1124: How to Build Hope and Combat Burnout at Work with Jen Fisher

Pete Mockaitis
Jen, welcome!

Jen Fisher
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to dig into your wisdom and to hear about hope. Could you share with us, for starters, an extra surprising and fascinating discovery you’ve made about hope as you’ve researched it?

Jen Fisher
I would say that hope is not an emotion, which most people think that it is. It’s a cognitive process. It’s not whimsical. It’s not wishful thinking. It’s not positive vibes only. As a matter of fact, many, many times hope is hard. And I would also say that hope is a daily practice and, obviously, I believe that hope is a strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so it’s not an emotion, it’s not positive vibes only, you said it’s a cognitive. Well, what is it exactly?

Jen Fisher
So, what the research shows, so C.R. Snyder is kind of the original, if you will, godfather of hope research, and what he and so many others have found about hope and why many of us say that it is a cognitive process and that hope is a strategy, is because real and realistic hope actually requires action. It requires three things from you.

It requires you to identify and set a goal, so to know where you want to go or know where you want to be. It requires, and this is perhaps the most important, that you identify multiple ways or pathways in which you can reach that goal. And so it’s not just one, it’s multiple ways. And then the final thing is that it requires you to understand and to know what your agency is in reaching that goal. And so, what is your ability to actually do something to get from here to there?

And so that’s why it requires action and what makes it a cognitive process and what makes it a strategy is because you actually have to not just think about it, not just put good vibes only out into the world, or say, “I’m going to win the lottery,” but you actually have to do something about it and you have to have the ability to do something about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so it requires setting a goal, identifying multiple pathways, understanding our capabilities and how this is viable. And so, if I’ve done those things, I’m having an experience as a result of having done so. Is that what we’re calling hope?

Jen Fisher
That’s what we’re calling hope. That is what hope theory says. And I will tell you what hope theory also says. Hope theory and hope does not guarantee success. And that’s why I say hope is hard, right? Because sometimes you do all these things, you have all of this hope, and then things don’t work out the way that you want them to.

But I think what’s really great about hope is, you know those multiple pathways that you identified? If you start down one path and it doesn’t work, well, you’ve already identified other ways in which you can reach your goal so you don’t get stuck.

You kind of say, “Okay, well, that was interesting. It didn’t work. But, look, I have these other ways in which I can potentially reach this goal.” But hope does not guarantee success. Hope will let you down but it is still critically important.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, if I do those things, I’m having an experience that you call hope, but it’s not an emotion. So I don’t know if you want to get all dictionary or textbook-y, but so then what precisely is hope?

Jen Fisher
Hope is a strategy. It’s a cognitive process. It requires that process in order for it to be hope. When it comes to emotions, hope can spur positive emotions. It can create positive emotions. It can also potentially create negative emotions, but hope itself is not an emotion.

Pete Mockaitis
So, if I set a goal, I’d identified multiple pathways, I understand I’ve got capabilities that could get her done, but if I still have a lot of doubt and pessimism and think, “This probably won’t work,” do I have hope?

Jen Fisher
You could, yes. I mean, look, I think those things can coexist. I would say, what makes hope unique is that it requires you to take action. So you could be pessimistic or you could believe that it’s not going to work, but if you’re still taking action towards the goal on the off chance that it could work, then, yeah, you do have hope.

But, look, I think hope can coexist with doubt. Hope can coexist with hopelessness. Hope can coexist with despair. It can coexist with other things that are seemingly its opposite, just like many things. Most things in our life can coexist with other things that are seemingly its opposite, but what hope requires is action.

And so, if you were moving towards that goal, regardless of whether or not you think it’s going to work, you do have some hope that it’s going to work. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be moving, continuing to move towards that goal because what’s the point?

Pete Mockaitis
And so, can you tell us, maybe, what’s the opposite of hope or how prevalent is hope at work?

Jen Fisher
Well, I don’t think that hope at work is very prevalent, and that was the reasoning and the rationale behind my book. I proffer in my book that I actually believe a lot of what we are seeing and talking about and experiencing in the workplace, when it comes to workplace burnout, is actually an epidemic of hopelessness.

And so, hopelessness exists when you don’t believe that tomorrow can be better than today, when you don’t believe that your actions or what you’re doing matters, or when you don’t believe that you are valued in the workplace. And I think that those are experiences that, unfortunately, a lot of people have, which drive workplace hopelessness.

And I think we often look at that as disengagement, we look at that as burnout, but I actually think that it’s hopelessness. It’s people kind of throwing their hands up, and saying, “Well, nothing I do matters,” or, “Nothing here is ever going to change, so why even try?” And in my experience and my conversations with many, many people, that seems to be the sentiment of what is happening.

And so, I think kind of this opposite, if you will, of hope or hopeful workplaces is workplaces that are hopeless or disengaged or there’s just a lot of people, you know, quiet quitting, pick your favorite buzzword about what’s going on in the workplace today, and I think you can link a lot of that back to people are just kind of feeling hopeless.

And that ties to why I say hope is a strategy because, when I talk to leaders, when I talk to anybody who is trying to effect big change or change at all in the workplace through workplace transformations, leadership changes, strategy changes, all of this constant change that’s going on in the workplace, and they say, “Really, Jen? Like, really, you want me to create a hopeful workplace? You think that hope is a strategy?”

And I say, “Yeah, I do, because good luck with your strategy if nobody believes in it, if nobody gets on board, if nobody thinks that your strategy is going to make tomorrow better than today, then you’re not going to achieve your strategy, because you have to be able to bring people along with you.”

And that’s why I’m not saying hope is the only strategy, but I’m saying that hope is a strategy because people need to feel hopeful about where they are and where they’re going in order to really show up and be engaged and innovate and do all the great things that we want people to do in the workplace, but they’re just not feeling it right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, if we think about hopelessness then, it sort of sounds like, from that angle or facet, hope seems to be sort of like a set of beliefs. Is that fair to say?

Jen Fisher
Yeah, I think that’s fair to say.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so in that sense, then if hope is a set of beliefs, then that set of beliefs would certainly be bolstered by doing just those things – set the goal, identifying multiple pathways and understanding your capabilities and how those can flow into making that unfold. Very cool. Well, maybe could you give us a story perhaps of someone who wasn’t feeling so hopeful, but they adopted some of these approaches and saw a turnaround?

Jen Fisher
Well, I think that probably the easiest story would be my own story and why hope has become so important to me, part of my leadership ethos, how I lead, but, quite frankly, how I live my life. And so, if you rewind where I was 10, 11 years ago, I was in a state of complete burnout. And this is before we were talking about burnout and well-being in the workplace in the ways that we are now.

And so, I didn’t know what I was experiencing. I knew I was struggling. I worked in a high-performing organization. I looked around, everyone around me seemed to be doing just fine. So I just kept telling myself, “I’m going to push through. This will eventually go away if I just keep pushing harder, pushing harder, pushing harder.”

Well, that never works. It might work for a period of time, but that never works. And so, ultimately, I ended up completely burnt out to the point where I had to take a leave of absence from work. I had to really focus on getting healthy and well, both mentally and physically. And part of that recovery for me, actually, was seeking out professional help, going to therapy.

And through therapy, that is actually where I was first introduced to hope and hope theory and kind of the processes of generating hope in your life.

And so, the therapist had me do hope theory exercises, many of which I now lay out in one of the chapters, I think it’s chapter 10 in my book. And I spent a lot of time doing that and it was really, you know, kind of, “What’s the next step? What’s the next step?”

And I think that’s also kind of the thing about hope is we tend to think that hope is this big thing that, “Oh, if I just have hope, it’s going to change everything.” Well, hope, it’s not really a fireworks-show moment. It happens in those quiet hours, in those quiet moments, by taking one step forward, and then the next step forward, and then the next step forward.

And that’s what I did, you know? It was kind of each of those little steps that built me back from burnout recovery. And then I learned how to really apply those types of strategies not only into my life, but into my leadership and into my work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I would love it if you could really paint a picture for us, in terms of a scene that’s memorable for you, so we can sort of get a sense for, “Boy, what’s that hopeless Jen look, sound, feel like?” in terms of what you’re doing, what you’re saying to yourself, what you’re experiencing, as opposed to the hope has been restored Jen looking like?

Jen Fisher
So, one of the stories that I tell in the book was really when I was burnt out and kind of the conversation, I talk about it as the conversation that changed everything. And it was a regular check-in conversation with my boss, and I was going down my list, you know, checking things off, giving her all of the updates.

And she put down her pen and paper and looked me straight in the eye and, basically, said to me, “Jen, you’re not okay. And what’s worse is that you’re trying to convince everyone else and yourself that this is what okay looks like.”

And, of course, in that moment, my natural reaction was, “What are you talking about?” you know, the kind of defensiveness, right? And she looked at me and she said, “When was the last time you spent real time with your family without thinking about work?” And I couldn’t give her a good answer.

And then she asked me, “When was the last time you felt joy in your work?” And I couldn’t give her a good answer. And she went on to ask me a handful of additional questions, and I really couldn’t answer any of her questions in that moment or in a way that made me feel good about myself.

And what I will say is she wasn’t judging me. She wasn’t calling me out. She was coming from a place of concern to say, “You’re not okay, and you need to take some time for yourself to get okay.” And as hard as that moment was, perhaps that was the first moment of truth for me. That was the first time that I ever admitted to myself or anyone else that I wasn’t okay, that I was struggling, and that I did need help.

And so, I talk about that as the first moment of hope, because hope requires you to be truthful. It requires you to be honest and to recognize things as they really are. I think a lot of times, when people think about hope being whimsical or wishful thinking, they get that wrong because hope requires you to say like, “Hey, things suck. I’m not okay. I’m in a bad place. What’s going on is horrible.”

Like, recognizing truth and reality of where we really are and then building from there and starting to make that plan, set that goal of, like, “What’s the next step? And what’s the next step?” and create those pathways for yourself.

And so, I would say a hopeful Jen, I mean, there’s tons of stories in the book of just my journey of hope. And I don’t get it always right. I am a person that kind of tends to catastrophize things, and I live with a lot of anxiety.

And one of the things that I talk about in the book, which was really insightful, was a conversation with a friend of mine who knows that I have a lot of anxiety, that I live with anxiety. And she said to me, “This whole hope thing…” she’s like, “…doesn’t that make you more anxious to, like, have so many options, to have multiple pathways?”

And I thought that that was such an insightful question because, typically, people who have a lot of anxiety like concrete things. We like to know the way that it’s going to be so we can stop catastrophizing about all the things that could be. And as I thought about that, I was like, “You know, I think that hope and anxiety are kind of great partners for each other.”

Because what happens to me when I feel stuck or when I’m catastrophizing, I can step back and say kind of like, “What would hope tell me to do?” Well, hope would tell me to understand where I am now, understand how I want to get out of this place, and create those pathways for myself.

And so, instead of staying stuck and staying anxious in a really stuck place, I can identify multiple pathways in which I can get unstuck. And that actually helps my anxiety because it says, “Oh, wait, there’s not just one way and you’re not just stuck here forever. There’s all these other ways in which you can move forward.” So, hopefully, those are kind of helpful illustrations or stories to answer your question.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s great. Thank you. Yes, and, boy, what a blessing to have had that conversation, to have that leader, because I think the vast majority of professionals and humans would not be so direct in terms of, “Oh, you know, I don’t want to be invasive. It’s not really my place. I don’t want to be, you know?” And so, they, “Hey, Jen, you doing okay?” “Yeah.” “Okay. Just checking.” “Well, no, no, no, no, no.” Moving on as opposed to, “Hmm. Well…”

Jen Fisher
Yeah, because it’s uncomfortable.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, totally. So, I’m curious then in the before times, what do you think are some of the indicators she was picking up on that you were not as consciously aware of?

Jen Fisher
I think one of the things that you just pointed out, right, is that this idea of fine, right? Especially in the workplace when they have conversations with you, “How are you doing?” “Fine.” “How’s your workload?” “Fine.” “How are things at, you know, whatever, home?” “Fine.” So, we kind of build this fortress of fine, and that has become acceptable.

And so why is fine acceptable? When somebody says fine to me, and I probably learned this from her in many unspoken ways, but when I get too many fines right in a row from somebody, that is a signal to dig deeper and be like, “Okay, enough with the fine. Like, how are you, really?” And then it kind of shifts to like, “I’m good. I’m good.” “No, no. Like, I want more than one word. Can you give me six words on like how you’re doing?”

So, I think that that’s kind of what she was picking up on, but certainly, if I reflect back, my emotions were all over the place. I was either really, really high and really happy if things were going really well. If I had a bad conversation or a bad experience or a bad interaction with something, with somebody, my emotions were, like, in the toilet, all the way down.

And so, I was very high or I was very low. There was not really kind of in between, if you will. Certainly, my work product suffered, even though I was working longer hours than ever. The problem is that I was working longer hours than ever and that really affected my work product. I was very reactive. I was also very transactional and task-oriented.

I wasn’t interested in building relationships with my colleagues. I was interested in getting the work done and the metrics associated with those, with getting that work done. And that was uncharacteristic of me. And so, I think, she kind of saw a combination of things. But to your point, there’s not a lot of leaders like that, and so I credit so much of who I am today with her ability to really see me and have the compassion to reach out.

And, of course, at the time, you process that in a whole bunch of different ways. You process it as failure, but I look back on it now and it was one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given to me. And so, I think I tried to emulate and be that leader and be that person for others now.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful, yes. Thank you. Well, let’s dig into some of this hope theory strategy tactic stuff. What do you recommend if folks are listening and they say, “Hmm, I’d like some more hope. That sounds nice”? What are some of the top first things to do?

Jen Fisher
I think the first thing that I recommend people do is do a hope audit, kind of understand where you are when it comes to your own hope. Are you struggling with hope? Are you doing great with hope? How’s your team doing? You can do it at an individual level, a team level, an organizational level.

But I think some of the most, kind of powerful, when I talk to people about hope, ways to assess your own hope, but also what I call hope-killers and hope-builders. And this is really in the language that we use in our lives, but especially in our workplaces and especially as managers of other human beings.

The lessons that I’ve learned is hope-killers are when we say things like, “We want you to bring your ideas. We value innovation. We want to do things differently.” And then somebody brings you an idea and you say something like, “No, that’s not how we do that here. That’s not how we do those things here. We don’t do that.” Or, “We tried that before and it didn’t work.” That’s an automatic.

Those types of things, where you’re shutting someone down, is an automatic hope-killer. What I will say about that is, because my goal is to never make anyone feel bad, that I learned these things the hard way and which is why I’m trying to teach others about it. We say these things as leaders and as managers because we believe that we’re being responsible.

We believe that if we tell somebody, “That’s not how we do it here,” or, “We’ve tried that before and it didn’t work,” that we’re being responsible. We’re being helpful. We’re basically telling them, “Don’t waste your time on that. Like, move on to the next thing, or just do it this way, because we know that it’s going to work and we know it’s acceptable.” You think those are time savers.

That’s kind of the path of least resistance, but it’s really a hope-killer for people because people want to come to work and be creative and come up with new solutions. And most organizations tell them that that’s what they value, but when they do it, then they shut it down.

And so instead, say things like, “Well, we’ve never done it that way. What intrigues you, what interests you, or what excites you about doing it that way?” I think about Ted Lasso, you know, “Be curious, not judgmental,” right?

So have your line of questioning when somebody brings you an idea. Instead of shutting it down, get curious about it, ask them questions. You might still say no, but at least you engaged in the conversation with somebody to understand where they’re coming from.

And that’s what helps us feel like we matter and that we are valued by somebody, not that we execute on every single idea that somebody has, but that we listen to them and that we see them. And that’s what actually creates and builds hope in the workplace.

And that kind of behavior, through the language and the way that we communicate with each other, is incredibly contagious when it comes to workplace culture.

Pete Mockaitis
The language, it is contagious in both directions.

Jen Fisher
In both directions, very negative and positive. Absolutely. Probably negative is more contagious, which is why it’s so dangerous, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, there’s a top tip right there, say, “Don’t use hope-killing language.” Do you have some superior alternatives for if someone is mentioning something and you really do have some insight that was tried before and it didn’t go well? I imagine you want to share that information and not withhold it, but you also don’t want to kill the enthusiasm. So, any pro tips for communicating that?

Jen Fisher
There’s nothing wrong with saying, “Hey, we tried something similar and it didn’t work out, but I want to hear from you. Like, what’s your approach? What do you think is different this time? What, in your mind, would make this work?”

And so, that opens up the dialogue for them to share with you what they’re thinking. And then you can have a conversation about it, right? Then you can share your own insight of, “When we did do this before and it didn’t work.” And then you might learn something from them. Maybe they aren’t proposing that you do it the exact same way that you did it before. Maybe it just looks like that on the surface.

And if you immediately shut it down and say, “Oh, we’ve done that before,” and move on, then you miss the opportunity to dig a little bit deeper. And I’m not talking about spending four hours, right? This is a 10-, 12-, 15-minute conversation with somebody that just is like, “Tell me a little bit more about why you think that that’s going to work,” or, “What excites you about this idea?” or, “Let’s dig a little bit deeper,” so that you can understand where they’re coming from.

And you can also share insight of like, “Hey, we did something similar. This is how we went about it. This is why it didn’t work, and this is why it didn’t work. What do you think? Why do you think that your approach is different?”

And so, it’s not about, like I said, it’s not about letting everybody come up with all kinds of ideas and just start running with all of them. But it’s more about, “How do you make somebody feel seen and valued in the workplace?” Because those are the top things, you know, feeling like you don’t matter in the workplace or in life, that is the biggest hope-killer of all, right?

Like, not mattering to somebody or not mattering to where you work, people start to disengage. And so, it’s really about seeing somebody and just having a quick conversation to understand where they’re coming from. It’s not always about, “Oh, we’re going to move forward with this idea even though I think it’s a bad one.”

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Okay. Well, I’d also love to hear some of the other winning bits from this toolkit.

Jen Fisher
I think, something that I like to do, I call hope spotting, right? And so, there’s a lot of negativity in our world. There’s a lot of negativity in our workplaces.

And so, opening up team meetings or starting your own day as an individual, or ending your day as an individual, and actually spotting and calling out and acknowledging instances of hope-building, you know, talking about something that you thought wasn’t going to go well, but it actually went better than you thought.

Like, really identifying the times in your day or in your week where things went well, because we don’t do that. We tend to dwell on what went wrong, who pissed us off, what we didn’t do right, what we didn’t get done. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t, you know, like there are lessons to be learned by mistakes that we’ve made or interactions that we’ve had that didn’t go as well as we wanted it to.

But we spend a lot more time on those things and we beat ourselves up. And so, really carving out a couple of minutes at the end of each day or in the morning, reflecting on the day before, or as you open a meeting, and allow people to spot hope, to say like, “Hey, this happened, and I thought it was great,” or, “I saw Bob showing the new person how to do X, Y, and Z, and that made me feel really good.”

We tend to kind of gloss over those things and we don’t call them out and we don’t acknowledge them. And so, I think that that’s a really important practice that can help people feel hopeful and have positive emotions in the workplace and feel like they’re valued.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, and I like that a lot in terms of, and that feels distinctly different than, say, a gratitude practice, counting your blessings, like, “Oh, I’ve got a great family. I’ve got a house, you know. I’ve got heat. I’ve got a cozy bed. I’ve got socks that feel great.” Sure. I mean, because we can do those things and those are good and special and shifting the spotlight onto them can be beneficial.

But when you really zero in on, “It went better than you thought it would,” it highlights that same zone of risk and uncertainty where so much of our lives are in these days. It highlights that. And it’s a powerful reminder that, “Yeah, it happens frequently that things work out better than you thought they would.”

So, thusly, perhaps as we’re assessing the probabilities or what’s likely to go down with the next thing, we may just be a bit more balanced in assessing the prognosis of stuff.

Jen Fisher
I love how you summarize that. I think that that was perfect. And that’s why I think hope is a practice, too, right? Because once you start to practice that, that becomes, I wouldn’t say your natural default. Maybe for some people. It’s still not my natural default, but it’s easier for me, right?

Like, I will catch myself going down the path of being like, “Oh, man, I can’t believe I said that,” or, “Oh, that was a really dumb answer.” And when I start to have that negative talk for myself, I’m like, “Wait a minute, what about all the things in the meeting, or the presentation, or the keynote, or the whatever, that went right?”

And so, I start to catch myself more quickly and I don’t follow the negative. And that’s not to say that we don’t screw up. We all screw up, right? Like, yeah, you’re going to say something stupid, you’re going to forget a line, you’re going to make a mistake, whatever it is that your role is, right?

It’s not to say, like those things don’t happen and those things don’t exist. But how do you balance the learning from making mistakes with also recognizing that there’s a lot right that you and others do in the world and calling that out?

Another thing that I really like to do, especially when I’m feeling stuck or, like, when my team is feeling stuck, is talk about possibilities, you know, and kind of do exercises around possibility thinking, right? And so, if I feel really stuck, if I have a problem and I can’t get out of it, or I’m just ruminating on it, asking myself the question of like, “Well, what’s possible here?”

Like, you know, this is kind of that pathways thinking of like, “Where could I go from here? I’m feeling stuck. I don’t want to stay stuck here. So, what are the possibilities here? Like, is this a dead end?” And if it is, kind of accepting that and moving on.

“But if I’m not truly stuck, what are the possibilities and what are the ways in which I can move forward?” And so, that’s kind of a question that I ask myself of like, “Okay, I’m feeling stuck. What are the possibilities here?” And that is a way to generate hope.

Another way, the best way perhaps to cultivate hope is with other people. Hope grows in community. Like many things, hope definitely grows in community, and surrounding yourself with people that support you, and also will hold you accountable when you need to be held accountable is one of the best ways that hope can grow.

And so, when I think about that inside of organizational life, obviously, the best place for that is on your team. But if there’s not people on your team, do you have a friend or two in the organization that you can connect regularly with, because connection is incredibly important for hope?

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. Well, Jen, tell me anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about a few of your favorite things?

Jen Fisher
No, let’s do it. Like, I’ve talked a lot, but that’s the point, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Indeed, yeah. Can we hear about a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Jen Fisher
So, the cover of my book is a butterfly, and that’s a special symbolism to me, but it’s the perfect symbolism for hope. And so, one of my favorite quotes, “If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Jen Fisher
I would say Dr. Edith Egers’ book called The Choice.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And is there a key nugget you share that seems to really connect and resonate with folks, they quote it back to you often?

Jen Fisher
I think one that’s coming up lately is a nugget of we would never put somebody in charge of operations or technology or finance that didn’t have operations, technology, or finance experience, but we continue to put people in charge of humans without any intelligence or knowledge or skill on wellbeing and hope.

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

Jen Fisher
The best place to connect with me is on LinkedIn, but my website is www.Jen-Fisher.com. I also have a Substack newsletter called “Thoughts on Being Well.”

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

Jen Fisher
Make hope your strategy or, at least, make hope part of your strategy.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jen, thank you.

Jen Fisher
Thank you.