The Trust-First Approach to Leadership and Culture That Led to a Major Company Breakthrough with Michelle Poole

Nothing breeds success like success. I'm all about celebrating the small wins because it fuels, it builds up and I think it's a spiral upwards is when people start to believe they have bolder goals, higher aspirations, they aim for the stars. You know you can get that with the right team and the right mission.

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspirations to help you operate at your fullest potential by integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. In each episode we will share insights, tips and stories from leading experts, company executives and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge and find more success, joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Welcome back to the Happiness Squad Podcast. In today's conversation, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Michelle Poole, the former president of Crocs and one of the most human centered, courageous leaders I know. Under Michelle's leadership, Crocs transformed from a brand many had written off to a global cultural icon that was embraced by Gen Z and high fashion alike. But as you'll hear, this wasn't just a product turnaround, it was a people turnaround. We dive into the bold culture moves Michelle made, removing fear from the organization, building trust through transparency, and truly living the company's come as you are ethos from the inside out. Michelle shares openly about what shaped her values, how she protects her well being while leading at the highest levels, and why she believes vulnerability, inclusivity and celebration are non negotiables for modern day leadership. This episode is a masterclass in authentic, feminine powered leadership and a hopeful reminder that you can win in business without losing your soul or burning out. Michelle, it is so lovely to have you on our Happiness Squad podcast and thank you for sharing amazing insights from your leadership journey in the world of footwear and retail and all the amazing things that you've done.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited for this conversation.

So look, before we go to business and leadership, I just want to start with a personal question. I know this is true for me and I know it'll be true for you, which is our definition of happiness evolves, right? And that's where I want to start with is how has your definition evolved over the course of your life and career?

Yeah, that's actually what I would start with saying. It has definitely changed. I think when I was younger, in my 20s and 30s, I think happiness for me was travel and exploring and sort of tied to that. I think freedom, being free to go places and try new things. And I also got a lot of joy out of creating, whether that was kind of before I was in the workplace creating kind of art and in that world or creating a business. I would say now, though I'm in my mid to late 50s now at this point, I would say that the two most important things to me today are good mental health and good physical health. And I think, I think we all get to realize this over time with experience with family, friends, et cetera, who suffer, you know, and I've seen people close to me suffer with poor mental health and poor physical health. And I believe now that honestly, there's nothing more important. If you don't have both of those things in a great place, the rest is unimportant, you know.

And isn't. And isn't it interesting that so many today, right, especially when we are younger 30s and 40s, are constantly sacrificing our health and our relationships to pursue wealth, which then we spend all of our later years spending wealth to regain health and relationships, but we can never really quite get them in the way we want when they're broken.

Correct? Right. So I think, yeah, I think it's. You're not asking me for advice at this point in the conversation, but it's definitely, you know, I tell people all the time, younger people, look after yourself and make your family and your relationships a priority because I don't think there's anything more important.

Yeah. And what shifted for you, Michelle, when and what made that shift happen from Michelle A to Michelle B to Michelle C, where this, this is like so important for you now?

Again, I think it's really seeing people in my life struggle and people close to me in my family and friendships. You know, I had a friend's husband drop dead when he was 55. They were having coffee together one morning and he was gone and he left behind, you know, they were just getting ready to be empty nesters and they had this whole list of, you know, one day we're going to do these things. And in a moment it was all taken from my friend. And, you know, there's been, without going through, you know, a long list. There's just been. There has been a number of things and people in my life who have really struggled. And man, is it a wake up call. Because you realize, like, you just gotta make the most of it and you've gotta, you've gotta look after yourself. And, you know, if you're in great shape both mentally and physically, you can help your family as well and your Friends.

So, you know, and this is. So it's given the amount of time we spend at work. You know, that's. That was kind of the shift that I made. You know, I was looking at some of the data from Oxford. I was, you know, this is also research we were doing at McKinsey. Today, the number of people who are thriving at work is 20%. Yeah, right. 60% experience a high degree of stress daily. 20% find meaning in what they're doing in something that they spend more than a third of their lives, 90,000 hours, to be precise. And, and burnout is like 20%, 22% globally, 16% in the U.S. 60% in India, I believe is just, to me, crazy, you know, about how important the role of leadership is in being able to change work, to allow people to be healthy, take care of their mental health and their physical health. You know, I read this stat the other day, this quote the other day, and it was backed by research that says, you know, your boss matters more to your mental health than your therapist.

Yes, I believe that. Yes.

Right. And that's why I'm really excited about this journey, this conversation, Michelle, because you are that type of boss who actually has deeply cared about people. I mean, and I'm not just saying it, you know, look, we did this assessment together, you know, at your private company, and you could see the results of the type of leader you are. Highly creative, highly relationship focused. And so I want to know what were some of your experiences in your early years as you were growing up in the corporate world that shaped the leader that you are, that the type of leadership style that you. That you engender and lead with?

Yeah. It's interesting because I would say that there were people who influenced me, not because they modeled what I wanted to be, but they modeled the opposite. And I, you know, as someone perhaps working for them, I witnessed the impact of perhaps a lack of empathy, a lack of accessibility, a lack of humility. Not all the time. I've had some amazing mentors, but sometimes it was peers. It wasn't even necessarily someone I reported to. And actually a fun fact that I haven't shared with you is I have never had a female boss. So I've been working for 32 years. I've never reported to a female. So I had, I think I had this opportunity, particularly in my most recent role when I was a brand president. So, you know, leading a lot of, a lot of people across the organization, I had an opportunity to be really intentional and mindful about the kind of leader that I wanted to be. And I would say it was a combination of probably three things. Modeling things I had seen in a leader that I really responded well to. Avoiding things in leaders that shut me down creatively and motivationally. And I would say the third is tapping. Having the courage, I think, and finding the confidence to really lead as myself. And that meant bringing my whole self to the role, being authentic and having the courage to do that. Which I also witnessed that again, they're not. It's not always the case. But I would say often I found female leaders that I saw from afar modeling authenticity in a way that maybe their male counterparts didn't. So I would say those are the three things that shaped me.

Learning from those even when they are failing to not do those. Because you personally feel the effect of that. Inspired by peers and others who model the behaviors. Right? Yep. And then. And then really tuning and. And I think that goes to your core values of showing up authentically and courageously. I agree with you, Vishal. Right. I think as. And it's not men and women per se. I'll just use, you know, those who are. It do. Does tend to be that way. But masculine and feminine energies. I think somehow men in general have more of the masculine. This need to have all the answers, not be vulnerable. I mean, I'm like freaking out within, but I'm gonna show up as cool and I'm gonna tell you what to do, even though I don't know. And I often find those who have more of the feminine energy, which do tend to be more female leaders are a lot open, say hey, I, you know, tell me what you think. I don't know. Or I'm really struggling right now.

Right, right. Yes.

Which also many times in our highly male dominated world gets censored like, oh my God, why are they saying. Why is she saying that? And. And I think we lose so much power in that. Instead of role modeling and learning from. We try and shut people down.

Yeah, it was interesting. I think last week maybe while you were traveling in India, there was a big story out of the UK where a key minister and the government was in tears. Female MINISTER and there was huge press about it, that she was showing her emotions. And it just created all this debate about, you know, should women show their emotions and you know, does it make them weaker or, you know, so it's kind of an interesting.

Yeah, I didn't see that. I mean emotions and our bodies carry so much wisdom, so much energy. And to feel that deeply. Why would we want to censor that. Right, right.

Yeah.

So look, I mean in the end the role of a leader is to create the best out of their people. Right. To get the most out of their people, to help them flourish, not make them suffer. And if they flourish, create successful business results. Now you have demonstrated that through the most, one of the most iconic brand turnarounds in the recent history. You know, the Crocs turnaround where you were the president. Very rarely has a business gone from less than a billion and losing money to kind of the only brand that has growing when every other footwear declined. High engagement, high belonging scores. I mean just, you know, unbelievable results that you were able to deliver and obviously through bold strategy. But also the culture you created as somebody who stepped in when the brand was struggling to that I want to know about the moves that you made, three to five moves that really built that flourishing culture and made sure that your people could give you the best ideas and mobilize against this strategy to make it happen.

Yeah. So first thing I'd say is we drove a great deal of success at Crocs. I don't think that would have been possible had we not built a really strong culture inside. So I believe that culture kind of comes for any brand, comes from the inside and moves out.

Yeah.

So I don't, I, I was just say that I don't think there can be dissonance between the story you're telling the consumer, which in the case of Crocs was all around come as you are, be yourself. I think we had to live and breathe that inside the organization. I think, you know, I think any organization, consumer facing organization really has to kind of think about that like is the inside aligned with what you say outside? So that would, that's kind of my starting point. I think if I was to sort of talk about three specific things or three areas that I really focused on is when I arrived in the organization, there was a huge amount of fear in the organization. There was a culture of fear sort of permeating through the org. There had been a sort of era of leadership that led with fear where people were afraid to speak up, were afraid to tell truth to power. And so I think one of the first things I did was to try and create an environment of safety. So really removing fear and instead trying to lead with really the opposite. Right. I would say compassion, transparency, inclusivity. I mean there was a point in time before Crocs had really exploded when I would say I knew everyone on my team's, not only their names but in Some cases, the names of their kids. Right. And I knew, you know, what was going on in their lives. And I think that level of accessibility, checking in with people, really seeing them as individuals and recognizing too, that. I mean, I used to joke a little bit that I would have to go into meetings with a blanket because people were a little bit shell shocked and. And it took some time to make them feel safe. But I would say, number one. Yeah, remove fear. You know, I would say number two was that, as I said, you know, culture sort of built from the inside out. Our invitation, our mission at crocs was everyone comfortable in their own shoes. And that was. That was our sort of mission. And our external tagline, as I said, was come as you are. So we had to make sure we were living that inside. And so I really believe that when people can come to work as their whole selves, they do their best work. And so we really focused on creating an inclusive environment where we could foster and really create a very diverse organization. It also represented our consumer base. We had an incredibly diverse consumer base. And so I think creating that inclusivity inside the workplace, again, was a way. It ties back a little bit to the safety piece, but, you know, it allowed people to be their true selves and then you feel seen. So that would be number two. The third thing, perhaps a little bit tactical, but we deployed regular engagement surveys. I know at one point we were doing them, I think, three times a year. And that kept us honest, I would say, about what was really going on in the organization. We would be very transparent and share results, talk about what we had observed, what areas where we were working on, and we would gather teams together to very openly talk about it. And in some cases, if we didn't understand the feedback as leaders, we would, you know, teams would be pulled together to sort of unpack because we could, we could see the results by team and say, tell us more. We don't understand these scores. Tell us more what hasn't been said. And so I think those are three things we did.

You know, I love them. They're like, all those three are such best practices when you study flourishing organizations. And yet they are so far away from the norm. Right, let's just take the first one. Fear. We know from all the research that fear, when we are wired, when we are operating from fear, we don't have access to creativity, we don't have access to innovation, we don't give the best ideas. We are constantly in a scarcity mode. And yet people lean more into that rather Than saying, hey, let me create an environment to literally help people go from below the line to above the line. Let's create hope rather than fear. Let's think about possibilities rather than an abundance. Right. Or what we have. So really powerful move. I also love, I don't think I.

Would just add, I don't think you can have really strong relationship with your people when you lead by fear. I think it's a transaction. People might stick around, but it's very transactional. Right. There's no one's going the extra mile. No one's really feeling vested.

Yeah.

And a success.

I also love the. I mean I have known CROCS for come as you are. I think it's super cool. I've been to your offices. Right. I mean it is genuinely, I mean one of the most inclusive cultures. And I think what you highlighted in that, Michelle, also is something so powerful for me because look, CROCS is a very diverse organization. You have more women than men. You know, in the latest years know in the report that you had published. That's great, that's fine.

Yes.

But so many people just focus on diversity for the sake of diversity. But you all leaned into inclusivity and really making sure that through that you could benefit from the cognitive diversity of the. Of the group that you brought in. Voices mattered no matter even if they were not. In fact, you didn't want people to speak the norm because the norm had taken the brand down. So you wanted different ideas. Right?

Totally. And you know, one thing I'll just add on the diversity piece is that, you know, I joined in 2014 and I was the first woman ever to be on the leadership team. So that gives you an idea of the lack of diversity. And you know, when 70% of the footwear market is women, is either two sold to women or influenced by women. You know what a miss. Right. And so it did it, I think just by virtue of being a female leader. And then over time really seeing that balance shift come back and shift that signaled to the women in the organization that they too could have a voice and there was some representation.

I'm curious about your take on it. I am biased. What do you think in today's world who is is needed more women leaders or men leaders?

I don't think you're going to guess on what I'm going to say. You know what I actually think I will go back to your actual comment earlier, which is rather than thinking about men and women per se, I think it's attributes. So if I which Again, not to be too generalizing, but I think the attributes that more women gen. More female leaders generally show around humility, accessibility, vulnerability, I mean, they tend to be words. Again, I've worked for males who have those qualities, but that, I think is what's needed. I think, you know, listening. And I, you know, really believe that what we did at Crocs, which was creating this diverse workforce, really strengthened us.

Yeah, I'm with you. And I. I am. That's my bias, too, which is I think we need a lot more feminine energy than masculine energy. I think it can be cultivated in both. You know, we were talking about Nepal earlier, before we jumped on the podcast. You know, in. In ancient yogic traditions and Hinduism traditions, the ideal person is actually depicted as half man and half woman with this notion of balance. Shiva and Shakti.

Shiva, yeah, yeah, right.

And this notion, the yin and the yang. Right. I mean, this is in every wisdom tradition, this notion that these things that we hold as polar actually are meant to be together and in harmony. And if we can create it, then magic happens. Right. Unfortunately, it is not balanced today because it is true that while men can have feminine energy, females tend to have higher proportion of those who can lead naturally from that. So it's something that needs to be cultivated and created. And I feel we need more of the feminine energy than the masculine, because masculine was great in a world where physical power and prowess and conquer and effort mattered. But today, it's all cognitive work, it's all relational work, it's all systemic work where I think those things are more intuition, those things are more presence with feminine energy.

So I have a funny, funny thing to tell you. I was listening to a podcast this weekend, last weekend with Melissa Gates, Bill Gates, former now ex wife, and she was being asked a question about AI by the podcast host, and she made a comment about the podcast host called AI. He and she said, what would happen if we thought about AI about ChatGPT as a woman? Because there's this instinct when you think about and you know, you're corresponding, you're having almost a conversation, Right. These days with ChatGPT and asking them questions is. She challenged the listeners to say, what would happen if we thought about that voice and that sort of brain as a female. And boy, it was one of those moments where I just stopped and thought, goodness, my biases run deep. You know, the. The biases towards male run deep. Right. I'd never even thought about it.

Absolutely. And if you think about. And it goes so much even deeper. Right, Michelle? Because if you think about AI for the first time as actual intelligence rather than something that is trained but the intelligence is leveraging a lot of the literature, ways of being leading, et cetera, which is predominantly being male dominated. Right. How are we in the next generation of AI agentic AIs and others that we're creating? We're again creating even machines that will have a lot more masculine energy way of thinking. They're not going to think about the other perspective and compassion. They're going to think about power control dynamics as a way to kind of. When you have two now agents interacting with each other, trying to figure out who wins and I think that's a huge, that's a massive loss for humanity.

Well, it's not lost yet, you know, just. And it just, it made me, I'm from, from now on every time I, I Talk to my ChatGPT app, I think of her as a woman.

Yeah.

So it's changed me already.

So I have one idea or you know, once you get an answer, even asking it or creating a Persona which is a women. Right. We do this work all the time. I've been working with some leaders and I say look, AI can help us be more human. AI can help us see past our biases. You can ask a question, you can give a decision, say what would you do? What would you do here? And then ask them now tell me how this affects or what if I was Earth, if I was a community member, if I was a supplier, it can help us see these biases and have answers, at least some facts that we can say oh, I didn't even think about that.

Interesting, right? Yeah.

Right. So that could be so powerful. But I love it. And I think the third point you highlighted also is so off from the norm, Michelle. Most people look at store data, physical data every day, every week, every month. But when it comes to people data, they look at it maybe once a year if they do it at all and you all looking at it once every three months. But I think the other move which is so powerful and again best practices don't just look at it centrally. Engage with the people who gave the feedback to say hey I want to learn more or tell me what you would do to actually improve this versus somebody at the center saying okay, I got it, I'm going to make sense and I'm going to roll a one size fix program. Really, really powerful.

Yeah, that's actually a question I used to ask. I did a lot of one on one meetings my time at Crocs and I would say to the person I was having a conversation with, hey, if you had my job for a day, let's say we switched roles, what would you do? And I got some really interesting answers.

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Yeah, I think the story I would love to share is it happened not at the end of my tenure at Crocs. It actually happened about three years in, is that one day I was in the office, middle of the week, middle of the day, my phone rings, my cell phone rings and I can see that it's a call from France. And I'm on my way to a meeting and I think, I don't know anyone right now in France, so I let it go to voicemail and the day carries on. And then a couple of hours later, I'm in between meetings and I suddenly realize, oh, yeah, I got a voicemail. I should probably check that. And I'm standing in the hallway, I'll never forget listening to this voicemail. And it's a French gentleman calling. Very, very sort of beautiful French voice, speaking English. And it was the CEO of Balenciaga. And he introduced himself and he then actually spelled out Balenciaga, at which point I sort of laughed out loud because the humility, you know, is I think everyone has heard of Balenciaga. And basically he was inviting Crocs. He was asking if Crocs would make the shoes for their Paris fashion show coming up.

Wow.

I think it was 90 days away and I knew that moment that we had. So it's one of those just lucky breaks that happen, you know, at the time, Balenciaga was absolutely the top of the top of the pyramid in terms of fashion brands. Everything they touched sort of turned to gold and we were able to. I gathered the team and said, we have a once kind of in a lifetime opportunity here. How can we make this happen? And 90 days later, the curtains went up on the Paris fashion show and the models walked down the Runway and you could see everybody in the audience sort of take a gasp and look down and all the models were wearing Crocs.

Wow.

And you have to understand, at that time, I mean, Crocs was considered so low brown. It was considered, you know, such a, I'll call it a fashion faux pas to wear Crocs. And, you know, social media just exploded and the pride from all of the team. We ended up doing a small production run where we were selling the shoes from the Runway show in the Balenciaga stores for 7, $800. And they sold out. There were waiting lists for them. And to be able to see the pride in the team about what we were able to do that day. And there's something when you, you, you give people a vision and when you're actually able to say it's coming true, I mean, it's sort of, it is a goosebump moment still to this day that talk about a way to get people to believe. And I think Crocs went on to great heights, much greater heights financially. But that was one of those moments when, you know, even for myself, you know, there were moments in those first few years when you're turning around a business where you're like, you know, I went in with a real belief in what was possible, but you have those moments where you're like, wait, am I, Is this really, is this going to happen? Am I nuts? Am I, am I just like dreaming here and then? So when something like that happens, which was beyond our wildest dreams, there was such pride for the team. It was swelling.

Well, I can feel it. I can feel your energy and like, I just get goosebumps. Like, I remember the Croc story right back when 2000, even 14, 15, 16. And it's that, that was not. I mean, you didn't show up in Crocs. I'm like, why are you wearing these things? Right?

Oh, no. I mean, Ashish, the memes out there were savage. You know, there was one that said the holes in your shoes are where your dignity leaks out. I mean, people were savage about Crocs. And so, you know, seeing the glimmer of turnaround, seeing that moment was, you.

Know, and nothing energizes then achievement and momentum. You want to help people flourish, you got to give them a win. And that is a big win, right? And like here we go, anything is possible. Then you have hope. You replace fear with hope. Magic starts happening with hope where we achieved that, hence what's possible now. I can imagine the energy that would have unleashed in the team.

Oh, and nothing breeds success like success, right? I mean I'm, I'm all about celebrating the small wins because it all, it fuels, it builds up and it's a, I think it's a spiral upwards is when people start to believe they have bolder goals, higher aspirations, they aim for the stars and you know, you can get that with the right team and the right mission.

You know it. I was with a company called Brand Me. They were originally Mensa Brands, right? Their claim to fame is the fastest unicorn. Six months to a billion dollar valuation in India. They're based in India. Anant Narayanan, former McKinsey senior partner he was at Myntra. He started something else. Then he started this company, Mensa Brands and it's a whole thing around basically their strategy was to build a house of brands, acquire fast growing consumer brands because they, before they really exploded, put them all in and put a really high commercial supply chain capability to scale. And you know, they're four years into the journey and I was actually spending time with their leadership team and you know, this topic came up, right? This thing is something that we talked about which is how do you focus on the gains and how do you use the gains versus the gap? Here's where we need to be in terms of our growth targets portfolio. You focus on the gains. Even if you start with gains and then talk about where you want to go. Completely different energy than starting every meeting with the gap.

I haven't had it described as that. That is, that is so perfect. I couldn't be more aligned to that point of view.

And yeah, so I think that, you know, but that's something you were doing, right? Like it's, let's think about the wins. Especially when you know, it might take time for all the greatness to arrive. But we are winning, we are learning every day.

Totally.

So no, beautiful. Love them. So look, you talked about, right, you came in the midst, the energy was low. Even two years in, you were like, is this going to work? Is this going to not right. Tell me a little bit about how in this massive change and you all changed everything about the business. It wasn't like, let's just Fix A or B, Right. There were so much changes that you all did. How did you build trust when there is so much happening and people don't know what's going to be left versus right. How do you build trust in that change?

So I'll talk about maybe three, because there were lots of things, but I'll talk about sort of three. I think my fundamental belief around trust is you cannot demand it. Right. Trust is earned. I mean, I know, absolutely simple. But. And I think of, and this was a former boss that I really learned this from in my timberland days, he talked about something called trust transfer. I don't know if you know, but that term. But basically what it is is it's someone giving you their trust. Right. And it occurs gradually. And what it, the way it occurs is, is it's kind of what we were saying before about celebrating the gains. But it's, it's saying if you're a leader and you come in and you say this is possible. Right? And then people see maybe we haven't got all the way to bright, but we've made a gain, they start to believe. And so I would say it's through results, it's through consistency. You know, if you're trying to remove fear from the organization, you can't be great 25 days a month and then scream at people the other five. Right. Because the trust is broken. Right. So I think it's through consistency, it's through, as I said, results, it's through follow up. I mean, I think it's really around doing what you say you will do in whatever element of the business. And I think also if things aren't working, you can't pretend that they are. So I think transparency is a big piece. And so I would say that's number one. I would say number two is I'm a big believer in communicating. Often I think the worst thing you can do in business, well, in life actually, but is sort of do these big reveals, keep people in the dark and then do this big reveal and think it's all gonna be great cause you've lost people.

Yes, Right.

And I've worked with people who I would say tied to sort of ego, but they wanted to keep everything they were working on really close to their chest and then do this big dramatic reveal at the end. I think you're sort of asking for trouble at a. The person may not be heading in the right direction and may have wasted a lot of time. But also people are left in the dark. And so in the absence of Clarity, you know, people spin and people move towards a negative. So I think communicating often, and then it's right back to what you said. It's like celebrating the wins as they happen. And it can be the smallest thing. And, you know, one of the things I was able to encourage the leadership team to do quite early on was we would start every leadership meeting with something called three good things. Super simple. And at the beginning, you know, I. I'm. I'm always someone who leads with positivity. And there are a few sniggers like, oh, you know, here comes PollyAnna talking about three good things. But I know the data shows that it changes the brain.

It changes everything. Yes.

When you can focus on positive things, it doesn't mean you avoid talking about challenges and difficult things, but there are always good things happening. Right. They've talked, you know, on a personal level, you know, we all know the power of gratitude, but, you know, I think it's the same in business. I think celebrating things that are going well, celebrating, it could be something someone on the team's. Something happened personally, you know, but I think a culture of celebration makes everyone feel like they're on a winning team.

Yeah. You know, this practice is something that I've been now training so many people and all the teams I talk about, I'm like, you know, go do this. It's not that big, but it is a massive lift. Right, Right. You know, there are two things I want to, like, start the meeting with. Two things. The first one, mindful minute, right? Just give people six breaths. Literally give them six breaths to arrive where they are so that at least they shut off the old meeting and their present. And by the way, that six breaths is allowing them to activate their parasympathetic from the sympathetic, which we most run on. But then the second is start with this. You know, what's a win? We start our meetings at Happiness Squad with what's the win for the day? We always start with what's your win? And now let's talk about what we need to do. But fundamentally, you know, Michelle, what you've done with your work is you're priming the brain away from negativity and anywhere other than present, past, future, you're bringing it to the present and you're priming it for positivity. And from that positive, above the line creative state versus a fear state. Now, I can look at the problems, but I am not having the fear response. I have a response of abundance and I can start to see patterns. I can do it with less emotional reactivity.

Yeah, and totally. And it's interesting because I'm sure you're familiar with strength finders as a leadership team. We did the exercise, and positivity is in my top five. I think it's one or two. So you came to it naturally, because what was initially something I apologized for when I realized what a strength it was, and I also realized that I was the only one on the leadership team for whom positivity was in top five. I realized not only could I use it for myself, but I could also use it as part of the team dynamics. I know you do a lot of work around team dynamics, and again, a lot of my peers had skill sets I didn't have, which is fantastic. Right? It's what you want. It's why diversity is so important. But I really, at that point stopped. Stopped apologizing and kind of making fun of my positivity and just used it as the strength it is for me.

Well, in a world that is going, you know, frankly, there is all this research that highlights from Harvard. You know, this is like almost 15 years ago, where only 20% of people are at a stage of development to thrive in complexity. 80% are basically can just barely survive. That was 10, 15 years ago with AI and all the other changes. That number has probably even further gone down in survival. We are always in our negativity zone. We are in the scarcity zone. And so for leaders like you who have, and for anybody who's done Strength finder, if positivity is a trait for you, don't hide it, lead with it, because you might create this level of positive energy for the team. You might lift them to create possibilities that are not. And that's what I'm taking away from that, Michelle.

Totally, totally.

Right.

I agree.

Even if you are the only. Even if you are the only one who has the positivity, you say, hey, guys, let me play to my strength and try and help, and I think people will appreciate. Don't say, oh, I am the only one with positivity. I'm gonna not speak up because I am the liar.

Totally agree.

Right. We have to lean into that.

Totally.

So, look, I want to talk a little bit. It would not have been, you know, you've always had a career which has taken you all over the world, right? You have a family. You know, you have a teenage son now. Right. And it's always. You've always had a full life. Right? You've always had a really, really full life in plate, in all of that. Michelle, how do you make sure what are some of your personal practices that have made sure and have helped you fill your cup so you could show up? Because we all know a sleep deprived, emotionally dysregulated leader creates, doesn't create it. And you have been one that is not. Right. So I want to know how in all of this work and things that need to get done personally, professionally, what has been your go to practices that others can learn from?

Yeah. Before I've got a few and just before I kind of talk about those, you know, I think what I would start by saying, and I say this to a lot of people that I, that I mentor and work with is that no one will protect what is most important to you more than you. Right. And that I really encourage people and these could be people who are like high achievers, high potential people in the organization, eager to go places and take on more. Is I always believe that the only person that can really protect what is most important is you.

Yep.

Right. And I don't think, I think it is unlikely and probably unreasonable that particularly I see a lot of younger people expecting their boss to play that role. Right. I think you have to know what is most important. Right. So that being said, I think that I really felt it was very important to stay healthy and to not let a role or the work drown me. So my number one sort of passion and habit is yoga. So it was interesting you were talking about, you know, back in the Vedic times and if you look at the history of yoga and the male, female balance. But yoga is my go to place that the mat, the yoga mat is my happy place. I never ever regret time spent on a yoga mat. I think from a mental kind of calm and space as well as just physically, probably even more so mentally than physically. I love everything about that space and it allows me to breathe, it allows me to settle, it allows me to calm my nervous system and clear my mind, number one. Number two, hiking. So I would not be the first person to say this, but the best ideas and solutions around the workplace and often any kind of challenge in my life comes when I'm in motion. We live in beautiful Colorado with the mountains right on our doorstep. And I find that just moving and being out with nature is, you know, it can be complex problems sometimes in a work week that I just can't kind of figure out. And then I step outside, get start moving and then it sort of reveals the solution, reveals itself to me. Yeah. And then I would say the third thing is not, not an exciting Thing but is while I was at Crocs and I was doing a lot of travel, I always made it a priority when I wasn't traveling, when I was home to always be home for dinner time for my son. So whether that was, you know, a six o' clock dinner when he was little to a little bit later when he was older. But I always wanted to have dinner with my son and my husband and you know, I might later, after he'd gone to bed, get back online and you know, deal with some emails. But it was precious time and we have a no phones at the table rule to this day. And just the things, you know, the connections you make and the time you have with your family, it's priceless. So those are some of the things I love those.

The yoga practice, how long have you had that, Michelle?

I have been doing yoga for 24 years.

Oh my God. Wow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah. And actually I just, I just did a three week course to get qualified as a yoga teacher. Not actually to teach, but to deepen my practice, which absolutely I highly recommend that.

Well, I have to do 24 weeks of yoga before I can do any of that. I think I do need to take it a daily practice. I meditate every day.

I know that.

But I don't do yoga as frequently. And getting into my 50s, I am starting to feel the aches and pains and the tightness of muscles that come from sitting in a chair or in airplane seats for a big chunk of flight of 25 years of life. Right. So yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're inspiring me, Michelle, to start doing it every day.

Highly recommend it, Highly recommend it.

And I loved, you know, yes, it is simple, but I see so many people trying to do everything and failing at everything by not being present. So this notion of what you said, listen, when I'm traveling, I'm traveling, right? But when I am here, I make the time to be present. And we don't have devices and we connect. There's so many people who are present but not present. They're like here. They try and say, I don't want to do this, I want to be really here. And then yet when they're there, they're not there. And when they're out there, they're really thinking about all the time here. And so they're basically sub optimizing everything. And I'm reminded of this beautiful saying by Indira Nui in her book where he said you can have everything in life, you just can't have everything at the same Time.

Totally agree. Totally agree.

You can have it all. You can have it all, just not at the same time.

Totally agree.

And you just need to know.

Yes, exactly. I think that very much. I talk to people about that. There are ebbs and flows and there's times where you can give business your all and there are times where you need to give, whether it's children or aging parents or whoever, but.

Or yourself. Or yourself.

Or yourself. Yourself. Exactly.

Exactly. Or yourself. It's fine. That's how it is. So, look, as we wrap up, Michelle, what advice would you give to young leaders or founders who are kind of early in their journey on how to fuel their success through what you just said when you started with the most important thing for happiness is, well, being mental and physical. What advice would you give around. Look, because the stories there are. Right. I don't have the time. I am, like, doing all of these things. Like, what advice would you give them on how they really need to do? Like, what ways can they actually do the things that you're asking them to do?

I think in terms of. For themselves, I don't think they can afford not to look after themselves and take time for themselves. As we talked about right at the beginning of the conversation, you can't catch up on good health later in your life. It's an investment. And you make a lot of withdrawals when you're older in your life and you've got to look after yourself. So I feel like everyone, particularly sort of high achievers, entrepreneurs, people at the start of their career, they just. They just want to sprint. But it's a marathon. And also it will end. And I'm not sort of being existential here, but, I mean, a role might end. You know, I've left every company I've ever worked for, and every job I've ever done has ended. And as much as you want to give it your all, I still say, when it's over, will you feel. I always think, you know, and I say this to people, will you feel good or bad about what was most important to you outside of work? Did you totally neglect it? Did you nurture it back to. No one else will protect it. So I was talking to. I mentor an executive that I've known and worked with in the past. And she. We talked a few days ago and she said to me, I missed a quarterly business review so I could go to my child's school trip and be one of the parents. And I cheered for her because we had that conversation early on. I was like, how does she show up as a leader but still be a mom. And I said, just do what's important to you. And I was cheering for her and I was high fiving, that's amazing, you know, on zoom because. And she said, and it felt so good. And I said, you'll remember that and your son will remember that day. I said, but you will have, in three months time, you will have no idea how you won't remember that meeting. Like, so what? So I think that's probably still my overall advice for people. And again, going, it sounds a little bit morbid, but one of the things I'm sort of famous for saying this is that, you know, I won't have any brand name on my gravestone.

Yes. You know, in fact, I'm reminded of Bronnie Ware's work on the five Regrets of the Dying.

Right.

And the first is I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Right, right. And people constantly, yeah. Are searching for self worth through external recognition and giving up everything else that really matters. Everybody says what matters is health and family. And yet when we look at how we spend our time, that is not the reality.

Right, Right. Yeah. If you draw a Venn diagram of the things that are important to you and the things you spend, spend most of your time on, how much course is that?

They're not intersect. They're almost in two different parts.

Right.

And what advice would you have for these leaders, for their organizations? Michelle, because there is still such little investment. There's a lot of wellness investment. Right. Gym memberships and here's a mental health app, et cetera, et cetera. But there is not real investment in the kind of things you created. Right. Come as you are. High level of trust, vulnerability, authenticity, belonging, connection. There is not enough investment going into changing the way work gets done. That creates flourishing. So what advice would you have for them? How should they think about this and why this is, you know, just from your lived experience, not just research. This is what matters.

I believe that, you know, the advice I would give people today is I would really encourage them to bring their authentic self to work. I think that is such a starting point because I believe that when you are authentic and you can be vulnerable and you can be open and you can lead with heart, I think the people around you respond accordingly. And tied to that is what we already talked about, which is, you know, treat the people you work with like you're in a long term relationship. Don't transact with them because you'll get transactions. But if you really talk to Them. You know, I mean, we've probably both been in meetings where someone just blew up and lost their shit. Am I allowed to swear here? Lost their.

You are.

And it just. Everyone freezes and, you know, it injects all this fear and adrenaline into the situation. Right. And you rupture trust in an instant. So I think it doesn't mean you can't have a bad day and everyone's human. But I think just like relationships, right, you can have. You can have a fight with someone you're close to and you haven't ruined the relationship. But I think, you know, I think you have to really appreciate your people at every level. I'm not talking about just, you know, surrounding yourselves with the people on your level or above. I'm talking about appreciating everybody.

Yeah.

You know, whether it's the guy that comes in to clean the office after everyone has left. Right. You know, the guy at the back of the warehouse trying to keep it organized. You know, I mean, every person in your organization, whatever size of your businesses plays a role. And I think you. I just really believe that, you know, those two things. If you show up authentically and treat your people well, I don't think you can go wrong.

And those will matter so much more than any wellness med benefits you give people. You know, you should do that, but don't just do that and do all these other things to make people suffer.

Because it's at odds. You can't. You can't scream and shout and create fear in an organization and then tell people, we're going to pay for your meditation app.

Look, this has been such an amazing conversation, Michelle. Right. I think I. You are one of those leaders that I've always admired. You know, it's so grateful to have you as a friend because leaders like you are not that common in the world who have lived. And, you know, there are people say that who have really, through their experience and through their results, shown that it is possible to win through creating a caring culture through investing in a flourishing organization versus burning people out to get to the results that we need, which, by the way, are not sustainable. So thank you for being that amazing role model, that great leader that you are.

Thank you. Thank you. I've loved this conversation. It's such a fun topic to talk about.

Be well.

Yes. Take care. Thanks again for having me.

That wraps up another episode of the Happiness Squad podcast. We hope you found the insights actionable to enhance your journey towards happiness and. 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.