change? Yourself. But it has to involve the people around us, our teams and workplace, our families and friends, wider society. And that's the path, I think, as you, you guys know, right? To happiness as well. How can we connect to society? How can we make those meaningful relationships, Right?

You know, we had Stephen, a guest on our show a few weeks Back Jessica Weiss and one of her fundamental beliefs is friends at work can really make or break your experience. You may know why you work at a place or what you do there, but it's who you're doing it with. And what I love about what you just said, by the way, one of my last trips before lockdown was actually to Glasgow and I ran the city and I absolutely think it's one of the most beautiful cities in mindful in the rain conversation for another day. But I think, you know, this is something that's incredibly powerful because when you take a moment out of your day to connect with someone, one, you're giving yourself a pause as we talked about earlier, two, it's a great way to move around. You know, if you could go for a coffee, go for a coffee or a tea, but also go for a walk, you know, catch up with someone, ask them what's going on in their world. And you know something, as we talked about yesterday, ask them how they're feeling, not just how they're doing and really, truly connect is when you do that, something changes. And especially coming out of this lockdown space, you know, we're able to interact with people in person and so take that time. Ashish's wife Lizzie Stephen does our programs daily nudges and so Saturdays links to build community. So whether it's picking up the phone and calling a friend or going out for dinner with a friend or friends or reconnecting, just I love how you say that because, you know, people make this world go round and if we don't do that, we don't connect. I think we miss an important trick. So, you know, one thing I'd love to ask you, Stephen, as we move on to leadership is you've canvassed the globe. Your experience in Spain, Europe, you were recently, if I'm not mistaken, also at Apple. And you observe their work culture on site, on campus. Could you maybe share with our listeners how have you seen leaders effectively integrate the well being practices that you've spoken about in their daily routines to foster both like personal resilience as well as creating that supportive work culture for their teams, Knowing that, hey, a lot of companies are encouraging if not requiring their employees to actually come back on campus, you know, at least if not three to four days a week?

Yeah, it's a tricky one, right? I mean, you know, the same pressures that teams are under, the leaders have that and they've kind of squeezed on both sides. I think if it's, there's a couple of things in it I think first is flexibility. I think there has, you know, mandates. Yeah, there's a few of them around. And even in that experience in Apple, it was one of the two mandated days that I was there. So the place was absolutely teeming with people, but it was so vibrant. And I had a number of discussions during that week when I toured the Bay Area, a lot of the places were empty and a lot of the conversations from leaders were saying, you know, how can we incentivize people to come back? It helps if you have a fancy spaceship campus and that critical mass of people. But you know, what is the belonging and the meaning at work and friendships at work that you just mentioned? Right. I mean, I remember even just as a quick aside, one of my clients here in Barcelona, just in the pandemic and they talked about some of the younger staff, all of their friendships were tied up in the workplace. So when the offices were locked down, they lost their friends also. And so what they started to do while the offices were still closed, they paid their own money to rent co working spaces so that they weren't just in zooms all day in their own homes, but they were with their friends in these co working spaces in Birmingham, Barcelona, which I thought was really cool. So there is mandates and here and there and a couple of days a week perhaps. But I think flexibility, it has to be on results, it has to be on are you getting the job done. And in terms of wellbeing practice, you know, even if I think of over the years like the CEO and telefonica, Telco is a sector that has had its issues and complications until very recently. I'm not sure what he's doing the last couple of years, but he's a runner and he runs or he ran every day in telephonical headquarters and people would see him running. Right. And so that flexibility in your day, giving permission to other folks, we know that work is going to enter into the times of the day, which used to be only for family or only for rest. But sometimes in that middle portion of the day, we don't give ourselves the same permission not to do non work stuff. So I think flexibility on letting people work and follow the patterns that they know will get the best results is absolutely key. And that flexibility can happen in many different ways. How you run your day, are you in the office, are you not, are you going to leave because you've got something important? With a family matter, you don't need to ask permission because we have life outside the work, all of this different thing. Right. And I think the one kind of addition of that there has to be humility, I think, from leaders, humility that they don't have all the answers.

Right.

We're going to find out together. We're going to have to experiment and we're all going to bring something to the table. So there's that democratization of ideas. It's not about hierarchy. So I think those two things I would settle on there. Right. Flexibility and humility.

Yeah. And you know, I would say, Stephen, you know, I was asked this question when we were going through the pandemic 20, 20, 2021, I was still at McKinsey, we were selling clients. What do you think is that? I'd answer. And I was like, we don't know. Right. And we have to experiment and we have to try. There is no one size fits all. What I would say is, I think at this stage, two years out, I think the answers are more like, we have the direction. We might not know the exact destination, but we have the direction. And I'm going to highlight a couple of data points here, including one from the recent report that my dear friends at the McKinsey Health Institute released two weeks ago at this point. And the report is called Reframing Employee Health. From Reframing Employee Health Moving Beyond Burnout to Holistic Health. And in that, one of the data that they highlight and they looked at was say, does work location influence health outcomes? And the research was very clear. It wasn't about whether you are in person or whether you are remote. What mattered was are you working in your preferred work location. So when people worked 100% in person, but ideal was 100% report the impact on holistic health and wellbeing was much worse. It was around 37% reported well being of holistic health when people were allowed to work at their preferred location. Right. So in ideal work location, whatever it is, if you prefer to be three days in the office or two days at home, and that's what you're doing. If you want to be all remote and you're allowed to do that, that's what you're doing. If you want to be in person, you are able to be in person. When we do that, 60%. Almost double. Almost double in terms of health impact, by the way, the same was the issue on everything else, on innovative work behaviors, which we need so much more innovation. Right. When you were 100% in person work and ideal was 100% remote, that number was 31% versus we were hybrid 53. But people preferred more remote versus 65, 65%. And if you were at ideal work location, burnout scores were much lower if you were allowed to be in your work location. So it does matter. But I don't think the answer is it's more remote, it's more in person. It's exactly to your point of flexibility and autonomy of meeting people where they are so that we can mold work and life and integrate them together. Which is kind of the topic I want to get to next. Right. Which is. And you've started talking about this, frankly, Stephen, a lot earlier and many other people around, don't balance, integrate. So talk to me a little bit about work life integration and how you coach individuals and leaders to truly integrate their work in life so that they can drive higher performance and be more satisfied at work because they are flourishing.

There's a couple of things there. I started looking at the kind of the history of the first Industrial Revolution and I wrote about that in my first book, Sustaining Executive Performance. How do we live those 24 hours and how that's changed? And so some of my recent comments there I think are testament to that and the fact that we have 24 hours. We are allowing work to come into previously non work periods of our 24 hours, but we don't do the opposite. Right. And I gave a keynote on this several years ago called beyond the Hateful eight. And we have that negative reaction, but we cause it ourselves. I mean, even in the session that I just gave before this interview with Session of Leaders, one of the comments was, it's not the company, it's me. And so often it's the individual's habits and behaviors that they are manifesting and extending out to the team. So often when we work with leaders, we're drilling down on what are your own attitudes, what are your own mindsets. Are you creating that busyness for yourself? Right. I think that's on one level. On another level, one of the main things that we try and really dig into is this aspect of separation. And for me, it is the difference between wellbeing and wellness. And I know we talked about this the other week. Right. And sometimes I'm not a complete zealot when it comes down to words and definitions. You know, I'm a recovering academic. I'm happy to have flexibility. I'm happy to have flexibility and what we mean when we say things. But I'm really talking more about the intent here. And so often when we talk about well being, we talk about wellness, even if we use the word well being, right? And basically that means that we will do things when work is finished. So in the evening or at the weekends or when we are on vacation or whatever it is. And that could be things like sleep or purpose of community, or it could be any of these areas that we know make a big difference to well being. Right? But that's fixing ourselves. It's fixing ourselves from the damage that we do within the normal flow of daily work. And that's great. We need those things to be there. Right? But what I try and make a call for is to bring a lot of these things into the normal flow of work, not separate, right? Because if we are just exclusively looking at that kind of wellness view, it is an admission that the workplace is imperfect and we are happy with that status quo. But I'm trying to bring it in and it looks different. It can still be sleep, it could still be purpose, could still be different things. But in many cases it has to be much more actionable, much more practical in a shorter time frame. But absolutely bring it into the middle of your busy day. And if you bring a lot of these things into the middle of your busy day, you will get that performance improvement. Right? And so I think that's maybe the second big message that I try and put out there. And then the third one is on just what I call sustainable leadership. So sometimes I don't even use the word wellbeing, right? There's sometimes a lot of beliefs about what that means. People still believe it's a compromise on performance. And so sometimes I just say, hey, this is about building more positive cultures. And there's a whole kind of literature out there on positive leadership. And I tried to build on that. Right. And I called it sustainable leadership. I was looking, several years ago, a business school here in Barcelona, and I was in the business ethics department and I was doing research on corporate social responsibility. And I felt a lot of the belief system around sustainability could apply the organizational level, the societal level, of course, as we know, but also at that individual level. So I felt that being a sustainable leader was being that role model. It was about really having that humility, but thinking about your own habits, how that created the culture and the teams around you, but not forgetting about performance. Right. So bringing that into your normal working day, yes, being healthier and happier, but how does that drive performance? What is the business case? So, you know, coming from an engineering background and a design thinker, it was, for me, it was about showing that utility and showing that very quickly and powerfully. So I think Those would be the three big messages that I would bring to the table there.

I just want to say, I'm nearly jumping up and down over here. I mean, when I hear you say that, first off, I think that most people, I think, would not. Most companies would say they're offering benefits to their employees that I think line up exactly to your definition. Hey, go to the gym after work, we'll give you a pass. Or, hey, take a week off, we'll give you a few days extra that you need, take it off. Or we'll give you access to programs or software where you can probably get some headspace. You know, whether people are allowed to integrate this into their day. One thing that's a fact, people are suffering these days from meeting overload, working back to back. And so I love each of these points that you brought up from one perspective. Again, giving people that focus, that intention of really integrating that well, being that wellness into their day is critical. People aren't going to be encouraged to do it. They need to be supported. You know, rather than fearing a deadline. It's like, hey, you know, take that time, go for lunch, go for a walk. We need that. Otherwise, guess what? What the company's doing is it's almost putting you into an unexpected expectation that, oh, when the weekend comes, as everyone says, TGIF now, wait till Monday, Monday morning. Scary. So we know that people want that time to recharge during the day. If your cell phone died during the day, you're not going to wait till you get home at night to recharge it. You're immediately going to plug it in in that moment, right? So why should your body as a human being be any different? The second thing that comes to mind about how you bring this into normal work is how do we incorporate giving people the opportunity to be happier at work, to be flourishing at work? You know, something that Ashish and I discussed, Stephen, is happiness is a tough topic, right? People see it, as we said earlier, as it's a smile on your face, you're feeling good, thumbs up. There's so much more to it. The research shows if you're happier, you are more creative, you are more antifragelic, you are more satisfied. And when you're at work, do you want your team to be creative or do you want them to feel under the gun? And you clearly want that creativity. And if you're feeling happier and you're therefore more creative, why not? So I really do celebrate what you're talking about. And this is why, when you say it's all about performance. That's why happiness is human performance. Because you will operate at a higher level when you're feeling good, feeling great, than not. You'll enjoy that process. Right. Rather than, oh, shit, I can't wait till the weekend's done and I can go home. No, you're actually going to enjoy being at work. You're going to enjoy who you're working with. You're going to enjoy the work that you're doing. And we know studies show 70% of the workforce out there are barely surviving at work. We got to change that number. If we don't, Stephen, to your point, we're going to misunderstand the difference between well being and wellness and how we offer it to our employees. I absolutely love what you said there and I cheer it on.

I get the way that companies are operating because the easier thing is the separation, right. The harder thing is the integration. And companies need to take a leap of faith. But we all know that it works. It just needs. It needs a bit of investment. You need that commitment, that sponsorship. But it happens. The magic happens.

Absolutely agree. Hey, you know, we're mindful that we gave you that tough one at the end. So I think knowing that it's late in your evening on a Friday and we're waiting for you to get you to your Negroni of choice, I want to go ahead and take the opportunity to wrap us up. So one thing, Stephen, that we love to do is just to get to know you better and give our listeners an insight to you. We just want to do a couple of rapid questions. So you ready to go?

Go for it. Lovely.

All right. All right, my friend, I would ask you your favorite running brand, given that I work for Nike and I see you wearing an on jacket. So I'm just going to skip that question and go to the next one. The first real question is, hey, when you're looking to listen to something that picks you up, makes you feel good, what is your favorite song to listen to?

I don't know if it picks me up, but it just makes me feel because I've been 20 years away from Scotland. So the Blue Nile is an amazing band from Glasgow. And my favorite song from the Blue Nile is Tinseltown in the Rain. Amazing song. So if not heard the Blue Nile, you need to. Any listeners need to check that out, especially that song.

Love it. All right, cool. We will share with you something we're doing for the end of the year compiling these so there will be that squad playlist and you'll be noted for it. The second question is your favorite book? And this can be any book.

It's tricky, right? And it changes over the course of your life. Right. But I think I go for A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. And to counterbalance the heft of one of these classics, I'm reading a ton and it's still great writing. Don't get me wrong, I'm reading a ton of Lee Child books this year. Jack Reacher Character. I think that's amazing. Pure escapism. I've read like 15 already this year. Amazing.

Wow.

Awesome.

We're going to add that to the list. Now the final one. Hey, what's your favorite activity again? When you want to pick yourself up or you just enjoy doing with family, with friends or on your own?

So I love being with family and friends. But I was even thinking about this recently as One of the 30 new nudges about are you an introvert or an extrovert? I love being in big crowds. I love speaking in front of a large audience. But I recharge alone mostly, which I think is more of a definition of an introvert. And so I absolutely love running in the forest with my dog.

Dog's lucky mate. That's awesome. Goes with you to work and into the forest. Awesome. Well, from my side, Stephen, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to speak with us. We'd love to go into more. There's so much your book, Chief Wellbeing Officer, your book, the Daily Reset, Sustainable Leadership. I encourage our listeners to look at our show notes. We'll make sure we reference these for you. Steven. We'll keep an eye out in January 2024 for your 30 new daily nudges. And I just want to say thank you for being with us.

The sentiment is the same, Stephen. I knew this was going to be a great conversation and of course it was so lovely to connect on this and bring your insights to our listeners. I'm grateful to have you in my life and really looking forward, my friend, in 2024 to a lot of collaborations to help create environments of flourishing where people and individuals can be at their best. Thank you.

Thank you both. I think when you connect with other human beings that have got a shared mission, that's just a wonderful thing. So lovely to talk to you both and looking forward, hopefully soon, face to face and some good times. Thank you.

Bye my friend.

Thanks, Stephen. We hope you enjoyed this episode on the Happiness Squad podcast. Make sure to hit subscribe on your chosen platform that you listen to us on. If you enjoyed the tips discussed looking to combat stress, burnout, or seeking deeper fulfillment, or navigating life transitions, then our Rewire program is designed for you. Rewire is your key to unlock your full potential to experience more success. Resilience, satisfaction and creativity make happiness your competitive edge. Check out the show notes and learn more about how you can benefit by rewiring away from fear in between episodes. Follow along on Instagram at my happinesssquad for tons of tips, insights and short videos designed just for you. Until next time.