Pete Mockaitis
Jen, welcome back.

Jennifer Moss
I’m so glad to be back. It’s been a while.

Pete Mockaitis
It sure has. Eight whole years. Boy, a lot could happen in that timeframe. Can you share with us something transformational you’ve learned over the last eight years?

Jennifer Moss
As I’ve gotten older and I think become a little bit more, aware that change takes a really long time to happen, and you sometimes move sideways, and you move backwards.

And yet there has been, when I look back to when I first wrote Unlocking Happiness at Work, and now Why Are We Here, there has been some real advancement in the discussion around happiness and well-being at work and that’s a positive thing that I think has been really impactful on me and my level of hope for the future.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Hope is good. We like hope. More of that, please. So, tell us, in your book, Why Are We Here?: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants, any particularly fascinating discoveries you’ve made along the way?

Jennifer Moss
There is just such brilliant research going on out there that’s been untapped and we need to spend more time, I think, with our academic partners in workplaces because it’s just so necessary to learn that there are ways that we can actually improve the workforce.

And I broke the book out into these three parts, the foundations, which is really hope, purpose, and community, and then I go into the second part, which is all of these unbelievable shifts that have happened at work in the last five years that feel like we’re in the multiverse of work. This isn’t the future of work. It’s the multiverse of work. And it really is dealing with AI and the rapid evolution of technology and generational bias and how that’s polarized the workforce. And then also just flexibility now, a right not a perk.

And so, I talk about that from a sense of compassionate leadership and leaders having a sense of openness as a leader, and really around understanding freedom. And then the third part is how we’re going to get there as a collective, and that’s belonging and recognition. And so, this, for me, across the board, every single chapter was this real understanding of the psychological barriers that we’re all facing as human beings that keep us from feeling and behaving with those kinds of traits. And so, it was a lot of learning and a lot of self-discovery too, as a leader myself.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, there’s a lot of rich stuff to dig into here. Thank you. Can you tell us, in terms of the academic community, sort of researchers doing studies and publishing them in journals, is there a particular discovery or thing that is well understood amongst academics looking at this stuff, that is generally not at all, or not frequently, implemented in the real world?

Jennifer Moss
Yes, and, one, is I would say it’s the first chapter, which is really interesting because today Gallup just put a note, basically, that hope is what every single organization needs to be fostering to be able to build out a future-ready organization, and it is the first chapter of my book. And, actually, John Clifton was interviewed, and he’s the CEO of Gallup, and talked about kind of the book and the importance of the book, and I think it’s because he had been seeing this hope need and this loss of hope inside of organizations.

And the thing is we constantly say in leadership, “Hope isn’t a strategy, and we can’t make hope a strategy.” And the thing is that leaders are getting that completely wrong. When I interviewed senior leaders in the military, they said hope is their only strategy. They always make hope foundational to the mission because how is anyone going to put their life on the line if they don’t have hope that they’re going to be able to achieve the end goal?

And so, in the book, I talk about how practical it is to build hope. It’s easier than building empathy and almost any other trait because it’s really, it’s tactical and you build it through these small incremental settings of goals, having the agency and the support to get to those goals, and then creating plan Bs and plan Cs so that if one plan to your goal fails, you have another plan as a backup.

And so, I talk about how we can do this, like 20 minutes every single week can build cognitive hope in an organization. It’s not hard, and I think that it’s been easy to put it off as something that’s simple and too simple to be valuable, and instead, it’s actually so needed right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so hope, we need it, got to have it, are missing it. Can you define, specifically, what do we mean by hope?

Jennifer Moss
Hope right now is this kind of key trait that we need to get people to feel like they can see themselves inside of society, writ large, but also inside of our organizations. If you don’t have hope, you feel disconnected from the mission because you don’t see yourself as part of the future. You also have anxiety around things that are new. AI, for example, if you see yourself as becoming obsolete, and you don’t have hope that you are part of that picture of an organization, you disengage, you’re less productive.

Hopelessness makes you have to be in a survivor state every day and you’re not thriving so you’re not actually thinking about the future, which is what we need right now. We’re just moving so quickly that if we don’t have a future perspective in our organizations, and people are in just survivor mode every day, we’re going to see attrition or we’re going to see what Gallup calls the Great Detachment, which people are at work, but they’re extremely unhappy, they’re actively disengaged, and they’re actually spending time trying to get other people to be as unhappy as they are, which creates a social contagion and it’s really unhealthy.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. So, hope, very important. And so, what exactly is hope?

Jennifer Moss
Hope is a sense of feeling that you are encouraged by the future, that you see that yourself in the future, that you feel like you have a legacy, that you have a sense of mattering and meaning in the world, that the world itself cares about you, that the world itself is safe, and you feel psychologically safe in it. Hope comes a lot with a sense of community. So, you believe that there are people there for you in a time of need.

Whether it’s actually tested or not, it’s a perception that you have social support, and that’s a big part of a sense of hopefulness inside of your community, inside of society, and your place inside the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, I’m hearing that hope is a belief, and it seems to encompass a lot of things. Could you tell me in one sentence, how are we defining hope in this context?

Jennifer Moss
I think I just described it, but, yeah, hope is…

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I guess it’s like a lot of things, but like what is the umbrella that is encompassing all of those things?

Jennifer Moss
Hope is a sense that everything is going to be all right.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. A sense that everything’s going to be all right. And so, then we’ve sort of already gotten a sneak peek at some of those segments there. And so, within everything being all rightness, there’s a component associated with the future, like what will unfold. There’s a component associated with community and people and relationships, like I feel a sense of comfort and belonging in their midst. And I guess, are those the key pillars? Or, what would be the subcomponents of this belief?

Jennifer Moss
I mean, you just listed really all of what those subcomponents are to hope. But I think the important part right now to, I think, for us to focus on is the fact that we have a high rate of hopelessness inside of our world right now.

Globally, the sense of hope is significantly reduced. And that’s because we have moved from a state of the pandemic being a crisis, but we’re in poly-crisis right now, which is a cluster of crises that have all come together to make each crisis actually worse than if it was individually on its own. And so, that poly-crisis, that sense of always feeling uncertain, that fluidity of our lives and never feeling on solid ground, that is creating a lot of questioning.

This is why I wrote the book Why Are We Here? because people are feeling like a lot of “what’s the point-ism?” And you feel that if you don’t have a sense of hope that you are doing something that actually is going to make a difference, that the belief systems that you had and the infrastructure that you trusted is going to stay a trustworthy institution. And our hope is being eroded by a lot of the issues around the world and poly-crisis and this political instability, and that is eroding our connection to each other and our sense of who we are as human beings.

I mean, progress and cooperation are a big part of what make humans, humans, and successful. And we’re not going to feel cooperative if we haven’t felt hopeful that there’s a reason for it. And hope gives you a reason for being, and without that, we lose progress, we lose innovation, we lose a sense of societal congruency, which is, I think, one of the biggest problems that we’re seeing right now is this real separation and disconnectedness amongst people today.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, it’s a cluster all right, Jen. Poly-crisis, that’s a good turn of a phrase. I hear you in that when there’s multiple things, it does really feel greater than the sum of its parts, like, “Let’s worry about one thing, and take your pick, politics, climate change, my economic footing, AI is going to take away my job, like, fill in the blank.”

And then if you have multiple, you can just leap from crisis to crisis and really dwell in it. And once one gets boring for your brain, oh, not to worry, we can anxiously stew and ruminate on another one. I served up right for you. So, a cluster, indeed. And so, the “What’s the point?” I think that really hits it for me.

And I was grilling you a few times on the precise definition of hope, it’s like I think the “what’s the point-ness” really does feel, at an emotional gut level, like the vibe, the experiential definition of hopelessness. And then I guess if we take the opposite of that, it’s like, “Well, what’s the point?” I mean, like, “Hey, we’re making a cool thing happen with people we care about to make things better for all of us and a group of folks that we’re serving. That’s the point. So, we’re going to get after that, and that feels pretty good to our just basic human longings for progress and cooperation.”

Jennifer Moss
Yeah, and if people feel like everything they’re working on is some sort of pipe dream that’s not going to be realized, you can imagine inside of organizations that want to build new things and get people excited about new innovations. productizations of cool stuff that it just will, you know, it just makes people feel like, “Why bother? If I’m going to see this thing through and at the end, it’s just not going to actually matter or it’s not going to affect any change.”

And when you look at the data around people that have a sense of purpose and their goals being realized, it’s such a different type of mentality and level of performance in an employee. If you feel like, “Okay, I have leadership that’s going to see my project through, they support me, they give me the resources, and then they’re going to amplify it or use it,” you’re much more eager to try new things and experiment and put yourself at risk.

You’re not going to see that if people feel like they’re constantly in this rotation of projects that never actually end up going anywhere, or that the organization is only building something that isn’t going to improve the world. You see so many Gen Z’s attracted to organizations with purpose, they feel tied to the end goals, and they’re rejecting organizations that don’t foster that.

And so, we need to be able to recognize that when there’s hopelessness, people are seeking hope, so they’re going to be more even more inclined to be attracted to companies and work that support that sense of purpose.

Pete Mockaitis
And you said there’s a 20-minute practice that builds hope. What is it?

Jennifer Moss
Well, and I keep saying, like, culture can be built in 20 minutes or less, and middle managers play a huge role in that, and hope can be built just through this idea of setting a goal and having a manager and the organization support you getting to that goal without micromanaging you or making it about hours worked, not the goal itself. Like, the productivity measure shouldn’t even be relevant here. And then having people come up with different pathways to getting there.

This is Snyder’s theory of hope and it’s really applicable in the workforce. You see Google with their OKRs they’re really looking at, and the way that they do goal setting within the organization. It really is peer supported. They co-create their goals. They talk about it transparently with the organization so people can support. There’s a lot of support for continuing development to hit those goals. Those goals are challenging enough, but not so challenging that you can never actually achieve them, so you’re always building hope.

And it’s also that you have milestones, so you’re celebrating along the way, instead of it being like, “Oh, we sold a million-dollar, you know, whatever product,” or, “Landed a client,” and/or, “The project is finally done after three years and then we finally celebrate.” It’s about incrementally reminding people that they’re hitting milestones, which builds cognitive hope. So again, it’s just weekly and then incrementally, and then over time it really does change the atmosphere of innovation inside of these organizations that obviously are known for their innovative thinking.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, this is resonating. And it just sounds like we’ve had previous guests talk about the intrinsic motivators of play, like it is fun to solve problems. You feel like you’re actually getting to use your brain. And some people pay good money for the pleasure of solving problems with video games or whatever, they’re at kind of escape rooms, activities that they’re into.

So, could you tell us a story about a team that had a cool shift in terms of they were doing things the hopeless way, and they made some changes, they started doing some things hopefully, and cool results unfolded?

Jennifer Moss
Well, I go back to Atlassian, who’s a great example of distributed workforce, and they just do things really well. They were finding that people were not using the space, and they were dealing with a sense of loneliness, and they started to test, “How do we make it so that people feel excited and that they’re inspired by the organization?”

And they started their hackathons as one, where everyone comes to the table once a quarter, and they just play and do cool things, and everyone’s so excited about it, and that really has led to some incredible innovations, but, plus, it also created this other part of the hope strategy is that they were bringing people together. And there was another part of, again, that these satellite offices were, now they’re 91% occupied in an, interestingly, fully remote workforce.

They have all this in-person time, and they realized, “Okay. Well, at this point, we’re not necessarily giving people a sense of their product or their work being seen.” So, they started this togetherness focus and started to have people go and work in other offices, and really championed and supported people actually going and spending a week with a peer in another market. So, at any one time in New York, 50% of the office is occupied by people from around the entire organization.

And in these environments, they also are bringing CEOs and C-level executives to come into these spaces, so there’s an opportunity for everyone’s ideas to be seen, which makes you feel like, “I’m not just doing things in a vacuum. I actually am being evaluated and supported by some of the senior people around the organization.”

And so, they’ve done a really great job of pushing back on this idea that you can’t have remote workers be cohesive or have friendships or it’s just always loneliness for those people working remotely. They totally bucked that myth. And they do that by building up their workforce to still feel like when you’re together, it’s not about distraction, it’s about getting what they call “getting s**t done,” that’s their motto. And you go in the office to still get s**t done, but you are also focusing on building a sense of pride in the work that you do, and for others to see what you’re working on.

Pete Mockaitis
That is so cool and fun, and that just lights me up in terms of whenever there’s just a beautiful win-win in terms of people experience, as well as organizational functioning and profitability. And, like, building the remote offices, I’m sure like, from one frame of reference, I imagine there is a finance employee somewhere at the spreadsheet, saying, “No, no, no, no, this is not net present value positive for these funds into this purpose.” Because it can be hard to see a measure. Well, what is the value of people feeling like they’re seen, and like they belong, and like they have friends, and the engagement and reduced attrition that comes with it? It’s hard to quantify.

But I recall, and I just sort of thought Bain was really nice to us with regard to some of the investments they made. Like, you could just transfer to another office in the world for six months, and I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of cool of them. How generous.” And maybe there’s a part of that, but, really, it was a deliberate move to facilitate best practice sharing across the worldwide network.

Jennifer Moss
I love what you’re saying because I’ve been, for many years, an advocate of spending money on making sure that people get to see each other and investing in that travel spend. I mean, right now, we’re supposed to be saving money on our commercial real estate, hopefully, the people that have downsized. Why aren’t we moving people around so that we can get them to see each other?

Because one of the things in the book that I learned is that we have this real shift in the last five years where people used to see other people in their organization. They used to make friends with people because you talked about your kids’ baseball team, or you were friends because you like the same type of movies. And it would create these ad hoc kind of outside of work relationships so we move from these simplex relationships, which are just transactional to multiplex relationships, which include knowing about each other.

And since the pandemic, we are really much more focused on simplex relationships, it’s much more transactional, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that we’re only seeing our team. And I’ve heard this across the board in my interviews, “I just feel like I only know my team. I don’t know anyone else in the organization. We’re so siloed.” And that was already problematic, but there were ways that we fixed that by just creating opportunities to meet and connect.

And so, it doesn’t need to be five days in the office. Lots of data shows that’s actually counter to cohesion, but it is concentrated focus on getting real time with each other, that has more meaning and develops these multiplex relationships. And we’re not doing that very well, so we just blame it on it being remote work that’s created loneliness. But it’s actually so much more complex than that, but the solutions are much easier than people think. And it isn’t just like, “Yeah, that strategy of forcing everyone back through return to office mandates.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, a couple follow-ups there. Five days in the office is counter to cohesion. What is optimal for cohesion?

Jennifer Moss
Well, Gallup says one to two days in the office per week and then you have others that say, I mean, hybrid is optimal if hybrid is done right. I mean, Mark Ma, from University of Pittsburgh, and Nick Bloom from Stanford, they’ve done lots of lots of research and found that, from a purely capitalist standpoint, the most financially viable is hybrid. People feel like that’s an okay meet in the middle.

And that five days a week, it ends up, actually, making people feel less connected, they’re more resentful to the organization and feeling less loyal, so they don’t invest in relationships in the same way. We also see organizations that have been focused on return to office mandates tend to also, as part of their kind of work personas, they’re overworking and there’s a lot of burn out there. And when you’re burned out, you also don’t really want to hang out after work or spend a lot of time chit-chatting. You feel like that 20 minutes of just having lunch every week could mean an extra hour in your pajamas at 11 o’clock at night so you avoid it.

And so, we’re seeing a lot of data that shows that that’s not great.

And fully remote is not great either in many ways. Some organizations, like Atlassian and others do it well, but from a purely capitalist standpoint, it is kind of that Goldilocks zone where there’s a little bit of both. But ones that are most successful are like the ones like Microsoft where it’s 50% of your time, not Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. It’s sort of fluid, and managers get to say, “Hey, let’s talk about what makes sense.”

They have moments that matter, which is like, you know, an onboarding or a project that they really want to work on, or some specific reason why you’re in it together, but that can be fluid from week to week. And so, that kind of autonomy but a little bit of time together that’s used in a better way is where we see higher cohesion and happier workers.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we talked about hope a lot, but you actually mentioned eight areas for folks to address. Could you give us the quick one sentence, what do you mean by this area, and then maybe one quick tip for giving that a boost?

Jennifer Moss
So, purpose is the second chapter. I was able to talk with Adam Grant. He and I are really aligned on this idea of that leaders get this purpose wrong. It’s like part of the mission statement, your values and your purpose, and it’s always tied to this big grand mission statement. But no one really cares about that unless you’re in this executive group. There’s about 20% at the highest level that really feel connected to the purpose. Most people just want to tie their daily values to work.

So, one of the things that we recommend is that leaders of their teams have this one meeting every single week. And I know we’re meeting fatigued, but it’s 20 minutes, again 20 minutes to fix culture, and it’s a non-work-related check-in. You ask, “What lit you up this week? What stressed you out?” and everyone goes around and talks about that. And then, “What can we do to make next week easier?”

Because purpose really is about, “Does the thing I do every day, even the tedious and boring things that I do every day, do they matter? Does anyone care about it?” And if that’s connected to who you are and you feel good about it, you feel like you have purpose. And so, “What lights you up?” that’s like pure magic for managers to motivate. You know, “Okay, now I know you like this. Now that makes you excited. Oh, let’s try to create some of that thinking and fuel your work with that.”

And then, “What stresses you out?” that’s how you prevent burnout. That’s how you make sure that someone saying they haven’t slept every single time you ask them this question or they’re not sleeping, you can dig into it. Then you have managers as mental health conduits, not professionals, and they’re just able to get to it.

And then, “What can we do for each other to make next week easier?” builds that sense of shared goal-setting and helping each other and quick wins, which also builds cognitive hope. And it really, from the interventions where we’ve tried this, it’s really done incredible shifts in morale. And so, I think, like, that’s purpose and why I really feel like that’s a key critical thing that we should be working on.

Pete Mockaitis
And community?

Jennifer Moss
Community is just we’re all lonely. We need to have friends again. And the way that we’re seeking out friendships right now are based on accountability and conscientiousness. It’s a huge switch from pre-pandemic, where we were looking at shared interests, likeability, someone made you laugh, but now it’s like, “Can you get your job done because that’s all I care about?” And so, we need to bring rituals back.

We used to have what is called, I think, before it was called forced fun. And we don’t want forced fun, but we want rituals because that’s how you build social contagions, and people feel like going to work isn’t just like going to school without our gym or recess. It’s super boring right now. So, building friendships through rituals.

And then when we look at solving the big problems, compassion is how we, as leaders, address AI anxiety. We have to understand that there’s a lot of people, especially our younger cohort, one in two are feeling AI anxiety, which Gallup calls FOBO, fear of becoming obsolete. And so, compassion is how we do that because empathy is listening, compassion is taking that listening and putting it into action.

And then when it comes to really looking at openness, if we create openness, this is going to solve that generational divide that we have right now. A lot of mature workers say, “I don’t fit into this workforce. Like, this is not at all my philosophy, and I don’t really want to worry about obsolescence in my final years of work.” So, we’re seeing them, a lot of mature workers leave early, and I think that’s actually going to be a major labor force catastrophe if we’re not careful with that group.

And young people are just opting out. So, we need to stop this hyperbolic, “Boomers can’t Google, and they’re micromanaging,” or, “Gen Z’s are lazy and entitled, and they’d afford a home if they just stop buying avocado toast.” That, to me, is just like, people think it’s funny, and, actually, it’s creating a real sense of ageism at work.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, so you’re saying, in both directions.

Jennifer Moss
In both directions.

Pete Mockaitis
So, the Millennials think that the Boomer is an idiot who can’t Google, and the Boomer thinks that the youngsters are irresponsibly burning their cash. Whereas, like, there are realities associated with, like, affordability is harder now. And then on the other side, it’s like, “Hey, technology is changing much more rapidly now.” Like, that’s also true, and that is also hard, and it needs to be acknowledged.

Jennifer Moss
It is. And you know what? I keep saying, like, stop using terms like “reverse mentoring.” We use that all the time. And it assumes that an older worker knows less about technology or something than a younger one, and we talk about Boomers know this and Gen Z knows this. We see this always when we talk about technology, and it’s just assumed that one generation knows something more than the other, which is not accurate.

Like, look at Dr. Hinton, he was the founder of AI, probably knows a lot about AI, and he’s in his late 60s. And so, this idea that we have to learn in this reverse way, instead of peer mentorship is a way better approach to talking about it. And, really, in the book, I just go through all the language that we don’t realize we’re using, the narratives that we use a lot, and that it just creates this continued labeling of an entire generation as being a very specific thing. And instead of just taking those assumptions away and looking at it, I think, with an openness, that’s what leaders need to do.

And then I think my favorite chapter was freedom because this whole idea of the reason why workers don’t want to have these RTO mandates, or don’t want to go back to work is that we’re missing the psychological barriers that people are feeling right now, which is, “I had my freedom in this certain area of work,” and it goes across the board, not just with return to office, but across the board.

There was more investment in well-being, DEI, you know, all of these commitments, and promises that were made to people. And when they started getting those clawed back, it felt like, “Wow, now my freedom, my sense of freedom is being taken away.” I talk about this from a neuroscience standpoint, and our sense of freedom is deeply baked in our neural wiring. It’s something we would go to great peril to stand up for, and a lot of this resistance is subconscious.

It’s conscious and subconscious because we’re fighting for something that we feel like is ours now. And so, that trust is a big factor, and so organizations that are making these choices really quickly and just sort of throwing it at employees is why I believe that this whole issue has continued to be so polarizing. Instead of understanding that people shot up when it comes to the rates of social anxiety from 4% to 36% of people explain that they had social anxiety through the pandemic.

So, you’re not just saying, “People, go back to work. Deal with it,” and if they’re resistant, it’s because they’re lazy. It’s because they have generalized and high levels of social anxiety. So, I think this, for me, was a big aha, recognizing why the pushback and why the resistance is so, so difficult for leaders and employees to get on the same page.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, could you share, if folks are in the individual contributor role of things, and they’re vibing with what you’re saying, like, “Yes, Jen, this sounds right and true and good, and I wish my organization would do some of this enlightened stuff,” what do you recommend they do?

Jennifer Moss
Well, as an individual contributor, your life is still—you’re still in charge of it, and although happiness at work, it really needs to have societal and policy change. You need to have leadership and high-level executive managers and individuals all play a role to make it the kind of culture that everyone wants. We have a lot of responsibility too of our own choices. It’s a privilege to just quit so I don’t just say, “Oh, everyone can quit.”

Not everyone can quit. It’s not that easy to do. But I do say that there are a lot of things that have happened, habits that have been imposed on us and self-inflicted habits. Like, I just wrote this article for HBR that was really, I think, well-received and it was titled “Let’s End Toxic Productivity.” And we’ve become toxically productive. We’re waking up in the morning and checking, we’re sitting in our pajamas, we’re calling it fun work. We have our glass of wine while we’re doing admin, and it’s like, “Oh, this is fun work because I’m drinking and I’m doing my admin work.”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s one way to do it.

Jennifer Moss
Yeah. It’s like, “No, this is still not healthy.” And you see this increase specifically in women that are just completely burning out, and they’re hitting that wall. So, we do feel a sense of pressure that, again, it’s like institutional stress, but it’s also us feeling like we need to perform at these high levels. And a lot of that is because we’re still in this sense of urgency mode. We’re still in surge capacity mode, and we haven’t stopped that, reset that habit and replace those with more boundaries.

We can’t always make those choices because there’s a lot of reasons for it, but in the book, the first chapter was me interviewing Kara, who was on track to be the first female black partner in her law firm, and she lost three members of her family. And when I met her, she was driving an Uber, and I said, “Wow, that’s intense. And what made you choose to do that?” And she said, “Life is short. I’m working on my nonprofit in Costa Rica, giving microloans to women, and, yeah, I’m making less money, but I just feel like I needed to do this. Like, I’m compelled to do this.”

And you’re seeing more women, why we have the thinnest executive pipeline in history right now. And for the first time in a decade, we see the global CEOs of females decline, and a lot of it is just a purpose shifting, and we’re going to lose a lot of talent because people are just, overwhelmed. But we do have the choice, and I have had so many interviews.

I interviewed over a hundred Uber drivers for the book, and every single one of them said, “I feel better.” And it’s shocking because we would think, “Really?” Our perception is, “No way. You had this opportunity to be the first black female partner, like, how could you be happier?” And she said, “I am. It’s extraordinary how much healthier I am and happier I am in this role.”

And I think, when you face your mortality, you realize that. And a lot of us have collectively faced our mortality over the last five years or have a sense of it potentially being uncertain, and that changes you. And this is what we need to look at, it’s like, “What are our deathbed regrets?” And if that doesn’t fit into the schematic of, “Okay, is answering an email at 11 o’clock at night drunk, is that going to be our deathbed regret? Probably. Or, is missing time with my family, or is being healthy, or is actually setting boundaries?” And that is where I see a lot more people making those choices for their own happiness and healthiness.

Pete Mockaitis
Let’s zoom on this, you interviewed a hundred Uber drivers, and all of them said they were happier driving Uber than doing another job.

Jennifer Moss
Well, I would say maybe 80 to 85 percent of them did, 15% were just like, “I’ve been always driving this car and it’s good for me because I…” That 15% and I found were really proud of making a paycheck to be able to put their kids through school or giving them a better life, and so there was still a sense of pride. They hadn’t left another job, but the majority of them had.

And there was three people I interviewed that had left Wall Street. They were making lots of money and, fortunately, they had some money to be able to support that. I saw a lot of retirees that took early retirement but didn’t want to return to corporate, so they were driving an Uber just to continue making money, but they had no desire to actually go back. And a lot of them had very solid positions within their company. They made good money, but they didn’t want to be in that environment.

This is where they would say things like, “I just don’t fit. Like, this is good for me, this pace.” And I also found, too, what was a really interesting data point is that 20% of American grandparents are primary caregivers. And so, we never think of that, and now we’re seeing more organizations have grandternity benefits, which I think are fantastic.

But we think only older Gen Z’s and Millennials need that help with the kind of paternity and maternity leave, but grandparents are taking on primary care, so flexibility has become extremely important for them. And so, so organizations that didn’t offer that, that was leading them to go into places where there was flexibility. And I would say across the board, that was one of the main factors, was just “The flexibility to be able to do what I needed to do as a parent, as a grandparent, or even just for my own passion pursuits.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I mean, I think that is so stark in terms of many workplaces are failing their workers so profoundly, in terms of flexibility, purpose, belonging, that folks would prefer to receive a fourth or less the compensation in order to just drive a car and not have to deal with all that crap.

Jennifer Moss
Yes. And, really, again, it’s the focal point of the book because people described what they were missing, and the data shows that the big Gallup whirlpool that goes into the happiness report found that people would take 37% less pay if it meant higher work-life balance and flexibility. I mean, we can solve these problems and yet now we’re seeing more people double and triple down on less flexibility, which just erodes that trust, and I think the data is there.

There’s so much evidence to show that if you provide autonomy and trust in your workers that you hired, that you spent a lot of money to recruit and retain, they’re adults, you hired adults, so why are you treating them like children when you bring them into the organization? And so, to me, the freedom chapter of flexibility, specifically, it’s like, it’s just such a no-brainer, and organizations are just making this real play to have control, and it’s turning people off.

And they are willing, at this point, to take much less pay to have a life that feels like that there’s a sense of freedom in it. And that’s why you’re seeing this high level of disengagement, this constant turnover. People, even if you’re in the organization, are just not feeling like they care about work. Quiet quitting, and disengagement is so high, that you’re not even getting the most out of your people. You’re actually getting a fraction of what you could be getting from your people if you just let go of the power and looked at this as a mutual respect of transferring skills and just working together.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. Well, Jen, tell me, anything else you want to mention before we hear about your favorite things?

Jennifer Moss
I just really hope that people just start caring more about each other, and putting five percent more of their effort into just being kind and altruistic. And, you know, it really is 20 minutes, 20 minutes of eating lunch with each other, Cornell found, actually improves well-being and happiness at work. It’s just one lunch every single week together.

If I can tell people to just take 20 minutes of thinking of some sort of tactical strategy that you could do to make someone in your organization’s life better, you will feel better for it. And if we could create a bit of a social network or contagion around that, I think it would spill over into something really, really transformational.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. Now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jennifer Moss
“You can have anything, not everything.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Jennifer Moss
I love Dr. William’s study that he did for the Oxford Wellbeing Institute this year, and he said, basically, well-being programs aren’t working, wellness is not working, but the one thing that does work is volunteering and altruism. So, just being nice to other people is the one well-being program that we should be focusing on this year.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Jennifer Moss
I love A Little Life. It’s so painful but it is the most beautiful book I’ve ever read.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Jennifer Moss
One of my favorite tools right now is ResearchGate. Being able to have the ability to go through there and be able to use it for really incredible research that you can, as a journalist and as an author, be using so that we aren’t spreading misinformation, so that we really are getting it from peer-reviewed sources.

That makes me feel so much better about the content I’m putting out, and that people are reading something that I know has been backed through evidence. And I think every single writer and journalist, and anyone communicating to the public, should be using that source instead of some of the AI sources that might be not as accurate.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Jennifer Moss
I do practice gratitude. And I know that sounds hokey but it’s something that I really try to do. We do it around the dinner table but, lately, just for me, it’s like, “What went well this week? What can I work with that I have versus what I don’t have?” and it does work. It gets me out of my habit.

And just taking a moment to take a breath, and realize that there’s still a lot of good things in the world that I appreciate. It does ground me in this time of poly-crisis.

Pete Mockaitis
And, if I may, when it comes to practicing gratitude, I think that there’s some nuance in doing this excellently, because sometimes I can list a thing that is objectively a blessing or, “This is a good thing, and I am noting it, I am listing it, I am acknowledging it.” But sometimes when I’m doing gratitude, I actually feel gratitude for the thing that is objectively good, and other times, I don’t have the feelings. And since you’re a good researcher, can you tell me, does that matter in terms of doing a gratitude practice? Or how should I do it optimally?

Jennifer Moss
Dr. Robert Emmons in his book Thanks, and a lot of his research, are so useful on this concept of gratitude and how it impacts. And sometimes it is tail that wags the dog, you know, like that idea that you think about these things, it is a narrative that your brain is using. So, anytime that you refocus on something that maybe you’re not feeling, but you know is valuable, like, “Oh, be thankful for having clean water.” And at the moment, I’m just not like, “Oh, I’m so grateful for clean water,” but I’ll mention it.

And it does help you have perspective-taking because from a neuroscience standpoint, it does take out the things that you could be focusing on that are not positive. You have only so much you can attend to at any one time. It’s like 40 things that you can attend to in the moment while you’re processing tens of billions of pieces of information. But if you’re attending to something, even if you don’t feel those, you know, necessarily those chemical reactions to it, it is creating a desire path in the brain.

So, the more that you put that focus, that neural wiring, and you go over it and over and over again, you create what is called gratitude fluency. So, you go from practicing gratitude to being grateful, and that happens over time. It’s like a language that you learn and you become fluent in gratitude, and so then it’s an automatic response to feel gratitude towards something versus having to practice it. But it is something, as it works through your life, it does change the chemistry as well. It just takes time.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that is helpful. And if nothing else, the fact that I have oriented my thoughts towards a thing worthy of gratitude means that I wasn’t like whining about “This water doesn’t taste very good. And a key nugget, something that you share that seems to connect and resonate with folks?

Jennifer Moss
One of the things I would say is that we have more agency sometimes than we think if we’re really stressed and burned out. And one of the best things that we can do is really do a values assessment. What do you care about? What do you love? And then make your priorities for the year. Focus on that.

And if you’re saying yes to something, like a project that maybe you’re excited to participate in but it’s going to take that extra 20% of your time, put it on that scale of “Is this FOMO? Is this something I have to do? Or, is this another thing where I’m going to regret saying yes in the future?” And take some time to rest.

Rest is not a four-letter word. Look at what you can be doing with that time for work, and instead refocus it on making sure that you’re well and healthy and prioritize your own well-being and the well-being of the people around you first. And then, hopefully, you’ll start to see the benefits of that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And if folks want to learn more get in touch, where would you point them?

Jennifer Moss
Jennifer-Moss.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Jennifer Moss
I would love for all of you to spend the next month and every day say something nice about another person behind their back. Spreading positive gossip inside of an organization actually improves psychological safety for those people coming into the space. And when it gets around to someone that you said some awesome thing about them, it really does make them feel incredibly special. So, just for the next month, just talk nicely about all your co-workers and see how that spreads a positivity contagion.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jen, thank you. This is fun.

Jennifer Moss
Thank you so much, Pete. It was great. Too many years in between, but maybe it’ll be less next time.