Jenn Lim: Happiness Evangelist and Author of Beyond Happiness

Here's something remarkable and not in a good way. Disengaged employees cost US companies almost $1.9 trillion a year. That's a lot of zeros. Why? Because when teams lack the right skills, productivity declines, turnover increases and strategies stagnate. But it doesn't have to be that way. At Project Management Institute, home of the PMP and globally recognized certifications, your people can learn to collaborate, deliver on time and actually get things the cost of not upskilling way higher than the investment Project Management Institute. Find the answers@pmi.org.

I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. Our guest today is Jen Lim. Jen is the CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of Delivering Happiness, a company that inspires people to achieve passion, happiness and purpose. She is also an author, speaker and entrepreneur. She was a consultant at Zappos for eight years from 2003 to 2011. In 2010 she managed the launch of the book Delivering Happiness by the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh. This book hit number one on bestseller list including the New York Times and USA Today. It sold approximately 1 million copies. What started as a book morphed into a company and a global happiness movement. Jen is part of the Global Happiness Council of Work and well Being and on the advisory board for Springboard, an initiative led by Geisinger Health Systems. During her time at Zappos, she created the first of several Zappos culture books. They served as a global footprint for how companies can leverage culture and happiness to increase productivity and profitability. Jen believes that happier employees equals happier customers equals successful company. She challenges people to look beyond society's definition of success, status, title and money and redefine what happiness looks like on both an individual and company wide basis. Her motto is Change your world, then change the world. She recently published a new book called Beyond How Authentic Leaders Prioritize Purpose and and People for Growth and Impact. This episode of Remarkable People is brought to you by Remarkable the Paper Tablet Company. Yes, you got that right. Remarkable is sponsored by Remarkable. I have Version two in my hot little hands and it's so good. A very impressive upgrade. Here's how I use it. 1. Taking notes while I'm interviewing a podcast guest. 2. Taking notes while being brief about speaking gigs. 3. Drafting the structure of keynote speeches. 4. Storing manuals for the gizmos that I buy. 5. Roughing out drawings for things like surfboards, surfboard sheds and office layouts. 6. Wrapping my head around complex ideas with diagrams and flowcharts. This is a remarkably well thought out product. It doesn't try to be all things to all people, but it takes notes better than anything I've used. Check out the recent reviews of the latest version. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is remarkable people. And now, here's the remarkable Jen Lim. You mentioned your cat. You actually called it a cadaver cat. And you say that the cat's name is Mandu. And then in parentheses, you say, see what I did there? And I read that. I said, what did she do? So first I go to Google. I look up Mandu. Mandu is Korean for dumplings. I. She named her cat after dumplings. I can understand that, but is it some play on man doing or what? So clearly I didn't get it. So what did you do there?

That's hilarious. Oh, my God. Not that you feel bad about this, but if it makes me feel any better, you're the second person that's asking me that.

Yeah, but two people tell you you're drunk, you catch a cab.

I was in high school, and this is like AP Biology, so my partner and I named our Katmandu. So it's Kathmandu. Hey, would you like to meet our cat?

Okay. I wasted a lot of cycles thinking about, man, there's something deep there.

Dude, that's. That's making my whole day, if not week.

I think that that's a good acid test for when podcasters and Good Morning America interviews you. If they don't ask that question, they obviously didn't read the manuscript carefully.

That's true. Yeah. I should throw back that question. Hey, what do you think about Kathmandu? Yeah. Love that. That's your first question.

I have to go back a few years, and I'll tell you. I visited Zappos in Las Vegas, and I just have the fondest memories of that visit. There was some royalty chair you sat in. Do you remember that chair?

Yes.

Yeah, I, like, had people kiss my ring and stuff, and then as you walk through department, they would just erupt in cheers and all that. There's not a question here. I just want to tell you, man, those were the days.

Yeah, totally. I remember that chair. Are you saying, Guy, that, like, people don't kiss your ring every day? No, I just imagine that because I read somewhere that you're like the. What is it? Mercedes Benz Ambassador. That's probably part of the package.

I hate to burst your bubble, but it's not that good to be Guy. So, going back into Zappos history, can you just explain how you came to the decision of paying shipping both ways?

It was all Tony's Tony's ideation, you've known him for a long time. Basically his ideas come from what's the opposite of what people think is the right idea. And at that time, this is back in the day, E commerce was just happening. The Internet was just happening. Who would pay for shoes online? It's ridiculous. And it's not even shoes online. It's just anything online was like, you buy it, you keep it, unless you want to pay it to come back. But I think that was for him just thinking in the way that he does in another level of what's the biggest barrier of someone buying shoes online? Well, I'd like to try them on and I want to be able to get the one that I want. So for him that was the no brainer of, well, no one's really doing this anyway, in general. And it breaks down the barrier of us trying to sell shoes for the business.

I wrote a book called Enchantment and one of the I remember and one of the key qualities is you have to prove that you're trustworthy. And the key way to prove you're trustworthy is to figure out that the onus is upon you. So before you can be trusted, you have to trust the other person. You have to trust the other person first. And so I cite this Zappos example that this is a case where the company said we trust you before you even trust us. I cite it to this day. I don't know, maybe you had a part of this too. But if you buy, I hope it's still true. If you buy shoes on the leap year on February 29, you have four years to return it.

I didn't know that specifically, but I'm not surprised. That's probably part of the rules of return policy on their site.

So with hindsight, if there was any impact this way, do you think that Zappos changed Amazon or Amazon changed the.

Zappos at that time of acquisition? This was almost 10, 10 years now. I think so because Amazon back in the day, they created their own shoe brand. I forgot what it was. I didn't think it was supposed to try and go head to head with Zappos, Zappos of the world. And they eventually had to shut it down. So I think they acquired Zappos. So I think they were pieces because Amazon was already becoming like a behemoth at that moment and now it's even more. But it was growing in ways of just what they were double down on. So it was being high tech, not high touch, which Tony talked About a lot in terms of Zappos being the high touch company, whereas Amazon's high tech. So I think after the acquisition there were things that Amazon picked up from what Zappos did and more and more companies started to do. At that point they intentionally signed something. So between Jeff and Antoni they signed this. Part of the agreement was they won't touch each other, Amazon won't touch their culture as oppos culture and all that. So that was ingrained in the understanding of the agreement. But I think there's definitely things that, because Jeff and Tony, I think they connected because they were long term thinkers in very different ways. Their personalities are very different, but they were always thinking long term. And I think Jeff was more on the customer side, long term thinking there and then Tony was on the culture side and how that impacts customers. But that's where they align. Yeah. Amazon probably took some notes of what it meant to run a people positive and culture driven company. But at the end of the day, like when you acquire a company that's someone's boss when it comes down to it.

One more policy that I'd love to know the history of and I suppose again you're going to tell me this was Tony's idea, but this concept of if you don't like this job will pay you go away. How did that come to be?

Yeah, I can't say for sure. That was all Tony's idea. But I wouldn't be surprised. It was mostly Tony's idea. A lot of Tony's ideas, it's like it gets thrown out there and then it just, it, it builds, you know, because he just, he's just spitballing things or he was spitballing things all the time. And some of it's like what crazy. And some of it was, well, that kid actually might work. So yeah, the whole thing was basically paying people to quit. So as people were getting recruited and going through the whole training program, they had the option to opt out and take in. And at that time it started a hundred bucks, 200 bucks back in the day. And then it slowly grew and I'm honestly like now you know that Zappos is being run by a different team and CEO. I don't know if they're doing it anymore, but it just grew and grew to like thousands of dollars or whatever equal to your first month of salary. I think that's it landed last. Yeah. So the whole intention there was hey, we're gonna help ourselves weed and filter the process. Because if you're willing to Take this money, then that means that you're not really in. Bought into what we believe in. And those are purpose and there are 10 values and all that. So. So in the end he saw it as. And Zappos back then saw it as a way for saving them money because we all know it just takes at least one to two times that person's salary to find someone to replace if you go through the training and all that. So it's more of a positive way to weed out people that are not aligned with this idea of do you really want to live out our purpose values in Zappos culture?

And from your recollection, did dozens, hundreds or thousands of people take you up on this?

I think the percentage was around 2 to 4%, if I remember right. So depending on that year, I'm not sure. But it was a healthy enough percentage and for. To have that automatic sort of weeding process. Weed sounds pretty harsh, but filtering of alignment.

You cited in your book the guy whose company Everybody gets paid 90,000 or something like that.

Right.

And how well that's done. Yeah, that seems to be a kind of a Tony idea. Tonyism, right?

Yeah, I guess. I mean, that wasn't a Tony idea though. That was Dan. So Dan Price, he's the CEO Gravity Payments up in Seattle. And he. I think we talked to him right around that time after they made the decision. He became a poster child over the next wave of what it looks like to. To pay and treat people fairly. But yeah, that was Dan's idea and he's still living by it. He's doing really things that people would think that are a little bit too controversial because in the end of the day, like, that causes risks within the company too. Like some people are like, wait, what? I'm doing a lot of work and all of a sudden I don't get a pay raise. But, you know, so and so and so it's automatically at 75K. And that was based on a psychological study they did on what the cusp is for once you make more than 75k based on the study. There's been studies that have kind of like questioned that since then, but basically they said that you don't necessarily get happier after that point. And so that's why he. Based on that. And he's still doing it. So some. Something must be going.

All right, so I have one more sort of nostalgic question. So one of my happiest memories of your book and south by Southwest and Tony was the Delivering Happiness bus tour. So can you Just tell us about the bus tour.

Yeah, yeah, we're going back memory lane. We've known each other for a while, guy. The idea was basically germinated from, you know, like book tours back then when they can actually be physical. Not anymore. This is like hopping from bookstore to bookstore across the country, just basically flying here and there and there, doing a little talk or, you know, reading for the book and then leaving. And so Tony and I were just like, that kind of sounds a little bit boring. And part of it, the idea, it was kind of self serving too because we never really went cross country on a bus before. And so that was, it was kind of, well, we should do something fun like not just, you know, for the tour, but for ourselves, for the team. So that's how it all came about. And just timing wise, it so happened that south by was the first time to test this bus thing. We didn't have the, the official, like, you know, big touring bus yet. We just rented a school bus in Austin, had it like, you know, wrapped with our, our branding and everything and just drove it around. And it was just some, one of those like random ideas of like, and let's just carry the message and give people rides and have a phone charger if they needed like, you know, if their phone was already, you know, was dying and it became a thing. And eventually because we did that for a few years and it was so fun because people didn't know, of course we had like music and people partying on the bus. After a few years the south by team said, you guys can't do that anymore or you have to pay for it. Something like that. It's like, okay, we're just trying to help out, you know, we're giving rides. But anyway, it was, it was a fun lot.

We need to get rid of this 800 pound gorilla that people listening to this podcast are probably wondering about. And I bet in every interview for this book it's going to be the gorilla and this is Tony's death. And if you were to read reports, depression, drug addiction, etc, etc, etc, I would like you to shed the light upon what happened and what's the lesson? What's the message? Because I bet many people are thinking, well, if Tony Hsieh can't be happy, who can be happy?

Mm, yeah, way to load that question 18 minutes into the conversation. No, it's totally fair. There's so many ways that I can approach this conversation or this question and I am not trying to skirt around it by any means. And I'm Going to be as direct as I can and being from my own sense of. I mean, I'm just speaking for myself at this point, right? Like, just to give a bit of backstory. So basically, Tony passed right after Thanksgiving in 2020, and I had five weeks to finish this book. And so there was just nothing in me that could do that. Publisher was nice and understanding, gave me more time, but I'm painting that picture because to give the background of what I was trying to process, of what happened to Tony, to be specific to your question, at the same time, write this book. And so as, like, you've now seen the book, the content of it was the same as it was before Tony passed, but basically there were bigger concepts of stories of life and death. Writing your eulogy instead of your resume, everyone, I think we can safely say, experienced life and death during the last 18 months or so. So I really was trying to process and contextualize everything that was coming through, not just through media, because there was a lot of different extremes of hearsay and people that thought they were, like, trusted people to speak their mind. And for me, I can only speak from, like, the last time I saw Tony was in July in Park City. And up until then, I would say the sequence of events that happened that led up to me seeing him in person and seeing where he was at, who he was surrounded by, things he was doing. I've known Tony for 20, since 99, so, like, 22 years. And it was just, you know, like, when you see someone that you've known for a long time, or even not even known for a long time, just when you know someone and you sense that there's been a shift. And so for me, I knew there was a shift. And I've talked to so many people about this, and I tried to piece everything together as to what actually happened. And there's always the truth and everyone else's perspective is the truth. So from what I can piece together that it's just impossible to say it was just one thing. There's just so many combinations of factors, I think, leading up to this again, to the time that I saw him, to this passing a few months later, that things were just not adding up in a way that the Tony that I was talking to and experiencing was not the Tony that I met or had been so connected with in all these different levels, you know, from mind and heart. And I think spirituality, for me, I think it doesn't do his passing justice to try and minimize it to, like, one or two things. Was it just like his. Did he have a mental breakdown because of COVID You know, these are things that were swimming around in the media at the time and swirling into all these other hypothesis hypotheses. So there's just no way to boil it down to one thing. But I would say that what I do know was that Tony that I saw last, it's not to say that he wasn't all there. He was like he's Tony's the master of making sure. Like he speaks out his mind and brain and it just comes out and that was still there. Like you tell, you know, amazing ideas sometimes really crazy, batshit crazy ideas and all that. But it was just a. I think as you've known met Tony along the way, like he's just so grounded and, and chill and mellow. And it was a different state of Tony that I never really quite experienced. So I would say that there's just no one answer. I would say that there were sequences of events along the way that led up ultimately to his passing. And that's why in the end of it all, that's why I didn't even have the title Beyond Happiness yet until after I finished the book and after I tried to process everything. And that's why I was leaning in towards what Tony and I launched with delivering happiness in 2010. And it became more of Beyond Happiness because the aspect of being real with ourselves and self aware of what is going well in our lives and our strengths and celebrating those highs. But I think part of Beyond Happiness is also understanding and being self aware of our low points and what might not be going right and knowing that there's a lot of self awareness points in being able to reflect on that. But it's also being around the right people to help share when they see things that are not right. So it's both me and self and the people that you choose to be around. I don't know if that answers your question directly because I do want to do. I just try to honor. Especially because there's been so much media and so many questions and people reaching out. My. My way of honoring Tony and his legacy is with writing this book, with what I talk about in what I saw and keeping Delivering Happiness on because we can all focus on what went wrong and come up with all these thoughts and ideas and questions because we all want to understand death. But I think that there were so many positives that he did create and bring to the world and Delivering Happiness was just one of them. He ran Zappos and Downtown Project in Vegas and all that stuff. So that's my ultimate goal of being real. This is all real talk. Beyond happiness is like, look, look, we're gonna have shitty days and we're actually gonna have shitty lives. Sometimes. We're gonna have. We're gonna endure and have to try and be resilient as we can, even though sometimes it doesn't even seem we can even get there or can't even imagine how we can even be grounded in life because of all these swirls around us. So I think part of the reason our messages about this is Tony. He led a life that he was, as I say, like, he's tenaciously true to himself. And there were amazing things about that. And at some times, I think there was probably some not so amazing things that came out of just powering through of what he believed in. I would say the majority is amazing. And. But in the end, I think it's by choice of what he wants. Wanted to do. But it can get to a different place for people as individuals. So I don't know if that's too much of a layered, vague answer, but there's a.

May I interpret as saying that the lesson may be that happiness is not necessarily a steady, permanent state, that there are episodes of ups and downs, and that's the lesson.

Exactly. Yeah. Did you read the book? I can tell you did.

If the podcast or an interviewer doesn't read the book. Hell, I asked about Kathmandu much.

I know you did. That's my favorite. No, it totally is about that. And I call it the Heartbeats exercise. So, like, happiness heartbeats. It's like basically, if you. You can focus on your highs and understand what those moments are your whole life, but then if you don't understand your lows and then you don't. If you don't learn from them, what values were there, what people were there, then it's too much of a binary state of happiness because then it becomes a state. I'm sorry. Then it becomes a moment versus a state overall that I think what true sustainable happiness is about. So the more real we can get with ourselves, then I think that taps into things. Mental health right now, or all these things that are happening. Sorry, the Olympics and all that stuff. So I think it's just really just getting real with ourselves to understand that.

So perhaps it would be very useful to step backwards for the listener and just define happiness.

So for us in the book Delivering Happiness and this one, Beyond Happiness, I do. Tony, in his book, in mine, do recap. Because we really want to base it on like our purpose was to bring it on back on the science in scientific happiness through all the research, it brings it back to you. Just a few simple things. So number one is, and I'm just going to use layman's terms, not the scientific terms, but more of number one is being true to you and as we said, weird self. But number one, being true to your authentic self. And that's the sense of, as I mentioned earlier, of like self awareness, of really being able to be full and holistic and not just concentrating on what we're good at, but also being real with what we're not so good at or what's not going well in life. That's the first part of definition of happiness. The second is more of the pleasure. So there's the pleasures in life that we get happiness from. I don't know, you driving your Mercedes because you're the ambassador or whatever or someone kissing your ring. You must get pleasure out of that.

I hope you give me more credit than that. But okay.

Yeah, I don't know, like going out with your buddies and getting dinner, drinks or going on the golf course. Let's just say could be anything.

Just so you, you don't wonder, the greatest form of happiness for me is surfing with my children.

Okay, so that's definitely more meaningful than getting your thank you ring kissed. I was going to get to that. So that's the. You already called it out. So that's the second thing. So it's like the pleasure form of happiness. So. But the third most in terms of the definition of happiness, most sustainable way is the most meaningful stuff, the higher purpose stuff of what's beyond yourself. And so when you describe that, it's not only are you having an amazing time surfing, you're doing it with the people you love. So that's really directly connected to your higher purpose. And what guy exists as beyond him? So those again, going back to science, it's what basically defines happiness. And the thing is, happiness is so subjective, right? Surfing with kids is for you. But that's what I think. The beauty of how this has evolved over the last 11 years, this whole topic is that it's a science and so it doesn't mean it's set in stone. It keeps on evolving. But the beauty of happiness is that it's so subjective and we get to define it for ourselves and we get to test it within ourselves. Is that truly what makes me happy is buying that car or getting a raise or getting a promotion? Is that truly making me Happy or is it really doing the things that we talked about, like being out in nature, being with people you love, doing something within your own superpower can do and no one else, and being in that zone. So that's how it's being broken down in terms of happiness.

So if that's happiness, what is beyond that? What is beyond happiness?

Yeah. So beyond it is taking what we normally think happiness means to us and taking it to the further step of what I've been alluding to with your questions about Tony, questions about mental health. Because I think when we hear the word happiness, we automatically have things in our head. Especially in the workplace, when you, like, you bring it up, they're like, what does happiness mean there CFOs think, oh, I don't want rainbows and unicorns in my workplace. We're here to make money. That's not happiness to them. But that's not what this is about. It's the purpose of staying beyond is to really just stretch our minds a little bit more. Especially after the last 18 months where everyone had a bit of time to think much more about, wait, I'm waking up in the morning and I'm doing what? Or wait, this is my day to day things. Is it job or duties or is this really how I want to spend my life? And so the whole, as you know, like the great resignation, as they're calling it, or the great awakening that people are quitting Left and right. 4 million people in April in the US alone quit their jobs. And a lot of them didn't even have another job to go to, nor did they care. Because, you know, I can't take this anymore. I can't go in the office and people are, My company's making me go and I have a kid to take care of. You know, those things where people are making a stand. And so that's why I wanted to stretch the conversation in a way that it's not. Happiness is not necessarily what we used to think. And I've had so many conversations with people who are like, you know what? I don't even know what happiness means for me anymore. And that's where I'm trying to invite the dialogue is, that's okay. And this is the best time to define it or redefine it.

What is the relationship between money and happiness? And I don't think it's as simple as making 75 grand a year. So what is the relationship?

Yeah, you know what? So that, that really brings me back to so Maslow's hierarchy. A lot of people are familiar with that. And it's a pyramid. You need your physiological needs and then it goes up all the way to self actualization as he calls it. So basically finding your own purpose. And what I found interesting, and I didn't realize more until I started researching for this book is what is that? He actually expanded on that and so it was interesting is that he thought it was a pyramid that you go step, step, step, step up. So if you don't have your base physiological needs or money, then you can't be self actualized. And what I found is that that's not the truth. You can have some physiological needs, maybe not all. You can have some money, but maybe none at all. Very little. And be more self actualized than someone who has $75,000 and running a great company or whatever has a good role and be more self actualized than that. So from an anecdotal standpoint, like when I actually Tony and I were in Kilimanjaro, we climbed back in the day, went to Africa to a little town called Arusha. This was right after 9 11. So the world was all the world was in a different kind of 189/11 happened.com crash and me personally, I found out my dad had colon cancer. So for me my world was like, you know, what the hell is going on? We go to Arusha and we had to acclimate, right? So a few days walking around and we go visit people in their homes and they're made of huts, they're made of dung, you know, like poop basically. And they welcome us in there and they have nothing and they just like biscuit or tea, you know, like anything they had, they just, they just seemed like they had this intrinsic happiness, you know, like I call it crow's feet happiness in the book because you can tell when someone's really smiling and not just their mouth. And that's what struck me at that time, and this was 20 odd years ago of seeing that you don't have to have money to get to that place or other different physiological needs. There's a certain level of I guess being true to yourself and self aware and finding meaning out of life primarily. And I can go on with so many other examples of people that are like cleaning bathrooms for a living or a custodian at a hospital and they truly have purpose and have meaningful happiness. So to answer your question, yeah, it's not a requirement nor is it 75,000.

And what is the name of this state that is above Maslow's self actualization.

This is what was interesting during the research of the book. I was like, wait, he already said it? Because I was trying to explain it my own ways. And then I realized right before he passed, he added the last pinnacle of the peak of the pyramid, and he calls it transcendence. And so for him it meant that you're not just self actualizing for yourself, you're actually self actualizing for others. And that's true peak of what for him in terms of his hierarchy is. And so that's what I was just like, amazing. So he's already realized that in this way. And I was just trying to write about how he could actually do that within an organization. Because I think for us as leaders, no matter if you're a CEO or any kind of leader in your own right, we do have choices to be able to do that kind of level of not just self actualization for ourselves, but transcendence and helping others. So the metaphor in the book is nurture your own greenhouse as you grow others. And one of the lessons learned is when you don't nurture your own greenhouse, then things can go awry. Or if you intentionally want to do that, that's also your choice too. But as leaders, I think we all get caught up in just wanting to help, wanting to help, wanting to help and grow other greenhouses. But sometimes we forget our own oxygen mask, probably because we don't fly anymore as much we don't hear the message. So just having those intended nurturing greenhouse first. And as you grow others.

I would make the case that we should pull back all the psychology books in the world and add transcendence to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Because that is a very big difference between self actualization and transcendence. And it would be a shame for everybody who takes psych one to think, okay, self actualization, that's the end game. It's not. You're still on the one yard line, so that would be nice. Let me ask you something. So you did the audiobook yourself?

I did. I had auditioned for it. Do you. Did you have to do it?

I have done one, but it is so hard. I think for every hour of actual what happens in the audiobook, there's probably five or six hours of takes and retakes. And it drove me crazy. At the end, I just said, send me some samples, I'll pick a voice. I am not going to do this. No, the fact that you and Michelle Obama both did it, my hat's off to you. But man, it was too painful for me to do.

It was. Well, I think I got more forewarned. People are just even like, I didn't know I would have to audition. So they're like, are you sure you want to do this? And I'm, what am I getting into? It's a freaking marathon. And I'm like, okay.

God, it's horrible. And you know what else? And I've used this when writing because I noticed this when I tried to do my audible book, is that when you hear your book, you pick up mistakes you never would have seen after you read the draft 30 times. So now as part of my writing process, Microsoft Word and other things, you can have it read to you. So I have my manuscript read to me. So I listen to catch mistakes as a form of editing.

Oh, interesting. That's kind of cool.

I'm OCD that way. I don't recommend that either. You would hear when you say, I don't know, let's say you. In three consecutive sentence, you use the word heirloom. And you wouldn't see that, but you would say, I just said heirloom. I just said heirloom. I just said heirloom. And picks it up. But anyway, I digress.

Anyway, no, no, that's cool. That's a good tip because I think it can make me a better writer. After I did the audiobook, I do have to read this out loud for myself.

Yeah, yeah.

Or someone.

I want to ask you, because many people are business listeners here. What is the economic value of happiness in a company?

Yeah, so this has been a big one for us because coming out of Zappos, it was like, oh, yeah, that's cool. So they happen to be a billion dollar company because of happiness. That's great for them. So it became our onus and on our shoulders, actually. It can happen for you. And people are like, what? How? Why? You know, senior leadership especially. I mentioned CFO earlier. No offense, but they're just. That doesn't make sense. But we've just been able to show that, whether it's Harvard Business Review or our own clients or the Economist, if you. You don't even have to. Let's just say, to make it easier, don't even use the word happiness. Just actually. Just say treating people as assets instead of liabilities. And when you see it that way, then you show that you're actually the investment that you're making into them. Do you want it to depreciate or do you actually want to add value to the company? And by the fact that you're already investing money, why not invest it in ways that will make them more productive and make them more engaged and actually make them more loyal and brand ambassadors, etc. Down the line. So all those different metrics of take out the word happiness if it conjures up rainbows and unicorns, but bring in the word of just making sure that you're taking care of your assets and they're actually called people. And so when you see that in that way, in that light, that actually you're gaining an ROI out of it. And so when I talk about not just return of investment, you're also rippling your impact because then everyone in your organization is becoming that much stronger towards your goals, have greater alignment because you take care of your people, they'll take care of you. That's at the end of the day, that's in or outside of business. And then it's amazing because you see is like you treat them as a whole human being. They have a life outside of work and we want to respect that. And now more than ever, right. Zoom Land is taking over. There's hardly any separation. It's totally work life integration. And then you expand that to your teams and being able to still instill purpose and values that I shared about before. And then you see that ripple effect. And then to your customers, they see that too, because of that alignment internally, purpose and values and the kind of products and services that you put out there are in line with that. Then your customers and your ecosystem of partners and vendors. And now more than ever, we're seeing the impact in society and planets, our planets, Mars for Elon and Jeff. But the whole ripple is so interconnected, guys. You can see that they can all coexist. And it's an expectation now, especially if you want to keep the right people, bring on the right people that are aligned with what you want to do most. It's almost a given and it's a necessary thing to be able to have those kind of conversations in a transparent, honest way and to make sure that they are going to make an impact that's aligned with your purpose and values beyond making money.

So much of this book is about the alignment of values and beliefs and these kinds of things between employees and companies. So if I'm an employee or prospective employee, how do I identify what the company's values are? I mean, it's not as simple as I'll go read the about page on the company's website. So how do you assess what their values are?

Yeah, I think the that question actually is at least it's more easier to assess now because usually in the past it's just you go to the about page and they see like, who's like, you know, Enron, Their value was integrity. It's oh really? How'd that work? But then now we have things Glassdoor, LinkedIn and all these tools that are being more transparent about what's actually happening behind closed doors. If I was an individual that is looking for a change in my life, a new place, I would go by that first. What are the things I stand for? What are these companies that stand for that are aligned with me? So whether it's Patagonia or Toms or you know, whatever it might be, there's all these different companies that are putting it out there and actually being more accountable. Time will tell. There's a lot of, you know, Microsoft, Google, Starbucks, they're saying we're going to help climate change by this by 2030. I'm just putting that out there. There are statements being made that have not been made in a way that we most prioritize the most for ourselves. Look for those kind of brands that at least speak that way. And then as part of the process of interviewing, it's always been a two way street anyway and that's ideally of talking to people and actually getting behind what's beyond the glossy words in the wall of what their values and purpose are. So the tools online, there's a lot of. And you can go to Reddit, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff that I've read it of companies and then in the end of the day, if you feel there's a match and there's a good alignment, then just asking honest questions about with people that are there that are going to be part of your team, especially if it's a big company. The most important thing is that people are going to actually work with on a day to day basis. And if you sense that they're not really, they're kind of like hiding from the truth or glossing over things that they want to make a good impression, then you already know that's not a good fit because then they're going to treat you that way too. You're not going to be able to be yourself.

Let's suppose that you're considering a job for a Mountain View based company who professes to do no harm. And then you read, oh, former general counsel, dated someone in the legal department, got her pregnant, left her, then married somebody else, then left with $200 million, former division head accused of sexual harassment leaves with $90 million. Are those two data points, are they outliers or do I create a judgment that I can't possibly work at that company? How do you. No company is perfect. But then there are some data points there.

How do you interpret that? Yeah, yeah. Number one is these questions are going to come all the time in our lives. Whether it's do I take this job or do I move or stay where I'm at or do I get in this relationship. These are, these are kind of, these broader questions of major life moves for ourselves. And so that's why I think it's so important just to go through those exercises within ourselves of putting that stake in the ground of who we are as people. So again, going to go back to purpose and values. And this is not like a huge exercise. It's asking yourself what your purpose is. It's thinking about what lights you up or like fires you up. It could be great, energetic, wise or makes you pissed off. What is your talents and what's your impact that you want to make? And that those three questions just right there, if you just answer that really quickly, you get a sense of what your purpose statement is and that's a draft and then evolves over time. And then the values part of it is during the dot com days my values were all about money, title, status and then I got laid off and 911 happened and then my dad passed away. So I'm. That was wrong. So then my values became well what does it really mean? What matters the most is people authenticity and freedom for myself. But when we go through these exercises and just don't even think twice about it, think too much about it, just where you are as a snapshot in life, then those kind of questions of do I join this company because of what you mentioned of XYZ reasons of this person did this, this person did that, then at least you have your base because if that's just more like just foundationally wrong to you and you're just not going to be able to wake up and say I'm so excited to be part of this company, then that's just a total red flag and a no brainer. I also think that sometimes companies get cast as evil even though there are a lot of good people in there. So I think it's largely depends on who the leaders are. And I mentioned earlier it's so important to meet the team that you're on and who's leading that there's companies out there that we know had bad decisions made, whether it's Uber or Wells Fargo or Volkswagen Wagon, I'm not throwing them under the bus because this is true, this is what happened. But we also know there could be good people, especially if they're good cultures that breed good people. Then I would see that more as an outlier. This was just a bad apple. But I can see that the rest of the company isn't indicative of this one person.

I want to get some tactical answers. Pretending that I'm an executive, I'm a happiness officer, I'm an hr, not necessarily general counsel, though you don't have to worry about general counsel. And I, I'm listening to this as well. This person really understands happiness and culture and values in a company. So I got these really tactical questions. Yeah, Number one, how can management connect better to employees?

Yes. That is such a timely question, guy, because going back to the whole great awakening, great resignation, there's a reason why that's happening. And it's not just some people that are self reflecting. It's just I think the statistics is still true. The majority of the reason why people leave in the first place is because of their relationship with their manager or their boss, not necessarily all the other stuff going on because that's what they have to work with every day. So there's the conceptual side. So like we hear all the time, Brene Brown talks about being vulnerable. If you're vulnerable, then others will be vulnerable. The trust aspect, if you exhibit that trust that you talked about this at the beginning of the conversation, you trust them first, they'll trust you too. Just leading by that. So more tactical way that I talk about too in and how we've seen it, really effective is there's an exercise called so Wheel of Wholeness. You can picture pie. There's different pie pieces and everyone has their own different pie pieces. But general categories that we do is so there's a mental piece, there's an emotional piece, there's a relational piece, there's financial piece, there's physical piece, there's spiritual or fun. These pieces are all basically you pick which ones that are most important to you as individuals. That's your whole wheel of wholeness. And so how that becomes a more engaged conversation. If you could imagine, if you ask everyone in your team to self evaluate where they are in that wheel of wholeness. So basically put little dots as to where they are from a scale of 1 to 10, and then it becomes a dialogue. And it's not to say the manager has to Fix everything. That's not the point at all. It's more of understanding. This person is a more whole person of people outside of what they bring to the workplace, from skills and responsibilities to where they are in life. So that's a more sincere, practical way to show that the manager really wants to understand this stuff and not to say that again. It becomes a dialogue. This is more of a mirror of where you're at. I can help where I can, but there are things that also that is on the onus of the employee. So I found that to be just so much more natural in having a real conversation about what it means to engage even being as vulnerable and honest and true and trusting as we are as leaders. Until we actually ask these kind of questions and truly listen, then that level of engagement will still be having this sense of hierarchy that people are less patient to deal with these days.

Second tactical question, how do you detect toxic people?

So the most effective way that we've seen it work because sometimes, sometimes it's. It becomes too personal. So and so did this and they're like toxic to the culture and it's a bad hire or a bad wrong fit. But the reality is that that person's coming from somewhere that you don't know you can actually trust. So that's why we're so big on not just defining values on the wall, but behaviors that stem from them and that becomes and makes everything so much more black and white. Going back to Enron, not just living by this whole what integrity means. What does that mean? Well, it means that squandering billions of dollars from your customers, that that would be not having integrity. So for the value of communication, what does that mean? Well, it's actually listening before you speak in response. It's actually making it more democratic in how we share ideas so that it's not just the extrovert. We're going to use Google Docs for this particular exercise so everyone can just input in their ideas at the same time in this Google Doc and becomes more democratized as to whose ideas are being shared. So by embedding those specific behavior behaviors, then it doesn't become a subjective accusation of like, dude, like guy's kind of being a jerk. So I don't really think he belongs on the team. It's specifically like, dude, this guy just. Or woman, whatever, constantly just, you know, man or woman splains over everyone else even though they haven't even spoken yet. So when you have it that black and white. And the key to all this too is Accountability is actually rewarding, recognizing and incentivizing by it. So if you're not living by these things and you're like an amazing salesperson, totally kick ass rock star, but you're not communicating respect or you're over, you know, you're mansplaining or whatever, then by being a good leader, you're actually showing that this person is going to get coached and if he or she doesn't learn, this is not a good fit for him or her going forward. So being accountable on both ends from the employee side and the leadership side, saying like these values and behaviors actually mean something, that's when you get a clear definition of what's toxic.

Third tactical question, how do you foster a happy virtual team?

Yeah, that's a billion dollar question right now. Because everyone's just what do we do? Yeah. So for us there's been, it's not just been DH, we've been remote since we started in 2010. Other companies Automatic, they've been remote for a long time. And these kind of companies that knowing that they've existed and can actually grow and thrive, it's just a testament to. Even though it seems chaotic when the pandemic hit and we all had to be remote and now hybrid, it just shows that there are ways to actually create meaningful relationships and productive and effective ones through remote working. So culture, for us, part of it is just reminding people on a day to day basis of what culture is. So like what are your values? So as an example, one of the things we would do, instead of diving into the agenda and getting boom, boom, boom, here's our meeting. We just take five, 10 minutes, maybe five. Whatever it is that feels most comfortable for your culture to set aside time for connection. And that connection could be going around Robin, around the maybe if it's five, 10 people really quickly being able to say, what values have you seen being lived this today or yesterday? Who in this room do you want to call and say like give them a shout out because they did something that wowed you or something, something. So those connections become culture. In the end of the day, it's because you're creating something more meaningful than just diving into the work. And it can be fun too. So some of the time. Do you remember that show Cribs? MTV Cribs as an example? So everyone's working at home right now. So part of it is just every week, other week or whatever, people do their own episode of Cribs. So they walk around with their favorite hip hop song on and just show like, where do they work? And then it becomes more of like, hey, I know this person more than just what Netflix show they watch or whatever banter you get. So that's on the fun side. But I think the values piece is so important because once you start inviting those kind of conversations and it can be quick, how are you feeling today? Or and everyone just puts it in the zoom chat immediately. At the same time, just ask a poignant question, what was the most meaningful thing that happened? Or something like that. And just they all input at the same time and it happens very quick and everyone gets to see exactly where everyone's at. Then that's more of building culture beyond just the typical water cooler talk, so to speak.

Two more questions.

Okay. Okay.

First one is, and I truly do mean this, I want you to be absolutely scrupulously honest. Okay.

Because I haven't yet.

No, no, no. Because of the nature of the question that's coming up, up. And if your answer is really negative, I might cut your answer. But to be scrupulously honest on my side. So you talk a lot about eulogies and purpose in life and all that. So I want you to grade my eulogy.

Grade your eulogy? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So before I die, I'm going to tell people, okay. When you eulogize me, this is what I want said. Okay?

Okay.

And it's only three words. I just want my eulogy to be Guy empowered people. So how is that as a eulogy.

From a grading scale? That sounds like an A to me.

I wasn't fishing for a column and I really want to know.

Okay. Yeah, I mean that. But in many ways that's transcendence. Wow. That's your own version, the Guy version, which is perfect because you should be defining your eulogy anyway. Yeah, that's transcendence. You're just trying to help others self actualize. You use the word empower, but essentially that's your reason for existence and that's what you want to hear. When people, when that time comes and they're talking about Guy, they'll say, guy empowered people.

Shit.

How amazing is that?

When I see Maslow, I'm gonna give him a high five.

Say hi to. Say hi to Tony and my dad too. Okay?

I'll send him your love. I'll see him before you will. The Remarkable Tablet company sponsors the Remarkable People podcast. Makes total sense. It's as if somebody planned it this way. But nothing could be further than the truth. Having said that, it really has worked out quite well for both of us. I Ask each guest how they do their best and deepest thinking. Because the remarkable tablet is all about doing your best and deepest thinking, primarily because it helps you focus. No social media, no email, no surfing the web. So here is Jen Lim explaining how she does her best and deepest thinking.

I. I didn't grow up being a nature person, but there's something that happened in the near last few years, that something that connected me to it in a different way. And that feeling, I don't know if you. You've been in this place, but when I describe it, where you feel like you're so one with everything. So for me, I was in Montana on a fishing boat and not peak season, so it was super quiet. And that feeling of just like oneness of it all, feeling so small, being part of this big, beautiful world and universe small and so mirror and mighty at the same time. That's when I think that that opens up the space, that there really is no boundaries and what one can think about in life.

I hope you learned a lot about happiness. Jen Lim is an expert about happiness. I'm a happy guy because I get to work with a producer like Peg Fitzpatrick, a sound designer like Jeff C, a transcriber like Luis Magana, and a research communications person like Madison Nismer. That's the team that brought you this episode of Remarkable People. I'm Guy Kawasaki. Have a great week. I'm not gonna stop saying this. Wear a mask, get vaccinated, wash your hands, maintain social distance. Let's all get through this together. Mahalo and aloha. This is remarkable people.