Creating Well-Being at Work with Kelly Mackin

Well-being is personal, and that's what makes it really tough. So someone called what we do the Everest of leadership for this reason, because we're saying, hey, we're not gonna tell you it's just about this one thing, or go do these 3 things. Because quite frankly, a lot of people wanna sell you that BS, and we will not. But what we will do is give you the tools and the steps that make it really easy for you to uncover what that unique truth is. For yourself, for the people you lead, because then you can take that individualized approach that's really going to get you results.

Kelly, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. We are so excited to learn more about you and your book, Work Life Well Lived. I'd love to start with 10-year-old Kelly, who is walking down the stairs to your mom cooking pancakes. While this may be a normal occurrence for some, it was different for you. So, can you tell us that story and why it was such a pivotal moment in your life?

Oh yes, I sure can. My mom loves reminding me of this story. I walked downstairs and I remember it so vividly, but I was shocked, purely shocked that she was making pancakes because my mom did not have the time to be a pancake flipper, as I call it. She was a senior vice president. She was always running out the door, already gone for work. And I was like, What is going on? And she laughed and was like, well, I stayed up all night to work, and I thought I deserved a break to make you pancakes. And I think about that now, and I'm like, ugh, you know, breaks my heart. You know, I deserved a break to make you pancakes. And unfortunately, that became the norm. My mom pulling all-nighters, working into the wee hours of the morning, and just really being chained to her desk became the way that she worked. And I kind of saw that growing up. And unfortunately, that belief system was kind of ingrained in me that that's the way it is.

So, with your mom doing that, it actually caused you to kind of go down the same path at first, right? So, how did you relate that to yourself and your career? And when did you make the shift into this well-being world?

You know, it's so interesting because I knew deep down how messed up this was. I knew this is not the way that work should be for anybody. Yet I felt like this is how it is and toughen up. And one day, maybe with enough, with enough blood, sweat, and tears, I will earn the right to have well-being at work and to be happy at work. And from doing what I do now, when I, when I talk to people from all walks of life, I, I come to realize how many people share in that belief. But I kind of joined the agency world as well, which was the world my mother had been in. And it was craziness. It was Mad Men for modern times. I look at it now and I'm like, that was insane. I put up with all of that. I mean, people would be screaming in the office. I would be pulling all-nighters. I mean, our clients were emotionally abusive. I could go on and on. It was literally the epitome of a toxic work environment. None of my needs were met. I wasn't appreciated. I wasn't able to be creative or innovate because I was drowning to just keep up with, you know, the demands of the pure amount of work that I needed to get done every day. And it took hitting some real lows till I kind of had a wake-up call where I physically, mentally, and emotionally was just lost. I, I mean, I developed a sleep disorder. My hands would shake, my eyes would twitch at work. My anxiety was just overtaking me, and I just was like, this is not sustainable, and this is not the way work should be. And really, it was at that moment in my life that I just looked at everything differently, and I went, well-being is something that we all deserve in our lives. And that's what completely set me on a path to Changed my life and changed my career. I moved from Chicago out to California and really pursued well-being both personally and professionally.

I remember in my early 20s, this was probably at the height of the Gary Vee hardcore hustle mentality type of social media content. And I remember telling people, oh, 40 hours a week. I remember my first part-time job, right? So, I subscribed to this hustle mentality, the toxic sort of work culture stuff too. You know, I worked in technology sales and I was first in the office, last to leave. I spent a lot of nights and weekends there as well. So, I totally get what you're talking about. Now, I'm curious for you, what was the— do you remember an actual moment where you realized like enough is enough? And what did that moment feel like?

Well, there's one and I talk about it in my book, but there was this day where I had left my house, I think around 5:30 in the morning, something absurd. And it was an insane day. My friend actually quit on the job that day. One of the VPs was slamming the door screaming. I had pulled an all-nighter the night before, and I was rushing in Chicago in freezing cold weather. And, you know, I'm running to Union Station to try to make the train home. And this is at like 11:30 at night. And I missed the last train, and I just felt so defeated and, and burnt out in just the, the soul bone-chilling kind of burnt out where I just knew that I couldn't do this anymore. That, that moment was when it really started to click that this is not okay.

I can feel the stress of that moment because I feel like a lot of people have been there. Why do you think so many companies and businesses have been built this way? Like, is it because of people like Gary Vee glorifying this type of culture? Like, why do you think we've turned our world into just like productivity, productivity, productivity? Like, what's the reason for that?

That's such an amazing question. And I think there's a lot of different factors at play. But there's, you know, there's one thing to hustle and there's one thing to hustle to the point where it, it literally makes you physically sick, right? I mean, there's different energies when it comes to hustle and growth, and that's a lot of what we've done in our research at Motives Met is figuring out, okay, what is kind of the positive side of things and when does it start to go kind of dark on us? But for so long in, in our culture and in society, we really just focused on success in terms of results, in terms of productivity, like you're saying, you know, it was kind of like productivity and performance. But then we started to shift a little bit, and we were talking about engagement and culture. Okay, that's better. That's good. We're starting to get into some good stuff. And then finally, we were talking about the most important stuff— well-being at work. mental health, having a positive emotional experience. So that shift had already started happening pre-pandemic, but then the pandemic really just lit this fire to the work wellbeing movement that was already underway. Because if you had told me even like, I don't know, 5 years ago that wellbeing and work would be used in the same sentence the way it is now, I don't even think I would've believed you. And that's, we started our research in 2017 really around what it means to thrive at work and how we can create a better, more human work worlds. But we've really seen this amazing shift over time that's letting go of a lot of that old-school mindset that research has proven time and time again doesn't work. And our research says the same thing.

I love how you kind of, you have this like multifaceted, multi-pronged approach to what wellbeing is. So, could you maybe unpack a little bit about what wellbeing means at work for an individual?

I would love to because the world does not know. That's what we figured out when we started on this wild journey back in, again, like 2017. My mom and I were talking about the fact that we were so pumped that people were talking about health and happiness at work and thriving and well-being. But we went, well, why is stuff still so bad? Because it is. It's really bad. And this is, again, before the pandemic hit. Stress and burnout at the highest it's ever been. Loneliness at work is rampant. Engagement is down. Happiness is down. People are running out the door even before the Great Resignation. So we went, okay, we have all this research, all this wellness tech, all these kind of famous people talking about it. So why are we missing the mark? And we started at the most basic place where we go, okay, well, what even is it, right? What is work wellbeing? And we did all sorts of research. We went and talked to people from HR execs to just someone in their everyday job, and we asked them, what does wellbeing at work mean to you? I went on the internet and searched and went to ChatGPT and said, what is work wellbeing? And it would say stuff like, oh, it's when people are healthy and happy and they're content at work. And I went, okay, I use the term health and happiness at work a lot, but what does that really mean if you don't give me a how? If you don't gimme a framework or steps, that doesn't really help me if I wanna be better in my work life. If I wanna lead my team to be happier and healthier at work, just telling me that it means they're happy and healthy doesn't help me a whole lot, right? So a lot of times the way we would approach work wellbeing would be very vague. Then sometimes we would get more specific, but it would be kind of suboptimal. You know, we asked in our research, what is work wellbeing? And people would say stuff like, oh, it, it's me getting my job done without costing me my sanity. Or, oh, it's really liking what I do and feeling appreciated. Or, oh, it's not being too stressed out and being able to have a work-life balance. And it's not that that's all wrong per se, but is really just having your sanity and not being stressed out and kind of liking what you do, is that really the best way to describe what your optimal work life could be? Maybe not. Definitely not is what we found. And then last but not least, we found that a lot of stuff was missing from the conversation. What about having fun at work? What about being challenged in a way someone needs to be challenged, or being able to speak freely and speak their mind and bring up concerns without fear? All of that stuff we found is vital for some people to thrive at work, but it isn't brought into that conversation enough. So that's when we took matters into our own hands and went into research. We're human behavior researchers at heart on our team, so it was very up our alley. And essentially what we discovered is that there are 28 psychological, emotional, and social needs, what we call motives, that make up wellbeing at work. And these 28 needs fall into 10 overarching motive domains, as we call them. And we have this awesome framework on our website that's colored and it animates and it makes it really easy for you to kind of grasp all of this. But for example, in the freedom domain, there's the autonomy. flexibility, and free expression motives. In the personal connection domain, there's the belonging, peer connection, fun, and manager support motives. Growth, work-life harmony, achievement, self-esteem— these are all motives. But here's what we also found. What I need most to thrive at work is going to be different than what each of you need most to thrive. So all of these motives matter, but they do not matter equally to each person, to each team. at the same point in their work life. So that's why we went and developed what we call our Human Needs Assessment that really helps people uncover their top human needs driving their ability to be well and perform well today.

I know that the motives are unique to every person that goes through your assessment and every company and industry, but I'm curious, are there certain motives that you find most of the time companies are ignoring or neglecting? Like, are there some Some common ones that people choose to ignore or look the other way on?

Well, work-life harmony can certainly be one of them that can definitely rear its head, especially when we kind of go in to help teams that are, that are struggling with engagement or retention. That, that seems to be one that pops up. Another struggle can be either flexibility or personal connection or peer connection, because there's that kind of war still going on right now between work from home but get everyone in the office and people want to connect. And so The fact that one or both of those can be ignored is something that absolutely pops up. But then we find it could really be based on each individual team, each individual leader, because we all have blind spots, not just when it comes to ourselves, but other people. For example, actually recently we did a workshop and one manager came to the realization that he really had been ignoring the clear expectations need because he's very autonomy driven and he had joined this startup because he kind of didn't have a ton of set rules and, and goals, and he could kind of pave his own path. But now they had grown and he was responsible for this bigger team, and some people were like, hey, I don't feel like I'm getting the direction I need. And he realized, God, I just— I was kind of ignoring this, not on purpose, but just because it wasn't top of mind for me.

So for people that are in— maybe they're in a company that is a little bit more toxic bent. But they're lower down on the totem pole. Like, what is your advice to them? Do you think they should just leave that environment or do you think they should try to change it from within?

I always say, I don't think it's as simple as just quit, just quit today. A lot of people want to give you that advice, but the grass is not always greener. And sometimes there is a lot you can do in your current job. Or I will say, sometimes you will know that is exactly what you're doing, but you might not be able to do it right at this moment. So how can you make things better for yourself now? And how can you make sure that the job you're gonna look for next is going to put you in a better position? And that's really what knowing your motives empowers you to do, because you can say, these are the 5 things that matter most to me. How can I better meet these things in this current job? Who do I need to talk to? What can I do personally? Because there is often a lot that can be done there. But it feels really overwhelming when you're just like, I'm miserable and unhappy at work. What do I do? And that's the point. It makes it really difficult for you to make positive change. But when you break it down and are able to look at these needs, and we give people all of these different ideas and insights about how to strengthen them, how to make them better, then you start to go, okay, here's something I could do here. Here's something I could do there. And again, when you go to look for a new job, you can really ask, okay, Growth is really important to me, or having fun, not being in such a serious negative environment is super important. What do you guys do to have fun here? Would people say working here is fun, right? You're going to have these amazing questions to make sure that you're putting yourself in an environment that is going to help you thrive in your work life.

Powerful stuff. I love it. So what's the difference between your assessment and let's say, I mean, I know there's tons of personality tests and everything out there, but a common one that keeps coming up in my mind and then I just feel like across the board right now is StrengthsFinder. That one's always like a big one. So, what's the key differences between your assessment and others that are out there?

Well, there are a lot of assessments that are kind of related more to personality or even like productivity, kind of like what's your work style. And again, I think assessments are an amazing way for us to understand ourselves better. So, they can be great, but they can have different purposes behind them, right? So, for example, StrengthsFinder is a great tool, and I've used it many a times in my work life, but it's all about finding your personal strengths and focusing there. So interestingly, personal strengths is one of the 28 motives, but it is one of them. So if you're a manager, for example, your team might not be having an issue with strengths. And you know what? I actually might be driven by the need for innovation, which is a motive. I might be driven by the need for challenge. I don't wanna work in my strengths right now.

Yeah.

I wanna be able to lean into my— I wanna be able to go and do some stuff that is uncertain that maybe I am not so perfectly great at. But someone else on the team could be very much, I wanna live in my strengths. I wanna be working in my natural abilities, and that's what I need. So the point is, you have to know yourself and you have to know the people you work with and lead. So if working in my strengths is really important to me, then hey, go take the Gallup StrengthsFinder assessment. Let me lean in, figure out what those strengths are. And look at, am I using those and how can I do better? But as a leader, for example, or in your culture, you cannot assume that everybody needs the same thing. It is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It's an individualized approach. Wellbeing is personal, and that's what makes it really tough. So someone called what we do the Everest of leadership for this reason, because we're saying, hey, we're not gonna tell you it's just about this one thing or go do these 3 things. Because quite frankly, a lot of people want to sell you that BS, and we will not. But what we will do is give you the tools and the steps that make it really easy for you to uncover what that unique truth is for yourself, for the people you lead, because then you can take that individualized approach that's really going to get you results.

So, Nick, I'll let you go in a moment. As a leader, How do you, how do you look at people without judging them too much? Because I think we tend to, we tend to look at, you know, these strengths or weaknesses or whatever. We look at these things, we think they should be like black and white. So how do you cultivate a mindset that's open enough to see that, hey, maybe this person isn't motivated by the same thing that I am?

It is one of our core work-life well-lived principles, as we call them, that we need to embrace motive diversity. Or need diversity. So when we all can go into work with that mindset, we are going to be able to create much more collective wellbeing for ourselves and other people. And I think when people take the assessment and kind of come into our world at Motives Met, it helps to develop that mindset. We call it the motive mindset based on these different principles, because we can all be judgy when it comes to motives, and we don't even realize we're doing it. I can look back in my career and, and think about so many times where I unfairly was like, you should care about that because that's what I care about. This is what I need. Why are you focusing there? But that is so wrong on so many levels because we all need different things. And if you look at yourself over the course of your career, you are going to need different things over time. So we say our motives don't change kind of like one day to the next. But they are going to change as milestones come up in our career and in our personal life. So we need to respect and embrace all of these different motives. Well, just the way we want others to respect and embrace our motives.

So important. Nick, you can, you can go. Sorry. Oh yeah.

Well, I have, I have tons of questions, but I think maybe given this subject now, I'll go in a different direction. Uh, do you think that there are generational differences between motives? Because it seems like COVID definitely gave people more agency and authority, time to reflect on what they, what they truly are motivated by. And it seems like maybe young millennial kind of Jay-Z type, Gen Z types, Jay-Z, shout out Jay-Z, but Gen Z types.

Love it.

They, they are a little bit more demanding. They are a little bit more certain. They have more rules from my broad perspective, not having gone through the data like you have. So I'm curious, are there generational differences between motives?

So what's really interesting is overall we saw there are not. You would maybe think that 25-year-olds would be more likely to have the fun motive. Not true.

Interesting.

55-year-olds just as much. We do see like by industry it can change a little bit or, you know, in companies there can be certain themes. But overall, when it comes to kind of the big like demo segments, like there really is not a big skew. And that's again what was so interesting is that all of these motives from a data perspective were all worthy. They all were chosen enough by people to make it into the top 28, if that makes sense.

So I wonder, I wonder if, if there are no differences by age or demographic in motives, I wonder if there's a difference in somebody's willingness to vocalize their motives. Maybe that's the The difference, you know, because if you've been conditioned to suppress your motives in the workplace for the last 20 or 30 years, maybe you're just less likely to vocalize them until you can have the language by going through the assessment and share your results maybe with a little bit more confidence.

Absolutely. I think that's an amazing point, and I would bet that that is absolutely true.

So one of the things at BookThinkers that I've been trying to integrate as much as possible is something that you mentioned before, health and happiness at work. And prioritizing it. And so, I know in Chapter 11, you talk about sort of the how, right? The action. But can you give us an example? One of my favorite things to do is make this podcast as actionable as possible. So, right now, everybody has the book that they can purchase, the assessment that they can take. But let's talk about an example of how you can be healthier and happier in a work environment. What are some of the things that you talk about?

Well, one thing we help you do when you, well, when you purchase the book, you'll get free access to take the assessment. And then in your report, we give you all of these amazing reflection questions and ideas and ways to check in with these motives so that you can put together what we call your motive story and your motive action plan. Because we are about the same thing at Motives Med of like, great, let's have these insights and stuff, but let's make sure we go do something with them so that we can create our best work life and workplace. So it's gonna be really motive specific, but I can give you some examples of mine. For example, when I first took the assessment, I actually did not know what all of my motives would be, even though I built the algorithm, because that's the point. We all have blind spots. So I had a good guess I would have autonomy and flexibility in my top 5, cuz those are very much tied to my values and who I am. I'm kind of all about freedom at work, but I didn't know what my other 3 would be. And specifically security kind of kicked my ass because I was not expecting I was going to see that in my top 5. I'm, you know, an entrepreneur, I'm an adventurous soul, and I knew it was a weak motive. So it was kind of tough for me to sit with that. I think I personally didn't want to admit to myself I needed a sense of security because I was leaving behind the comforts of this career I'd built behind. at that point to go start Motives Met, and that was scary. But all that fear and doubt was really holding me back. So once I took the assessment and I, I, I was forced to have a carefrontation with myself and look at this, I was able to go, okay, I don't maybe need to feel secure like 10 out of 10, right? But I need to feel secure enough that this isn't holding me back from meeting my last 2 motives, which are achievement and future success. So I went, okay, how can I elevate my mindset around what it's gonna mean for me to be secure at work? So we say that meeting motives happens in both action and thought. So when you look at the needs that are rising to the top, some of it might be, how do I need to change my, my mindset or my belief system enable for me to better meet this motive? Work-life harmony is a great one. I've worked and coached a lot of people who've really struggled with work-life harmony. Because they're holding on to beliefs of like, I need to be the last one at the office, right? Or I need, you know, so you have to kind of look at maybe what are the mindset shifts you need. And then it can be actions, big ones and tiny micro actions. For example, flexibility being one of my motives, I realized I have all this flexibility, but I don't take advantage of it as much as I should. Why? Because I'm still so ingrained to you should be chained to your desk from these hours to these hours. So I went, okay, how can I better design my days knowing that I— that flexibility is important to me? But why? Oh, so that I can on a nice day go take a long walk with my dog, so I can take a long weekend and do this. So how am I going to empower myself to do those type of things? And then when I looked at my future success motive, I went, who can help me reach some of my goals quicker, better, faster? That's one of the buckets we help people do in their action plan is we tend to jump to how. If you've read the book Who Not How by Ben Hardy, it's a great book. We tend to jump to how, how are we going to accomplish this? Instead, a better question can be who, who can help us do this? So when it comes to health and happiness, the whole point is you have to boil it down. What are my 5 needs I need met? And then what are the actions, the mindsets, the whos I'm going to use To help me meet those motives.

That's a wonderful answer, and thank you for approaching it from that perspective. And it made me laugh when you talked about flexibility being important but not taking time off. And it reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend recently who— he's in his late 20s with $1 million in the bank, and he's chained to his desk. He talks about he doesn't want to regret his life. He wants to get out there and travel. And I'm like, dude, Travel is so much less expensive than you think, and you have so much money. Like, get off your butt and go do it. And sometimes you need that reminder of, oh wait, I am in the position to take advantage of this motive that I have. So really cool. Just for everybody in the audience, I'm going to take the assessment. Luke will take the assessment, and then we'll come back for a second conversation with Kelly to do a deeper dive and kind of share with everybody From, you know, what surprised us, what we, what we thought, what we got. So I'm excited to do that.

Amazing.

Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun.

Same here. I can't wait. Um, this is getting me really excited too. I'm curious, um, and I know we, we were a little bit on a time crunch today, but I'm curious, have you heard of like the Kolbe assessment? This reminds me a lot of— it's a, it's an older assessment, but it's like your modus operandi, and it's like kind of deals in motives a little bit, but it's It's very confusing with numbers and everything. So have you seen that and heard of it?

I have heard of it. I haven't taken it, but there is some parallels there, a little bit of the same vibe, I suppose. Yeah.

Yeah. I love that. And I'm so excited to take yours. I took that one a while back and it was cool. And there were things in it that I liked about it, but it was very confusing to understand. And even just to read the chart off, it was like you had to going to learn all this new language and everything else. So, um, I'm very excited to, to take yours as well and, um, finish reading your book. So anyway, for sake of time, Nick, do you have any last, last questions that you want to ask? I have a few more I can, I can ask.

Sure. Here's, here's my last question. So Kelly, we just finished up 2023 at the time of this recording. What was the best book that you read last year? I'm curious. I love to ask people this question.

Oh, that's a great question. I read so many books last year. It's a toss-up. I would— Who Not How by Ben Hardy. As I said, that would be up there for me. I actually love all of Dr. Ben Hardy's books. I met him when I was at my publisher kicking off this whole book writing process years ago. That has been a really powerful book for me in my business, specifically in Motives Met. I do not believe I'd be where I am today if I had not read that book.

Wow.

But I also really love the book Let's Talk About Loneliness by Simone Hang. Um, given loneliness is such a, a big problem at work right now, and really just in life in general, even still coming out of the pandemic, it was a, a very interesting read. She, she tells some amazing stories in it. So that's another book I would highly recommend.

Oh, well, thank you for the recommendations. I am just about finished with 10x Is Easier Than 2x. With Dr. Benjamin Hardy. So I'm excited to check out Who Not How. It gets referenced in that book a lot, but I haven't read it yet. And then I appreciate the other recommendation as well. Thank you.

Yeah, 10X is also a good book too. I love that one.

Maybe next time we have you on the podcast, we can also talk a little bit about your journey in mindset. We didn't get to talk about that today, but I know you were a meditation coach for a while and you studied cognitive behavioral therapy. So All kinds of fun stuff that we can get into. I'll end with my last question and then Nick, if you do want to ask that. Nick usually has a question that he asks for his last question, but I don't know if you just changed it.

No, go ahead.

Okay. All right. So this is my last question and it's this. If you pass away and all the information that you put out, the courses, the books, everything disappears, but you could leave the world with a single piece of advice, what would it be?

Oh, that is an epic question. It would be, it would be that the only limitations are the ones you create in your mind. It's a quote by Napoleon Hill. It's what got me to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro when I thought I couldn't in my darkest hour. And like you said, given I've done so much work in brain training and mindset and meditation, it's what really changed my life. And so living by that quote going into this year, it's one I always come back to time and time again.

So incredibly powerful. It's amazing. Just a short, small piece of advice. And that's why I love asking that question because we get stuff like that. All right. So where can people go to find out more about you, your book, and all the information?

Yeah. So you can go to motivesmet.com, check out the assessment there, the circumplex with our motives, our whole framework. I'm active on LinkedIn. You can also find us on Instagram. And again, when you purchase the book, you will get your free code right in there with instructions of how to take the assessment.

Super exciting. And we'll link all that in the show notes. We have enjoyed our time so much today, Kelly. Thank you for coming on our podcast. We can't wait to talk to you again.

Thank you so much. I'm excited and I can't wait to hear your guys' motives. I geek out on hearing people's motive story and how they connect them all. And so I'm pumped. It'll be fun. Thanks so much for having me.