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Apr 09
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1144: Getting More of What You Want through the Art of Persuasion with Joshua Bandoch

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Joshua Bandoch reveals how to persuade better in accordance with our natural human wiring.

You’ll Learn

  1. The major misconceptions hurting your persuasiveness
  2. The six moral tastes to appeal to for more persuasiveness
  3. How to get your stories to really resonate with people

About Joshua

Persuasion expert Joshua Bandoch has spent over a decade uncovering the secrets of persuasion. He’s mined psychology, neuroscience, economics, public policy, and history for cutting-edge techniques that work. He’s put them to use in hundreds of speeches written for senior government officials delivered to just about any audience. 

Bandoch uses and refines these persuasion techniques on a daily basis as a think tank leader, where he crafts and communicates policies on issues like poverty, social mobility, education, and the economy to politically diverse audiences, including elected officials, local and national media, and grassroots activists.

Resources Mentioned

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Joshua Bandoch Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Josh, welcome!

Josh Bandoch
Pete, it is a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. I’m excited to talk persuasion. And can you tell us what’s perhaps the most surprising and fascinating thing you’ve discovered about persuasion from all your years of studying it?

Josh Bandoch
Maybe we’ll start with this one, which is that persuasion, people think persuasion is about getting somebody to do something. And it’s actually much more about removing barriers to doing things.

And if you don’t understand what’s stopping somebody, they’re never going to actually do what you want them to do. So unless you remove those barriers, you’re not going to persuade anybody to anything, because there’s always that thing somewhere stopping them.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s about removing barriers instead of, I guess, incepting them, like, “That’s never occurred to me before. How wonderful. I’d love to do that.” It’s less of that and more of, “Oh, you got to hangup over here. Well, let’s address that.”

Josh Bandoch
Well, so it could be, and sometimes, “That’s an amazing idea,” and still, they’re not going to do it unless you remove a barrier. It’s something that we don’t think about. So we can talk a lot today about things you can say and do to increase the chances of getting people to do what you want.

My book is called How to Get What You Want, and there’s a lot that goes into that. And one thing that we don’t think about is, no matter how brilliant we are, and how tight our reasoning is, and how high our emotional intelligence is, how great all the other tools and strategies that we can talk about today, if we don’t remove that barrier, someone is going to stay stuck and they won’t do what you want them to do.

So you have to look for those barriers and we can talk about how you can do that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, yeah, I do want to get into that. And maybe to zoom out a little bit, what would you say is sort of the big idea or core thesis of your book, How to Get What You Want?

Josh Bandoch
So maybe let’s start by thinking about what persuasion isn’t and what it is. So I think another thing that’s kind of related to this is that people tend to misunderstand persuasion.

There are three really common misconceptions that I encounter whenever I talk about this – workshops, lectures, whatever. The first is that people think that persuasion is about winning. And, Pete, if I win against you, what does that make you?

Pete Mockaitis
I’m a loser.

Josh Bandoch
“Loser!” And do you want to work with somebody who makes you feel like a loser?

Pete Mockaitis
No.

Josh Bandoch
No, not at all. And then people think it’s about convincing somebody to think just like them. And the trouble with that is that the Latin root of the word convince actually means to vanquish or to conquer. And conquest is barbaric, it’s not persuasive.

And then people think that persuasion is all about just making the right arguments. Well, I got into this, but the reality of how this thing, the human brain works, is that we feel first then reason. And so when you just start by launching your logic at people, you’re missing the entire boat.

So kind of big picture, staying zoomed out for a minute, I think persuasion has three parts or three steps. Step one is to adopt what I call the persuader’s mindset. And this is a little bit counterintuitive because it’s not how we’re wired. And we’re wired to think about ourselves, and you need to put them first because you’re trying to persuade someone else to do something. You’ve already persuaded yourself that you’re right.

Step two is to use knowledge of how the human brain works to your advantage. So what I dive into in part two of the book is all the ways that we’re wired, and just accepting those cognitive realities, challenging some of them more like, I hate some of the things that are there. I absolutely hate it.

And yet, that’s just how all 8 billion of us are wired. And so my recommendation is navigate those cognitive realities instead of fighting them. And then the third part goes into it’s a little more tactical, some techniques you can use to further enhance your chances of getting what you want. That’s the super zoom out version of it all.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, super. Well, that all sounds really fun. I’d love to dig into some of those, you know, tactical tidbits. But can you tell us, really, what’s at stake in terms of if we’ve mastered this well, that’s your subtitle, “Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion,” what do we stand to gain or lose if we master this art and science versus if we kind of continue chugging along, you know, as mediocrely persuasive in our professional lives?

Josh Bandoch
Yeah, the difference between having a great idea and having someone else embrace that idea is persuasion. You might go to your boss and say, “Boss, I have a great idea.” It might truly be a great idea. And if you don’t present that idea persuasively, then it’s not going to land the way you want it to.

And then, I mean, sometimes we think we’re being persuasive and it’s actually the exact opposite – we’re being aversive. And one of the big motivations of writing this book is that I’ve just encountered so many brilliant people, whether it’s in academia or in sales or fundraising or whatever, that are super smart and it’s not what they’re saying. It’s how they say it.

And because they don’t deliver their information, their ideas, persuasively, they either don’t get anywhere or they don’t get nearly as far as they could. So that’s the difference. Do you want people to embrace your good ideas?

Pete Mockaitis
Could you tell us a story of someone who upgraded their persuasion art and science skills and saw cool things come from it?

Josh Bandoch
I’ve coached people close to me on getting raises and getting promotions. And these are people who are terrified to advocate for themselves, even though they were doing great work.

Consistently got great reviews and paltry raises. Especially when the opportunity presented themselves, when they were asked to take on more responsibility, I coached them to advocate for themselves persuasively, to really understand what their organization needed.

And then to show how they could just over-deliver on those needs, especially if they were being asked to adopt more responsibility, and then say, “By the way, since I’m adopting more responsibility, and I’ve been over-delivering, like, maybe now is the time for a salary increase or a promotion or both.”

Pete Mockaitis
Very cool. Well, can you tell us like what kinds of promotions we’re talking, or what kinds of money dollar increases we’re talking?

Josh Bandoch
In one case, it was just basically, “Hi, we need you to take on this new role. It’s going be a lot more responsibility, and we’re going to give you a title that, at best, would seem like it’s a lateral move” to getting a title that was two levels up.

And instead of getting no pay increase, I think it ended up being about an $8,000-pay increase plus like a $5,000 bonus. That’s not bad when none of that was on the table. All those gains compound over time.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. And it’s so funny, I think I’ve been learning recently, with regard to titles, like, I used to not care. I was like, “Oh, who cares? It’s just a title, whatever.” I’m coming to learn, you know, who cares is the next person hiring you. That’s who cares. And then the money dollars attached to those roles. So that’s who cares.

Josh Bandoch
A hundred percent. And it doesn’t cost your current employer anything to give you a better title right now. And then two things happen, when you apply for that next job, then you have that better title and they don’t know that you’re underpaid.

So, also, once you are in a higher title, even if you tell your employer, “Look, just give me a better title,” six months down the road when you’re over-delivering, then you say, “Look, this is the pay range for this title, and I’m below or at the very bottom of this pay range, and I’ve been over-delivering,” and now they see you in that role and they can pay you in that role.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. Well, let’s walk us through these three components then. So, the persuader’s mindset.

Josh Bandoch
We are wired to think about ourselves, which makes sense. It’s a survival mechanism.  If we didn’t think about ourselves, who would? So when our ancestors, many moons ago, they were wired to be sensitive to threats and take care of themselves, and that’s why we’re here today.

And actually, we love talking about ourselves, too. People talk about themselves 60% of the time, and on social media that raises to 80% of the time. Talking about ourselves generates the same sensations in our brain as sex and money. So it feels great.

So we adopt what I call a me-first mindset. The trouble with that is that, Pete, if I’m bringing my me-first mindset to our conversation, what does that mean for you?

Pete Mockaitis
Then I’m second.

Josh Bandoch
At best, right? At worst, it’s going to be extremely annoying, or you’re going to feel like neglected, disrespected, whatever, because you’re trying to share some of your feelings and thoughts with me, your perspective, and I’m just, “Nope, it’s all about me, it’s all about me, it’s all about me.”

And so my recommendation is that we flip this, we adopt a them-first approach, that we put them first, because the goal is to persuade somebody else to do something that you want them to do.

So how do you do this? Well, by putting them first, you’re really understanding them. So that starts with listening. And what you’re looking for when you listen is opportunities to share action, because that’s what persuasion is. And there’s always going to be overlap. And if you listen hard long enough, there’s going to be way more overlap than you expect.

And, ideally what you’re listening for is for your counterpart to recommend what you want to do. So instead of going to meet with your boss, and saying, “I think we should do X, Y, and Z,” or, “I want X, and Z,” you could just ask them, “How do you think we should proceed?” and then let them talk.

And then they’re going to probably identify a couple ways to proceed that are exactly what you wanted or even better than you wanted, and then you just do those things, and then maybe you can add a little bit on top of that.

But by listening and identifying areas for overlap, that’s the best way to share access with somebody because that’s what they want and overlaps with what you want.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you give us an example story of this in process?

Josh Bandoch
Yeah, so I used to work in fundraising, just sales for a nonprofit. And most fundraisers approach, and just most salesmen approach sales this way. They say, “Hey, I have this great product, and this is why you should want this product. This is why you should move over to our product, or whatever, buy from me.”

And the trouble with that is that, in fundraising, a lot of people kind of get it backwards. I think that fundraising is 99% about the investor, the potential donor, 1% about the organization, and 0% about the fundraiser.

But a lot of people make it way too much about the fundraiser, or the salesman way too much about the organization. And these donors, they see the organization as a vehicle to realizing their vision for a better, whatever it is, education, healthcare, whatever, pick your favorite nonprofit space.

So when you bring your why to them, that may not be their why. So what I always did is I just listened, listened, listened. And I actually thought that I failed once, and then I’ll give you a success story, but I went up to a guy in Wisconsin. He had given us money off of a letter.

People give money off of direct mail, which is wild, just, “Here, here’s money. I got a letter from you. Amazing. Cool.” So I drive up there, and I sit in this guy’s office, in his house, about an hour and a half, and he talked 85-90% of the time.

And I was new and I thought my job, selling my nonprofit, was to tell him all the amazing things that we were doing. And I’m like looking for ways to interject, and this guy just wouldn’t stop talking. I was like, “Oh, my God.”

So the meeting was pretty much over, and I’m like, “I am such a failure.” I went to my boss and she’s going to be like, “Dude, man, you messed up.” And then he said to me, he said, “I have such a better idea of what you all do now.” And I thought, “No, you don’t. How could you possibly?”

And then I realized I was dead wrong, and he was completely right, because he felt like he was connected to me and my organization. I had said just enough to help him understand, “Yeah, yeah, like, we’re on the same page,” and that was all he needed.

Pete Mockaitis
So in practice, when we’re making it all about them, what are the things we should do and not do in those conversations?

Josh Bandoch
Start by listening. And there are three ways to listen. You can listen passively, just, essentially, close the front door and open your ears, right? We have one mouth and two ears for a reason. So use the ears way more than the mouth.

And even in simply listening, you form that connection, and people love to be listened to and feel heard. So listen passively first, practice that, which is really hard for a lot of people.

The second step would be to actively listen. Ask them questions that really just open up information, say, like, how or what questions that can’t be answered yes or no, and just let them talk. But you’re gathering information about important topics.

Like,“What are your priorities in your philanthropy?” “What are your priorities with our team?” whatever it is, right? Eventually, you’re going to move to what I call proactive listening, which is moving the conversation in a way that is going to align with your needs but also really meets your needs.

So then you’re asking questions like, “How do you want to proceed?” And then they’re going to tell you, and at least part of how they would proceed is going to probably work for you really well.

And if they lay out something that is a complete disaster, then you say, “Nah, that doesn’t work for me.” And if you can do all these things, you become what I call the ultimate listener, and you’re a phenomenal listener who knows how to listen to get what you want.

And that’s the best way to put them first is to form those connections, demonstrate understanding, find all the ways you can work together. People think this is impossible, but, so, part of my work is in public policy.

And people who are on different sides of the aisle, some of the partisan warriors think, “I can never agree with that person.” And people who are on totally opposite sides of the aisle, I can look at many areas of overlap. I find it because I look for it.

And a lot of people just don’t want to look for it, but it’s always there, whether it’s on policy issues or sales or your boss or whatever. There’s always a ton of overlap there. So find that first.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot, and particularly that question, “How do you want to proceed?” Because I’m thinking about when I’ve been on the receiving end of sales pitches, a lot of the conversation is not how I want to proceed.

I’m hearing a lot about, “Okay, all your features, the demo of the software, the history of the founder and the story, yada, yada.” And so I guess what I really, really want to know most of all is bring me the juiciest evidence that you can, in fact, solve my problem, make my world better.

And so a lot of times if that’s like a marketing or operations kind of a thing, it’s like, “Show me some amazing case studies with really rich, lots of numbers, and folks very much like me who did a thing and saw the result. Like, yes, like that gets me excited.” As opposed to, “Okay, I guess that’s cool that you can do that, but what I really want to know is that this is for real.”

I’m thinking about like AI stuff, for example. I don’t know how many times I said, “Wow, that sounds like an amazing AI tool. Oh, except it won’t actually do what I want it to do. So I guess I have to move on to the next.”

Josh Bandoch
Because it doesn’t meet your need, right? So unless I know what your needs are and I can frame things in terms of your needs, we aren’t going to get anywhere or we’re not going to get nearly as far as we could.

If I understand, “Okay, so like, what do you need from your AI tool? Okay. Like there are these three things. Does my AI tool deliver that? Oh, yeah, it does. And it delivers all them. And on one of these, we are best in the business. So, Pete, you know, cut me if I’m wrong, please, these are your three priorities with what you need from AI. Yeah, okay, cool.”

“Here’s how we can meet those needs. I want you to know we are best in the business with this first one, and it’s super important. And here’s what distinguishes our product. We’re really good with these other things, too.”

If I, instead, go in there thinking that there are three totally different features that you should want, and you don’t want them, oh, it’s like, “You know what you need to eat for lunch? Pizza.” And you’re like, “I don’t want pizza.” “No, no, like, you need to eat pizza.” It’s like, “Well, actually, I wanted a salad.” “Hey, you know what you need? Pizza,” right? Like this isn’t going to get us very far.

But if I understand that you want a salad, like, “Ah, what do you want in your salad? Oh, yeah, I can provide that.” And a lot of people try to force feed people to see things the way that they see them. And there’s only one person who sees things the way that you do anyways. That’s you.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, well said. Okay. Well, now let’s talk a little bit about understanding how we’re wired and accepting these cognitive realities. Tell us, what are these troubling realities that we want to fight against and not accept?

Josh Bandoch
So there are four cognitive realities that I dive into in part four, and it all starts with this first one. And I hate it because I’m a former academic, and academics are taught, you know, tight reasoning, well-written sentences, blah blah blah, that stuff, peer review.

So academics think, “Launch your logic at people and, you know, like, the best logic and reasoning and data will, like, win the day.” And this is how our brains are wired. We feel first, then reason.

Sometimes it’s feel but reason, sometimes it’s feel than reason, sometimes it’s feel and we never get to reasoning. We’ve all been there. I have. So what does that mean? That means that persuasion starts with feelings. So we need to start with feelings.

So it turns out that people who, through brain damage, lose the ability to emote. Their reasoning is actually impaired. So emotions actually improve our reasoning.

So what this means, partially, is that the logic-first approach to persuasion that a lot of people adopt, it’s actually illogical because it’s not how our brains are wired. And I fought this for a long time, and I’ve just embraced it because our feelings, our emotions, our intuitions, they’re really powerful, they’re really quick, and they’re grounded in reasons.

When you something doesn’t feel right, when you reflect on it, there’s almost always a good reason for that. So, boom, I just want to trust my intuition.

So you have to think about how you want your audience to feel and how you’re going to generate those feelings, and also understanding how your audience is feeling because maybe now is not the right time to engage somebody, or you just need to get a pulse on them.

So here’s a really stealthy way that your listeners can figure out how somebody is feeling. Ask them. So instead of asking, “What do you think about this product?” “What do you think about giving me a promotion?” “What do you think about…?” whatever it is, fill in the blank?

Ask somebody how they feel about something. And this generates a radically different answer. Because when you say, “Think,” okay, you have to pause, “Brain do this thing.” Feeling, it just comes out.

So just test this a couple times. I encourage your listeners, just test it on like a friend or a spouse or partner, whoever, “How would you feel about X?” And you’re going to get such different answers, their unguarded answers, the mask drops, and people just tell you truthfully. So then you know how they feel about something.

“How would you feel about doing this thing?” They’ll tell you. So you have to start with feelings and just accept that that’s a cognitive reality. It begs the question, “What feelings are persuasive?” and I’ll get there, but I’ll pause just for a second.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I like that distinction a lot, asking, “What do you feel about this?” as opposed to, “What do you think about this?” Because I’m just thinking about any number of questions, like business-to-business enterprise, you know, big kinds of transactions in terms of like, “What do you feel about this?”

Like, “Well, I guess I’m kind of worried that you’re going to go out of business in three years, and we’re going to be kind of in a tight spot because we’re already, like, roped into your solution.”

It’s like, “Oh, okay, that’s much better than ‘What do you think?’” It’s like, “Oh, this appears to meet our future needs.” You get very different answers and they’re probably the ones that you want, just by asking, “What do you feel about this?”

Josh Bandoch
The thinking question gives you guarded answers, “Well, I don’t know. I have to think about it. Let me go back to my team,” whatever.

People don’t, whether it’s buying a house, buying a car, you know, or making a big multi-billion dollar deal, those things, ultimately, they all start with feelings. Even if you just feel like, you know, “Ah, you know, I don’t know if I can trust this person,” or, “I trust Pete, unquestionably. So if he tells me we’re good, I feel good about this.”

So if I say, “Pete, look, I mean, how do you feel about this?” You say, “Josh, I feel great. You know, I think this is a great idea.” And you’re like, “Man, you know, it’s like…” And I’m like, “Well, what makes you feel that way?” “Here, look, we’ve been working together for years. I totally trust you. Cool.” Right? Like, what more do you need to know?

Two questions, the feeling question and the follow-up feeling question, “What makes you feel that way?” Okay, boom, there you go. And these are quick, unguarded, intuitive reactions that are grounded in reason, but they just come out, boom, and they’re so powerful.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, what’s next?

Josh Bandoch
So then the question is, “Well, what kinds of feelings are persuasive?” And we live in an age of toxic polarization. When I was writing the introduction to chapter four, which is where this comes from, I looked at the homepages of Fox News and MSNBC, and I found, collectively, over probably about 200 articles. I found one positive article. One.

So the data would indicate that negative feelings are persuasive because they were all negative. And I would ask you, I’ll kick it over to you. If you think about some of the most persuasive Americans of the 20th century, you don’t have to be partisan about it, because people go like, like, “Yeah, they were really persuasive.” Who are some of the folks who come to mind?

Pete Mockaitis
I guess I’m just thinking about, we say famous in 20th century, I’m just thinking about famous speeches, you know, JFK, MLK, they all have initials, I guess, you know.

Josh Bandoch
Exactly, yeah. And then could I add, like, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama to that?

Pete Mockaitis
Sure.

Josh Bandoch
So JFK, he said, “Ask not.” Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have a dream.” Ronald Reagan saw America as a shining city. And Barack Obama talked about hope and change. And I said, “Okay, those are all positive things.”

No one ever says, “No, not JFK. Walter Mondale.” No one says, “Oh, no, no, not Martin Luther King, Jr. Malcolm X.” No one says, “Not Ronald Reagan. Barry Goldwater,” right?

So we know, intuitively, really, we know what kinds of feelings are persuasive. Positive feelings. And the best leaders, the most persuasive people, they are for things. So how do you generate positive feelings? You be for something. You think about what you are for and you lead with that.

So if you are a leader of a company, like what are you for as a leader? What is your company for? How do you lean in with those things? In my policy space, I work at opportunity policy. So I’m for opportunity. I’m for independence. I’m for dignity through work. I’m for strong families, I’m for communities, all these things.

In my personal life, I’m for empowering people to unleash their potential. That’s what this book is about, because it’s going from great idea to presenting that great idea persuasively. Boom! Potential unleashed. So it’s, like, what are you for? How do you lead with those things? And how do you use that to generate persuasive feelings?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s interesting. In terms of being legendary, long lasting, the positive being for something resonates and inspires. And yet, in terms of grabbing our immediate clicks, it seems like the negative does better.

Like, I’m just imagining like, let’s say I’ve got a YouTube, a sea of YouTube thumbnails and titles, and yours talks about what you’re for, that might be a bit of a snooze in terms of,  “Oh, man, this one is terrifying. What’s that about?” Click. As opposed to, if I’m actually strapped in for the speech, yeah, the inspirational stuff will linger for the ages.

Josh Bandoch
And the deep-down wiring reason for that is that we are wired, going back to the wiring again, so we are wired with something called negativity bias. And this is a survival mechanism.

The problem is while it helps us survive, it impedes thriving. Like, do you really want to follow somebody who is just negative all the time, who’s just tearing things down, and who doesn’t know how to build things up? That’s not a recipe for long-term success, either in your personal life or in your professional life.

If you’re a manager who just goes down and says, “Well, this is all terrible.” Maybe, but, like, what are you, what is organization, what is your team for? Like, where are you going? And what are these things?” Because it’s those positive things that motivate people to do things repeatedly over a long period of time.

So it’s, essentially, fighting your wiring, but also trusting your intuitions because people give the same answers that you did, JFK, Martin Luther King Jr. People like that. Like, we know deep down. So it’s fighting part of our wiring, but also kind of trusting our intuitions a little bit.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so we feel first, then reason, what feelings are persuasive. What’s the next piece about feelings?

Josh Bandoch
Well, so then how do you generate feelings for something?

Josh Bandoch
And then what are the best mechanisms for that? Okay. So, two. The first is to appeal to your audience’s values, to their moral taste. On our actual physical tongue, we have five or six tastes wired into it: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami, maybe fat, oleogustus.

In the same way, hundreds of thousands of survey responses, research from moral psychologists that’s been, I think, widely validated, show that just like we have these physical taste receptors on our tongue, we have six, maybe seven moral taste receptors that are wired, and that’s important, into our hearts and minds.

They are care, essentially sensitivity for suffering; equity, a concern for equal outcomes, proportionality, which is about hard work and merit; authority, which is about hierarchies; loyalty, which is in-group, out-group; purity, which is like things that are sacred or things that are disgusting; and then liberty, essentially being free to live how you want.

So I say wiring because research shows that 30-60% of our values are wired into us. We know this through studies of twins. So, like, our values are at least 30% genetic, which means that rather than hating somebody because they have different values than you, you just accept that that’s largely wired into them.

So what you’re trying to do is understand the sorts of values that resonate with your audience, and then appeal to those tastes. This is important because would you serve a vegetarian veal? Would you force feed bacon to somebody who keeps kosher? I hope not.

So in the same way, you’re simply accepting your audience’s values and trying to frame things in their terms. And then what’s the absolute best way to do that? It’s to tell stories.

So let me give you an example from the policy space to make this a little bit concrete. There are these things called occupational licenses. They are a government permission set to work in industry. So about one in four Americans need an occupational license to do a job.

Sometimes this makes sense. I don’t want my surgeon to not be licensed. Fine. In some cases, these burdens are either too big or even unnecessary altogether. So there are a lot of fields like in Illinois, it takes a year to go to cosmetology school to get a license to be a barber. And that’s just not necessary, I don’t think.

So when I present my recommendation, which is to reduce or eliminate these burdens, I have to still be really mindful of how I frame that. So if I’m talking to somebody who’s more progressive, then I’m going to talk about how the current laws are inequitable, right, the equity thing, and how they’re uncaring.

So here’s what I would say. And then I would ground this in data. Data is important, too, right? We feel first then reason, “So there’s data, I believe it’s from the Minneapolis Fed that shows that blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately hurt by, like, a really big gap by occupational licensing laws.” So it’s inequitable and it’s uncaring to these groups.

And these laws also hurt poor people more. This is all true grounded in a ton of data, and I’m framing it in their terms. If by contrast, I’m talking to a conservative or libertarian, I’m going to say that, “These laws are unfair because it impedes on somebody’s freedom to work in a space and hard work, proportionality, hard work should determine how successful you are.

I’m making the exact same recommendation, but if I go to the conservative, and I say, “This is inequitable,” they’re going to be like, “Ehh.” If I go to the progressive, and I say, “Freedom and hard work,” they’ll say, “Ehh, probably not,” right?

So if I understand their values, same recommendation, I’m authentic to myself, “I want to reduce these burdens,” and I frame that differently. I’m being really sensitive to my audience. And that’s, I think, a powerful way to connect.

So that’s a policy example of what that looks like. You can do that in your business space, your personal space, too, by understanding what some of these values are and appealing to them rather than beating them over the head and force feeding them with your values.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. I think these six are a phenomenal starting point and really good to stretch you, to flex you into different ways of speaking about the same suggestion for different audiences.

But then you might also have very specific things that totally vibe for someone, like someone super into safety, someone super into maximizing their wealth, someone super into having a really fun time. And so you could do the macro and the micro customization.

Josh Bandoch
Totally. That’s a total yes and, 100%. So these are kind of big picture things, just like in general things, people are sensitive to. And then, totally, like these things manifest themselves in people in different ways. Hard work and freedom might manifest themselves in some person, it’s like, “That feels a little greedy. Okay, fine.” Or like, “Super greedy.”

So they can manifest themselves in a different way, like care or loyalty isn’t only one thing. So you have to individualize it 100%. Because even if someone is like, you know, they’re sensitive to care, equity, like what exactly do they care about? What exactly sets them off? Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so tell us about telling great stories.

Josh Bandoch
So before we are logic processors, we are story processors. And stories are, by far, the most persuasive tool that exists. If you can give a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation chock full of data in seven point font, airtight logic and everything, or you can tell a 30-second story, you got to tell the story. You got to tell the story.

So, just an example again from my policy space. There was a report that came out about a year and a half ago from a Harvard professor. It talks about social mobility. And it says that the single biggest driver of whether somebody experiences social mobility in their life is whether they grew up in an environment, not a home, but in an environment where adults work.

I’ve tried for a year and a half to explain that report clearly. That’s the best I can do. Even that’s a little confusing for me. So, instead, I could do this. Just after that report came out, I was at a conference, talking to a colleague of mine, and she was just talking to a foster mom.

And that foster mom said that her foster kid came up to her and said, “Where do you go all day?” You know what the answer is? Work. And an adult going to work was a foreign concept for that kid. How can you possibly expect that kid to understand how important work is to your professional and personal success if he’s never seen an adult go to work?

That’s the story version of that. So you got to start with stories. And the question is, “Well, what kinds of stories?” Because we hear stories, fine, stories, stories. There are hundreds, thousands of great books, tell stories. And I think one of the unique things about my book, really, is what kinds of stories.

It’s morally motivating, emotionally intelligent stories. So people need to feel something. What are you trying to get them to feel? And especially making these moral appeals gets them to feel those things, so tying back to the couple of things we’ve just discussed.

Pete Mockaitis
So you mentioned that stories are more impactful and persuasive than logic. Can you expand on that?

Josh Bandoch
Absolutely. One of the hats I wear is I work in opportunity policy and I’m working to alleviate poverty. So I get up and talk to all kinds of groups of people.

And they have to know that I, sure, I get it, but also that I’m authentic and that I care about this. And when I’m up there talking about poverty in a suit, this is not a very impoverished look. So I have to disarm them right away.

The last thing I would ever want to do is go up there and say, “The Census Bureau shows that 12% of Americans live below the poverty line, which is X dollars,” right? And just go into these sorts of things. Terrible, boring snooze. And they have to know that I care about this stuff.

So I just reach for the most authentic personal story that I have, and that’s my family. I tell them, I say, “Look, you all are wondering why I care about poverty. I don’t look impoverished. I’m wearing a suit. I get it. So I care about poverty because it’s seared into my family history.”

“My mom grew up dirt poor. My grandmother had to raise five kids by herself. They were so poor that my grandmother had to count pennies.” See, sometimes I even get emotional doing this, which I am right now, so I’m sorry.

“And every year my mom wondered if there were going be presents around the Christmas tree because most years there weren’t. And that poverty scarred my mom and her siblings.”

“And I don’t want anybody to suffer through poverty the way that my mom and her siblings and my grandmother did. So that’s why I care about poverty, because it’s a terrible scourge and I want to do everything I can to reduce or eliminate it.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, totally. And you could see, I mean, the story hits home and is memorable and touching and impactful. And the statistic is just like, “Okay, those are some numbers. It’d be nice if we had better numbers than that.” as opposed to something really heavy that sits with you with your story.

Josh Bandoch
And it’s so raw where I pause there. Sometimes I’ve just started crying because it’s authentic and it’s real and it’s emotional and I don’t do it on purpose. It’s kind of embarrassing.

And yet when it’s happened, people come to me afterwards and said, “Wow, man, like that was really powerful.” So they know, they feel so viscerally that, like, I am all in on this stuff. I am totally authentic.

They can trust me and they can work with me in a way that my presentation of the data, as exact and compelling as somebody might think it is, that will never come even close to what I can do with an emotionally intelligent, morally motivating story.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious, just like in ordinary business-y world, it’s like, “I’ve got a cool idea. I would like my boss to do it. I would like for him to feel excited about my idea and the possibilities for what could happen if we did it.” So what kind of stories do I create in that context?

Josh Bandoch
Part of it is trying to just grab real stories. So, like, if you’re presenting, say your manager, tell stories about the great things that everyone on the team did, “Bob did this. Susie did that. Maria did this. Andre did that.”

Tell stories about what they did because it makes it real. It celebrates your teammates. Those are tangible actions that they took. You’re also trying to craft meta stories for an organization. If you’re like a leader, CEO on the board, whatever, that’s like the vision there.

They’re really big picture things about what you’re doing and who you are and what they care about. So try to tell real stories. You don’t even have to make things up. I mean, sometimes you can. Hey, like imagine a situation, but first try to grab real stories that are authentic to you.

Maybe it’s something personal, good or bad that happened, and start with that. Because if you’re trying to solve a problem, maybe you need to start with a story that’s like, “You know, our customer, or I, or somebody, like we had this problem. And here’s a story about that.” And then there’s a story about how you can solve that problem or how that product has solved the problem.

So if you’re talking to a client and they’re like, “Well, why would I buy it from you?” And you’re like, “Well, you know, let me tell you a story about another one of our clients.” And you can tell them a story about how your product solved their problem, which incidentally is the same problem that this potential client is having.

So instead of saying, “Let me show you the data, right? Our product is 27% better than the nearest competitor. On this metric, we are 12% better. On this metric, we are 37% better. On this metric, we’re 19% better,” just tell them a story about how one of your customers, their performance, their profit, whatever, just skyrocketed because of your product. And that’s going to stick.

Instead of the data, tell them about like, company X, “Company X did this. They worked with us. It was great for them.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, tell us, any other top do’s and don’ts to put out there before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Josh Bandoch
Yeah, so chapter eight is called “Go Beyond Words.” And we think that persuasion is all about words. They’re super important and there’s so much more that goes in persuasion than words. So I’ll flag two things. Three, because we have control over them.

The first is to be likable. It doesn’t mean that people will like you, but be as likable as possible. And we tend to underestimate how important this is. And just think about a time when you liked what somebody was saying, and because you didn’t like that person, you’re like, “Nah, I’m not going to work with them. I’m not going to do this.” So be likable.

The second is to be curious. And that actually makes you more likable. And that goes back to the questions, right, taking interest in the other person. People love talking about themselves. So be curious about them and about what their priorities are.

And the last is to control your tone. Because if I say, “Pete, that’s a great idea!” You’re like, “Okay, he probably thinks it’s a great idea.” If I say “Pete, ahh, that was a great idea.”

They’re the exact same words, and you got to, especially when you’re not calm, maybe you’re nervous, you’re overwhelmed with negative emotions, you got to control your tone because we can intuitively pick up on that tone, and it’s like, “Hmm, what’s going on there?” which also means listen for tone in your counterpart.

While you try to remain super calm, because that’s the best tone, calm, if you notice that somebody is a little anxious, again, that’s especially where those feeling questions, “You know, well, how do you feel about this?” “Oh, I don’t know, man. Like, I’m not sure if this works for me because of X, Y, and Z.” So watch your tone and watch their tone, too.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Great. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Josh Bandoch
It comes from a poem from Samuel Beckett. The six lines are, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

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

Josh Bandoch
The intuition stuff that we talked about a lot today. As reluctant as I was to accept it at first, A, it’s true, and, B, it’s really powerful. So I think our intuitions are just the coolest thing ever now, whereas, I used to think, “Ah, I don’t know about this stuff.” And there’s just an abundance of research that has showed that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Josh Bandoch
Danny Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Josh Bandoch
A notebook. I think in a digital age, we forget how powerful it is to pause, close a computer, get out your favorite pen – I’ve been using the same pens for 30 years – and just write your thoughts down and capture them. When you’re in a meeting, write things down in a notebook. It’s so powerful, and it’s a forgotten superpower to do that.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Josh Bandoch
My new favorite habit, I try to just add new habits in over time, is to meditate.

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

Josh Bandoch
Yeah, this is maybe a good concluding point. I think that, every day, in our personal and professional lives, throughout every day, we are faced with a decision, “Do I want to be right or do I want to make a difference?” It’s really easy to be right.

You go on Twitter X, whatever, you blog post something, right, send that email that you wish you hadn’t sent. Being right is really easy and, oftentimes, it’s counterproductive. Making a difference, by contrast, that’s what persuasion is all about.

And that’s a much more satisfying and, upfront, a more time-intensive enterprise. And that’s how you succeed time after time after time again. That’s how you get what you want.

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

Josh Bandoch
JoshuaBandoch.com, connect with me on LinkedIn. Check out the book, just go to my website or just Google How to Get What You Want. My last name, Bandoch, B-A-N-D-O-C-H. It’ll come right up, and check out the book.

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

Josh Bandoch
I would say it’s returning to that in every interaction, “Do you want to be right or do you want to make a difference? And if you want to make a difference, what do you do?” You have to put them first, be extremely attentive to feelings, and bring a lot of attention to generating the right feelings.

And if you do that, you’re going to grease the wheels for shared action time after time after time after time. It’s magical once you get it going.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Josh, thank you.

Josh Bandoch
Pete, thank you so much.

Apr 06
0

1143: How to Build a Career that AI Can’t Replace with Aneesh Raman

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Aneesh Raman guides you on how to use AI and turn it into a competitive advantage.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why you shouldn’t see AI as competition
  2. How to make the most out of AI in your workflow
  3. What AI can’t replicate–and how you can double down on it

About Aneesh

Aneesh Raman is the chief economic opportunity officer of LinkedIn, where he works with leaders across societies and sectors to shape the global response to the historic changes hitting work. 

Previously, he served as senior adviser on economic strategy and public affairs to the State of California, led economic impact at Facebook, worked as a presidential speechwriter, and was a war correspondent. 

A graduate of Harvard College and a former Fulbright Scholar, he serves on the boards of the College Futures Foundation and Shanti Bhavan Children’s Project

Resources Mentioned

Thank you, Sponsors!

Aneesh Raman Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Aneesh, welcome!

Aneesh Raman
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to hear your insights about AI and economic opportunity. Could you maybe kick us off by sharing what’s the most surprising or counterintuitive thing you’ve discovered about us career professional folks and AI?

Aneesh Raman
Ooh, it’s a big one. It’s an existential one that we have internalized this diminished sense of self as humans at work across the industrial age. When AI broke out, what now three, four years ago, immediately, there was this great fear.

Immediately, the conversation was, “We’re done. We’re at the end of the road for humans at work. We’ve got this thing that can beat us at these things. It’s going to beat us at those things next. It’s going to beat us at everything soon.”

And I just sort of, like, intrinsically, didn’t believe that. I was starting from a place where, for a long time, I had thought the labor market did a horrible job matching talent and opportunity, indexed on pedigree signals like your college degree, “Where did you work?”

So I just knew there was so much human potential out there that had been blocked out or locked out of economic opportunity all over the world. And so I just didn’t believe that humans were done. I kind of felt like we hadn’t even begun yet.

And the more I sort of thought about it, the more our CEO and I talked about it, what led to the book was this realization that humans are more than we’ve been at work for a couple hundred years now. For a couple hundred years, we have been about one thing above all else – efficiency.

And we sort of told ourselves a story that the knowledge economy moved us out of the industrial age, of people working on factory floors on assembly lines. But it didn’t. Even if you were with a laptop in an office, you were doing more, better, faster, more, better, faster, more, better, faster. Everything was about efficiency and productivity.

And we had derided almost these skills that make us, us. We called them soft skills. We said they were nice to have, not must have. And all the math worked in terms of the industrial age and what the economy valued in terms of technical and analytic abilities.

But I think what’s been most surprising to me is that AI is forcing us to reassert ourselves because it is going to out-machine us, it’s going to out-efficiency us. And yet, our human brain, which is I think still the most incredible object in the known universe, it’s been around for tens of thousands of years, long before the steam engine arrived, and the industrial age descended upon us.

And so we’re going to pull from these strengths that we’ve had for millennia, that we talked about in the book, and it’s going to be a moment to reassert ourselves and our capability, I think.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow! These are big ideas.

Aneesh Raman
Welcome to my brain.

Pete Mockaitis
“Internalize the diminished sense of self.” My goodness. You know, it’s funny, I was just chatting with Claude last night because I think the First Lady was with a robot doing an education event. And I was like, “Oh, can that robot finally load my dishwasher for me? And when can I buy one?”

And so, I was looking at that, and it said, “Oh, this robot is impressive because it could figure out how to fold a towel with just 80 hours of video.” I was like, “Oh, well, my five-year-old figured out how to fold a towel in about four minutes of instruction with a hug.”

So, yeah, I’m with you, our brains are spectacular. But, yeah, there are some domains in which we are being out-efficienced by the AI.

Aneesh Raman
Yeah, and I think that’s okay. It’s not okay right now because it’s causing a massive disruption to work. It’s changing the rules of the game, which are hard to manage if you’ve been playing the game the old way and you’ve done everything right and, suddenly, you know, old math won’t solve new equations. But I think it’s an opening for people that see it.

We were never meant to be machine-like. We were never meant to spend our days doing the work of efficiency and more better faster, more better faster, more better faster. I mean, at one point, as we were reporting in the book, you know, thinking about those people on assembly lines who are fastening that one widget over and over again, or the knocker uppers that we talk about, the people who their job was to shoot peas at windows to wake people up as this sort of human alarm clock.

I looked up and they were just at this coffee shop, four people sitting next to each other, on their laptops, just slamming through emails. And it just connected for me that this is all still ever been efficiency work. And so, I think the real opportunity we talk about in the book is to see this as a big change to everything, to be understanding of the fear that that’s going to cause, because the human brain is wired to fear change. It is not wired to get exponential change. We are in a moment of exponential change.

But then act despite that fear, push past it, because while it’s understandable, it’s also unhelpful. And if you start using these tools and using them not in ways that then just take all the work out of your day, but start to take away the stuff that’s mundane, routinized, efficiency work, free up time to do more cool things with these tools, to learn new things in new ways, to build new things in new ways.

And then to open up space to do the things we uniquely do, to give yourself time to think critically, to think about ethical implications of what you’re building if you’re an engineer, to spend time brainstorming or partnering with other humans.

The turning test started us down this path of AI versus human, and then it beat us here, it beats us there. But that’s not where the story goes. There’s no innovation. There’s no growth if it’s just all about AI. Humans are illogical. We’re unpredictable. What works for us requires someone to be us, to be human, to in-tune that.

So, really, the test we should be doing is human versus human with AI, versus humans with AI, because we always do the coolest stuff together. And that means think about yourself five years ago, think about yourself today, “What are you doing that’s new and better and energizing that you couldn’t do without these tools five years ago?”

And in the book, we talk about an easy way to start this. Put your job title aside. It doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO. It doesn’t matter if you’re a senior director. It doesn’t matter if you’re the newest hire at a company. Your job title is irrelevant for the purposes of this exercise.

Every week, you do about a dozen tasks, list them down, and then you’re going to put those tasks into three buckets. The first bucket are tasks that AI can now do or can soon do. So coding is in there, quick summary, quick analysis, first draft of content, meeting notes, like all that stuff’s in bucket one.

Bucket two is stuff you’re doing with AI that’s new. It’s not just additional stuff that you’re putting in bucket one. It’s, “Are you learning something new with AI?” “I’m on marketing, I got to talk to the sales team. They speak a different language. How do I close that expertise gap in what I’m trying to pitch them?”

Are you building something new? “I have to present. What’s a cool image I could associate with this idea? A video? How do I make this land in a more visceral way to the people I’m trying to convince to back this project?” So that’s bucket two.

And then bucket three is, with the time you’re saving in bucket one, with the cool new stuff you’re doing in bucket two, what are gyou doing that’s uniquely you? And that starts with what’s uniquely you as a human, your ability. We have the five Cs in the book, but with those, think critically, “What’s an ethical implication of what we’re doing?”

But then are you spending new time with people to try new things, to test something out as a partnership, to get advice on how to pitch something. And as you sort of move the tasks of your job away from bucket one towards bucket two and bucket three, you’re adapting your job. You’re redefining your job.

We have a statistic at LinkedIn, 70% of the skills for the average job will have changed by 2030. Now, the old way that disruptions hit meant that, at some point, in six months or a year, your boss, your boss’s boss would come to you and say, “Here’s how your job has changed by 70%.” Because old disruptions from the steam engine to electricity to the internet, they played out over years and they came top down.

This one is different. Your boss actually doesn’t really know how your job is supposed to change. Their boss doesn’t know how their job is supposed to change. CEOs are trying to figure this out at an organizational level. So we get to change our jobs now. We get to start figuring out where these tools come in and then what that opens up in bucket two and three, not just because we’re human, but because we’re us.

We have a chapter in the book, “No One Beats You at Being You.” That’s where it’s going, is that you’re going to shift your job and then re-center your career around your unique curiosities and capabilities.

Pete Mockaitis
No one beats you at being you. And it’s funny, I’m thinking about, you know, so me here now, here we are having a podcast about professional skills development, and there are a lot of places where you can get such things.

And it’s interesting how, if I talk to an AI about such a matter, I might get the answer, and it might be quick. And yet, it is not as satisfying, complete, thorough, giving rise to new ideas and connections, the way hearing a full blown conversation between two folks on a matter is. And I think that that really resonates.

Aneesh Raman
And I think that it’s really important. Yeah, I’m glad you’re saying, because right now there’s this sort of idea to AI or not AI, as if it’s binary. And if you AI, you’re doing everything AI. If you’re not, you’re rejecting it for righteous reasons, and that’s where you’re at.

And in the book, we have the story of Neil Pretty, whom really, he embodies this idea that you need to use AI, but you cannot misuse it, nor should you overuse it. And Neil starts using this tool to help him prepare for different presentations, and he overuses it and realize it doesn’t sound like him and it’s not going to distinguish him. And he dials it back and he uses it differently.

Instead of asking it to tell him what to say, it says, “What would this CEO say about what I said, or this academic? Give me 12 reactions to what I think.” And then he would use that to even get better at what he was going to say that would have taken much conversation with many people ahead of a meeting.

So you can overuse AI. And MIT has done cognitive scans and come up with this term cognitive debt. Like, if you’re sitting at work and your boss asks you something, you copy and paste it in the tool, then you copy and paste the answer back and send it to your boss, you might be doing efficiency work more efficiently.

But if you run into your boss a week later, and they’re like, “Hey, that was a great idea. How did you think of that?” you might not even remember that exchange because your brain is not tracking it, and you will have brought no critical thinking to it. So that muscle is atrophying. So you got to make sure that you are using this tool to do better things yourself. You cannot outsource to it.

Pete Mockaitis
So in the universe of more, better, faster efficiency work, how would you suggest is the contrast? If I’m thinking efficiency work AI stuff is in the land of more, better, faster, what is the land of our humanity?

Aneesh Raman
This is the first time someone’s asked me that. Because what’s crazy is we had to define what makes us us. We had to define what makes humans unique in the arena of work.

It turns out not much work had been done around that. As you started talking to neuroscientists, behavioral psychologists, behavioral economists even, when I’d ask like, “Who from companies or from the world of work comes and talks to you?”

One neuroscientist said, “Not many. Like, athletes will come because they want to push their brain to the limit. The military will come because they can’t hire from another military. Hedge funds will come because they want a cool like summit speaker. But you were not getting incoming from everyday practitioners of work.”

But now the mind is going to the center of work, not the machine. And so what does it all lead to? You know, in the book, we identify the five Cs that we think are at the core of human capability – curiosity, compassion, creativity, courage and communication. Those are what we offer up at the intersection of our IQ and EQ of our consciousness and conscience.

Then we say there’s some habits we all need – resilience, adaptability, handling hard well, failing fast, learning quick. And we sort of bundle it all into this idea of being entrepreneurial in our habits and in our thinking. And we know that in saying that, we lose a lot of folks who think being entrepreneurial means starting a business, and that is not for them.

Paul Cheek from MIT, who’s a professor on entrepreneurship there, has an amazing definition for it. “Entrepreneurialism,” he says in the book, “is doing more than is reasonable with the resources you have.” So every one of us every day has a task, has a project, has something we’re doing at work, what’s more than is reasonable that we could do with these tools and with others with the resources we have?

And then what that leads to is a flip. Instead of more, better, faster, I think we’re doing new, bigger, bolder. We are creating a whole bunch of new ideas, a whole bunch of new ways for businesses to grow, a whole bunch of new businesses to go after, a whole bunch of new areas from climate to healthcare to all sorts of stuff that we could create technology for businesses to address, at the local level for just a community, or at the country level, or at the global level.

So, to me, “more, better, faster” becomes “new, bolder, better” and not just in terms of work. Like, I think if we do this right, and it isn’t just us as individuals. Institutions need to completely redesign the systems of work from employment to education, entrepreneurship.

But, ultimately, we get to better work for each of us, better work for all of us, better defined by just more human work, more fulfilling, more high value, more impactful. But that all leads to greater prosperity and progress because of this sort of innovation explosion, this entrepreneurialism that can take root.

Pete Mockaitis
And to these notions of efficiency work versus newer, bolder stuff, I’d love your hot take on these AI layoffs. I mean, some say, “Oh, well, that’s just AI washing. They over-hired, interest rates are worse. It makes a better story for Wall Street to say, ‘Oh, it’s because of AI efficiency.’” But others say, “Oh, no, no, no. Sure enough, one person can now do what things that previously require two, three, or four, and thus it makes sense to shed those jobs.” You’ve got an interesting vantage point. What’s your take on this?

Aneesh Raman
I mean, we’re seeing jobs get added, one million plus jobs around AI. That’s not just the sort of like hardcore engineering jobs. That’s also the data centers. We know sectors are hiring, like healthcare. Look, there’s these two truths we have to hold at once that are somewhat inconsistent.

The first truth is we know at the other end of all of these moments of disruption from technology, we generally see an increase in employment, and the Fed is out there sort of repeatedly with that. Jobs change, new jobs emerge. MIT has a stat, 60% of employment in 2018 didn’t exist in 1940. Creator wasn’t a career 10 years ago. Data scientist wasn’t a job 20 years ago. So we, generally, do see employment go up.

That happens after a messy middle where a lot of lives get upended and it’s really hard for people. But we do see employment go up. That sort of thing one, truth one. Thing two, truth two that contradicts that is we’ve never been here before in terms of this technology. It is fundamentally different in terms of what it’s able to do.

And I think predictions are unhelpful right now. Anyone with absolute certainty about what’s happening to a job category or to all jobs or to jobs in this sector, let’s see how it turns out in five or 10 years. Like, I think it’s just impossible for anyone to know with certainty anything absolute.

The one thing we do know, to contradict myself a little, is the only thing that matters right now is what we believe, and what we choose to do, and what decisions we make, and what steps we take. And that is true for us as individuals. It’s true for us as organizations. It’s true for us as societies. It’s true for us as humanity.

If we decide that worse is more likely, and we make decisions that make worse more likely, worse is more likely. If we decide that better is more likely, and we make decisions that make better more likely, better is more likely.

So in terms of where employment goes, there’s so much in the air. I mean, we’re going from an old world to a new world of work. There’s so much macroeconomic muckup that’s going on on interest rates and geopolitics. Every company is going through its own moment of business transformation.

Some over-hired and now they’re managing that. Some are built with an org chart for stability, order, predictability. That isn’t going to help you innovate, be agile, and grow. They’ve got to manage that. There’s no one truth to everything that’s happening.

And so I think for folks who are looking for a single answer, who are looking for someone to tell them what to do, who are looking for an off-the-shelf playbook as an individual or as a company, like, that’s not this moment. It’s not like back when it was like everyone get a CS degree or bootcamp certificate in coding if you can find one, because that’s the ticket.

There is no “it” right now, but that’s it. We’ve all got to start to figure this out on our own, use these tools, and with these tools start to understand our own unique interest, capabilities, where those could go, where we would pitch ourselves across a broader set of job opportunities that we might, otherwise, have looked at. And I think that’s what we’ve got to do is look. It’s a metacognition sort of moment.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. But you do have some interesting data. 85% of people are in jobs where AI can automate at least a quarter of routine tasks. Can you tell us a little bit about that data and what sorts of things we’re seeing automated now with AI?

Aneesh Raman
A big thing we’ve been trying to push people on is to look at jobs as a set of tasks, not as titles. A good example of how not to do it, I would say, is looking at software engineers. And for a bit coming out of the gate with AI, everyone said that title describes all software engineers in one way, and that one way is that they code. And as AI got better and better at coding, it became, in that line of argument, intuitive that software engineers were done.

We’ve actually seen recent data where the hiring for software engineers is going up because as AI is able to do more coding, more companies want to build tech, so they’re hiring. And the job of software engineer was never limited only ever to coding.

Some of those jobs, entry level jobs, even middle, they were, but the job doesn’t have to be just that. In fact, as AI is able to do coding, it shifts to reviewing the code, or talking to customers, or having those conversations about ethical implications of what’s being built. It’s the same three buckets and things move.

ATMs are a good example, we talk about in the book. When ATMs hit in the late ‘70s, everyone thought bank tellers were done. We have a quote from the New York Times. It basically says bank tellers are done. Bank teller jobs, like, doubled between that moment and 2010, and they doubled because you had more banks opening so you needed more tellers because ATMs allowed it. The job of the bank teller shifted to being more about relationship banking.

Now, there were some debate over whether the quality of the job went up, but in an absolute term, you know, the jobs went up. They came down after that because of the iPhone and the smartphone and all the banking we’re now doing. But you couldn’t have predicted that in the ‘70s.

So that’s all to say our data doesn’t look at job titles. It looks at jobs. It looks at the tasks people are doing. And it says, if you are in a job where a lot of your job is that bucket one, that’s worth knowing. That doesn’t mean that entire job is going away. And it doesn’t mean you are done at work. It means you’ve got AI coming for well over 50% of the jobs in that task. So you want to start on your own moving tasks in your day to day to bucket two and bucket three.

And if you do that, don’t worry about the job category or the job title you have. That’s all secondary now. It used to be job title mattered first because you’d reverse engineer from it. Job title matters last now because we’re going to be reshifting work.

And so depending on your number, and you don’t need us to tell you this data, you can do an evaluation of the tasks in your job and look at where you’re heavy. Anyone who is heavy in bucket one, okay, what do you got going in bucket two and three? How can you build out from that?

If you’re in a job category that feels really volatile, okay, what are the transferable skills you have across two and three that could take you into other job functions or job categories? But it’s not an overnight, everything is done end of day sort of thing. It’s a step-by-step incremental of, “How do I manage this change sort of thing?”

Pete Mockaitis
And we had a really good chat with Jeremy Utley, who suggested shifting perspective from AI is not the oracle with the answers, but rather like a collaborator, a teammate, and that’s been pretty helpful. I’d be curious to hear, for those whose AI use is limited to sort of an enhanced Google or enhanced Bing, where do you think are the most promising opportunities, like, “Hey, go do this right now with AI, and you’re going to see some cool career benefits”?

Aneesh Raman
This is another one where there’s no one answer for everyone. I’m sorry to tell folks. Like, you’re going to have to go to the gym. You’re going to have to try things out, test things out, and figure out what is the high value of AI for you.

It could be learning new things. It could be building new things. It could be coaching you on new things. You got to keep trying the tools. Like, to your point, I think too many folks either are afraid of AI and don’t want to touch it. Or, if they’re using it, they’re using it just for a better search.

We have five Cs I talked about, and curiosity matters most right now as individuals. And the first place to start is be super curious about these tools, because their capabilities are changing every day. It’s almost like a skill of tool dexterity.

I use multiple tools every day. Every once in a while, I shift to the dominant tool. I use them for all sorts of things. Every week, I’m trying to push a new task out to the tools so that I’m constantly testing what new things that I’m working on can it help with.

It helped with writing at first, and then that pushed me to realize, “Okay, I got to focus on how I elevate what I can get help with on the research or first draft side. But also how do I spend more time doing in-person communication?”

So I started studying, like, theater actors who have it down, who know how to command a room, command energy. What can I learn from them now that my bucket three is going to be more of this? Right now, I’m using the tools for a lot of coaching. I want to send this email. I’ve told the tools what I’m working on, which is sending less emails that are less lengthy with less ideas to people like Ryan, who I can bombard with ideas.

And so it’ll say like, “Hey, you just got yesterday, like take a day off,” you know, like stuff like that. So it’s not so much about the tool capability. It’s what is the human capability you’re working on in that moment? Because we’re all going to want to keep growing right now in new ways, which is fun. It’s hard, but it’s fun.

And then you’re going to use the tools differently based on what you’re working on. If you’re just doing search, that’s an issue. So the easiest way to do it is find the hardest part of your tomorrow. You got something at work tomorrow that you’re not looking forward to, that is either monotonous and drudgery or complicated and a hard conversation you got to have, or you’re suddenly going to have to come up with an idea and you’re bit freaked out about that.

Whatever is your hardest thing tomorrow, start going to the tools and asking them how they can help you with that. And they might not be able to help you. Okay, that’s like a good example of a tool that isn’t there yet, or a task that isn’t there yet, but they’ll give you something. And that’s the sort of rhythm you want to get in.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, could you give us some fun examples of folks who saw some really great tactical good things flowing from tools into what they’re up to tomorrow?

Aneesh Raman
My favorite from the book, probably, I mean, they’re all stories of individuals who are using these tools to get jobs, keep jobs, and change their career, build businesses, like, all of it. But Jonetta Gresham is in her 50s, and because of her age, she came to AI with, in her words, a “Hell, no to AI,” mindset, because she had seen Terminator and Terminator 2 and Terminator 3, and really felt like this was a robot apocalypse come to life.

Again, she had a task at one point, which was to get her resume ready. And she used a tool to just help her do that. And she was blown away at how the tool helped her articulate skills that she had and better organized experience that she had in a way that made her so much more employable for the job she was going after.

And so that sort of opened up her eyes to like, “Okay, maybe this can help me.” And a little bit later, she was taking an IT certification course. And she is someone who, in various moments of education, didn’t feel like she was being taught in the way that she would like to learn, in the way that her brain process information, and in the way that would feed her curiosity.

So she told the tools to help her learn all the stuff she had to learn in the ways that she likes to learn, with stories, with analogies. The tools did that, she passed the test, she got the certification.

It can personalize against your needs in a way that no technology has before. It can close learning gaps. It can close entrepreneurial gaps or building gaps. You just got to get in the rhythm with it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I like that a lot in terms of, if you’ve got a laser focus on, “This is the thing I need to go learn,” and then how can the tool facilitate that, I found that rather handy. Like, I found myself getting in the Mac OS Terminal bash command line, and I don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s like, “Hey, if you want to, you know, do this automatic downloading of stuff, you’re going to need this tool.”

So I was like, “Go to GitHub,” it’s like, “Okay, no, you’ve already lost me.” And so I say, “Explain it like I’m five.” And it’s really funny, it’s like asking the robot to go to a store. It literally explains it like I’m five. But that was very handy. And I’ve heard that theme from a number of people.

It’s, like, they know a little something about the domain that they’re after or looking to enter for perhaps the first time, but not nearly enough to actually achieve anything. But with this sort of mega-crutch, they’re saying, “Oh, okay, I can kind of fake my way through step by step.” And then afterwards, like, “Oh, hey, I guess I know how to do this now. How about that?”

Aneesh Raman
Yeah, we’ve got a great story of a guy named Diego, who’s in Texas and is trying to push for rural entrepreneurship with AI to really inspire more folks to realize they can build businesses. Often, folks who couldn’t afford to go to college for whom entrepreneurship is, as he calls it, this permissionless path, this ability to go build your career on your terms.

And he has a great line, which is, “We are no longer limited by what we know. We are only limited by what we can think to ask.” And just imagine what that means for all people all over the world who have access to these tools, who hopefully have electricity and AI infrastructure.

But you’re only limited by what you can think to ask. All of us as humans are innately curious about things, wildly different things. That’s what’s amazing. We all have different perspectives, different things that drive us. But imagine now having this tool that can sort of feed that curiosity and help us align it with the work we do and the impact we want to have and the purpose we want to bring to our jobs.

That’s where you start to get excited. I think we are collectively doing a horrible job telling that story and making it clear, that hiding in plain sight is this thing that is going to make all of our jobs more interesting and more fulfilling, and all of our efforts lead to greater impact for good in the world.

And that’s now on us to try and reset that story and that conversation, which is like the big reason we did the book.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that, “What you can think to ask.” Have there been some power questions that you found transformational?

Aneesh Raman
I think a lot of it is, right now, for folks around, “Where do I start?” or, “What do I do about? How do I think about AI? How should I use AI? When should I not use AI?” You can just dump that in as a voice memo into one of these tools, and it gives you a start. It gives you something to react to.

Again, it doesn’t give you the answer. It gives you an option. And it’s your job to push back on it or to pull from it, and then try and learn something here. Ask it to challenge your thinking over there. One of the things we talk about in the book is like the, I think, it’s a hundred to one rule.

I mean, “You pick your number, but give me like 80 versions of something,” and then you react to which of those you like. And then you can start to think about why and build from that. Or, “Give me the five best arguments against the thing that I think is true about what I’m going to do tomorrow.”

That’s where I think people are really starting to get good results from it. Not, “Give me the answer,” but, “Give me a way to get to a better answer.”

Pete Mockaitis
And I like what you’re saying with regard to the challenging is because it seems like that’s the default setting is sycophancy in these AI tools. It shows me a study. I was like, “Wow, that’s very compelling.” I was like, “Do we think this is real?” It was like, “Actually it has all the hallmarks of being a fraudulent paper mill submission.” I was like, “It’d be nice if you proactively shared that.” But, yeah, to ask it to do the challenging is great.

And you said voice memo and I think that’s a brilliant hack right there in terms of not just the one sentence, but the five minutes of verbiage can make all the difference.

Aneesh Raman
And you can just dump it all in and it’ll organize it. I know someone who does a call with AI every day. They do the chat functionality because you can also, without having to type in or do a voice memo, you can literally converse with these tools.

And they go out for a walk, and they just talk about everything on their mind, “I’m like thinking about this, I had a hard conversation with this person.” And over time, what these tools start to have is longitudinal data on us. They aren’t another person. They are just a collection of insights and knowledge that’s out there. And then, increasingly, if you give it context and give it info, insights, and thoughts on us over longer and longer periods of time.

And so in these conversations, the tool will start calling out, “Hey, you’ve talked for a few times now about wanting to learn more about neuroscience, or how that’s going to relate to work. Here are some, like, podcasts you might want to listen to.” Or, “I’ve noticed, like, anytime you have to have a conversation that’s tough, and it is how you end your day, it really upends your day. Like, have you thought about making those conversations happen at the start of a day?”

It starts picking up on stuff for us that we might miss in the day-to-day of just life being busy. So the key thing is, like, this is a tool that is the easiest technology humans have created for humans to use. It is literally like just talking to someone else at the most basic level. You don’t have to go learn AI. You just have to, like, sign up for a free tool or watch a couple of free videos on it, and then just start using it.

Pick a thing. It can be an exercise plan, a meal plan, or something at work, a project, or a set of tasks you’ve got going, and just start using it. Like, it’s sitting there for any of us to use. So you got to just start using it and keep using it but don’t outsource to it. Use it to then start building you into a better person.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Aneesh Raman
I think it goes back to your opening question. Like, it has been surprising how we have internalized a diminished sense of self, and yet it is a reality. And so the biggest thing I would tell people is, like, what matters most right now is your belief in yourself.

You’re going to have to bet on yourself. That’s the future of work and then push your leaders, and we’re pushing them, to build systems that make that bet pay off. But the thing that starts it all is going to be that you believe in yourself and you’re going to bet on yourself. And that’s going to take some work because we are all coming out of an era for work that wasn’t about betting on yourself.

It was turning yourself into whatever the job description needed, whatever the job category needed. So it’s going to be a flip for your brain. The good news is, and there’s a great book, Tiny Experiments, a bunch of them on neuroplasticity and how we can rewire our brain to become a different person.

The good news is you got a human brain and it is able to be rewired and you can become a different person. You can get to belief. You can get to a place where you know exactly how and why you’re going to bet on yourself, but it’s going to take some work. But that’s where it starts. That’s what I would say.

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

Aneesh Raman
I like the, “Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” That drove me for a while. I think, right now, it’s more “Be curious, not judgmental.” I think it gets appropriated to Walt Whitman.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite study or experimental or bit of research?

Aneesh Raman
Mine, I mentioned at the MIT one, 60% of jobs in 2018 didn’t exist in 1940. That’s just like a good number for us to keep in mind.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Aneesh Raman
A bunch of them. My favorite hits at a certain moment in life, that sort of like hits me deep as it relates to this conversation, Sapiens. I read that in August 2023, GPT had gone global the prior year, and it is a brief history of humankind.

And so it just helps you have a sense of, like, how incredible the human brain is, but just also how much has happened across millions of years when we all focused on a few hundred years. So that really widened my perspective.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Aneesh Raman
Copilot, I’m using it a lot because I work at LinkedIn. My co-author is working on Copilot. So it’s kind of a default because I can go tell someone if there’s something we should make better out of it. But it can really give me good advice on, “Should I send this email?” or, “What am I overspending my time on?” because it’s got my calendar, it’s got my email, it’s got the team’s messages. So, for me, right now, because a lot of my growth is growth I want to do at work, it’s been helpful.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite habit?

Aneesh Raman
This is probably controversial, because I don’t know if people would say this. My favorite habit is small talk, actually. I love small talk. I think every human is like a documentary unto themselves. There’s this great word, sonder, that I won’t do it justice, so people should look it up. It’s a word someone made up, I think, five, 10 years ago. But it’s that every human around you is living a life as complex and interesting as your own.

And that’s true across human history, or at least since we’ve had the brain we have with the ability for complex thought that we have. So I find small talk just amazing. I love meeting new people and just, I’m sure I’m awkward about it because I ask like deep questions sometimes really quick, but I just, like, love learning about people.

Pete Mockaitis
And is there a key nugget you share that people really connect and resonate with and quote back to you a lot?

Aneesh Raman
Hard things are hard. That’s a good one. You know, at one point, someone asked me, “What’s been the hardest part of your career?” And I was like, “You know what? All of it.” And I did it kind of, like, begrudgingly. And then as stuff has stayed hard in just figuring this story out, I revisited, you know, when I worked for President Obama, he had a “Hard things are hard” plaque on his desk because at certain moments when legislative victories were hard fought, people would remind each other hard things are hard.

And that just has led me to become a real believer in the bigness and value of hard. I have, like, an ode to hard things. It’s got, you know, quote from a stoic Marcus Aurelius, who’s like, “The obstacle is the way,” to “Hard things are hard,” to Carl Lassen, the Duke women’s basketball coach who has a viral video that’s amazing about how the whole thing in life is, “How do you handle hard well?”

Roger Federer had a commencement speech a few years ago about the mastery of hard things. Nvidia CEO Jensen was at Stanford Business School and said, “I wish upon you pain and suffering,” because his point to these Stanford Business students was, “You got to build resilience and you got to go through hard for that.” So, yeah, hard things are hard. I think I’ll take that.

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

Aneesh Raman
LinkedIn. The sleeper functions on Linkedin, I think, that people don’t know enough about is you can follow people without connecting to them.

You can go follow folks and they’ll be in your feed. So I am, I’d say, regularly, every three months, unfollowing some people where my curiosities have moved somewhere else, following new people who are talking about the things that I’m newly curious about.

So follow me until you get bored of me. Follow others. All the people in the book are on LinkedIn. And then the book, Linkedin.com/opentowork, that’s where you can go find out about the book.

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

Aneesh Raman
Bet on yourself. Find your way to betting on yourself and you’ll be okay.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Aneesh, thank you.

Aneesh Raman
Thanks for having me.

Apr 02
0

1142: How to Experience Less Stress and More Joy at Work with Amy Leneker

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Amy Leneker discusses how to spot and stop stress for more joyful days at work.

You’ll Learn

  1. The top five barriers to joy at work
  2. The three-step un-stressing method
  3. The simple practice that leads to more joy

About Amy

Amy Leneker is an optimistic, joy-seeking, recovering workaholic. She’s also a leadership consultant who has helped over 100,000 leaders and teams – including those at Fortune 100 companies – lead with less stress and more joy. Her soul goal? To help one billion people do the same. With over 25 years of leadership experience – including a decade in the C-suite – Amy understands the soul-crushing toll of burnout because she’s lived it. Twice. After surviving her own brush with burnout, Amy became determined to help others succeed without sacrificing their joy, their health, or their weekends. A first-generation college student, Amy earned both her undergraduate and graduate degrees while working full-time and later raising a family. She has studied leadership at Yale, neuroscience at the NeuroLeadership Institute, and stress resilience at Harvard Medical School.

Resources Mentioned

Thank you, Sponsors!

Amy Leneker Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Amy, welcome!

Amy Leneker
Thank you for having me. It’s great to see you.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about cheering Monday. And, first, let’s hear about your personal story. You mentioned you’re a recovering workaholic and you have, I don’t know if it’s a record, but a striking number of panic attacks that occurred in a three-month window. Can you tell us a little bit about the story?

Amy Leneker
I did. And thank you for asking because it was a horrible, horrible time of my life. I wish that I could say that my burnout story was because I had an epiphany and decided to do something different, but it wasn’t. It was that my body just shut down, and it’s what you said.

So over the course of a summer and into the early fall, I had over a hundred stress-induced panic attacks and it was horrible. The most terrifying time of my life. And so, through lots of work with my doctor and the medical support, I was able to heal from burnout and definitely don’t ever want to experience that again.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow! Well, thank you for sharing. And just so we’re clear, what exactly is a panic attack? And how does it feel as opposed to being kind of stressed out?

Amy Leneker
I am not a medical expert, so this is only from my own experience. I’m sure that there is a valid medical definition of what one is, but for me, what happened was I thought I was having a heart attack. Everything I had read about a heart attack, I’m like, “Oh, this must be it,” because my heart was racing, I was sweating, I had tunnel vision.

It was this moment of almost feeling like you’re out of your body, watching yourself, but like not actually being yourself. So you’re never gonna wonder, “Am I having one or is this just stress?” because there, you’ll know. It is not. It is not your everyday, “I feel a little stressed out.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So can you take us into that world, that picture? So this comes from a great deal of stress. What kinds of stresses were you experiencing?

Amy Leneker
Looking back, I had been stressed for as long as I could remember. I had what I thought was my dream job. It was the job I had gone to college for, had gone into huge amounts of student loan debt in order to go to graduate school for. It was the job that I wanted. And looking back, I don’t remember when high amounts of stress weren’t part of my life.

So at the time, we also had two little kids, so there was a lot of trying to figure out how to be a mom and how to work, and how to work and be a mom, at the same time of an incredibly demanding job. And on top of all of that, one of the saddest realizations for me was just how much of the stress was self-induced, how much of those expectations really came from myself, not always from the outside world, but it took me years of reflection to understand the role that I had played.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us an example of a self-induced expectation that’s just not at all helpful?

Amy Leneker
Yes. So here’s a great one. I thought that I had cracked the code on work-life balance. So here’s what I did. I was leading a large team at the time, huge performance measures, lots of stress, but I left work at a reasonable time every day. I very rarely stayed. I wasn’t “at the office till nine or 10 o’clock at night” person. So I thought I’ve cracked the code.

Because what I would do is I would get to work. I would work at the speed of light all day. I would leave at a decent time, and then I would be home for soccer and homework and baths and all the things. And then once the whole house shut down, that’s when I would log on and do all of my email. That’s when I would do all of my prep for the next day.

So I’m working alone, just me and my labradoodle, until 12, one o’clock in the morning and then waking up the next day and doing it all over again. Week after week, month after month, year after year, thinking that I had cracked the code, thinking like, “I had figured this out.”

I figured out how to be a mom and a career person and not take away from the family. But what I was doing was completely negating myself. I had taken myself out of the equation.

Pete Mockaitis
I see. Okay. Well, that’s a good little warning right there in terms of living just that. It’s like a watch out.

Amy Leneker
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
So thinking through your own lived experience and your research process for writing the book and working with clients, what’s something that’s really surprised you in terms of your discoveries about stress?

Amy Leneker
The first one would be that there isn’t just one kind of work stress. There are five. And I didn’t know that. At the height of my burnout, I didn’t understand that there were five kinds of work stress because once you see that, you can’t unsee it. Once you understand that there’s actually five actionable types of stress, then you can look at solutions that really work. So that would probably be my number one.

My second biggest aha was just how much of an intersection there is between stress and joy. We have got lots of great studies on stress at work. We’ve got fewer studies around joy at work. But what I couldn’t find, what I didn’t see was a study about the intersection between the two. How does one impact the other? How does a lack of one impact the other?

So that was my other biggest aha was that there was this research gap that I wanted to fill. What is it that we could understand about how these two seemingly opposite forces can work together and be in support of each other?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, can you unpack a little bit of that dynamic between stress and joy for us?

Amy Leneker
Yes, so here’s what I found. So we just did this national research study in 2026, so this is brand new data. And what we learned is that 79% of working Americans said, “I need joy in order to do my best work.” That’s a lot, 79%. That number jumps to 89% for executives.

What’s fascinating to me then is when you look at the data, 75% of American workers say that feeling joy helps them cope with work stress. So these are not two independent forces. We spend so much time, especially since the pandemic, so much time talking about stress and burnout, but very little time, very few organizations that I work with are having conversations around joy, even though it’s part of the equation.

People need it in order to do their best work. And 75% of people say, “I need it in order to cope with work stress.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, joy is a good word, and we dig it. And so, I guess I’ve heard multiple definitions of joy. I’m thinking, you know, partially in a Catholic theological context, we could talk about the virtue of joy. But how are you defining it here?

Amy Leneker
Here’s how I define it. So in our research, we found that there were three key drivers of joy. So the way I define joy is the feeling you’re experiencing when you have these three key drivers. So the first one is when there’s meaning and purpose in your work.

The second is when there is mattering in your relationships. So if you and I are on the same team, I matter to you, not just because of the work that I do, not just because I meet my deadlines, but I matter to you because who I am as a person.

And when I did the study, I thought those first two would show up. Meaning made sense to me, mattering made sense to me. The third one was a surprise. I was not expecting the third key driver of joy at work, which was momentum.

When I feel that I am making some type of progress, when I can look back and say, “Things are different because I was here,” those were the three key drivers. So when you have just one of them, you can experience joy.

So if you think about a moment, I hope you’ve had one, I bet you’ve had hundreds, a moment with a coworker where you shared a joke or you laughed or you went and had coffee, you can have joy just from one of those three. But when you have two or when you have all three, then you’ve set yourself up for a perfect storm in the best way for the conditions for joy.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So then, in this definition, that would be distinct from, say, pleasure, like, “I had a really tasty lunch,” or, “I was playing a really fun game.” That’s a different thing here.

Amy Leneker
It is a different thing, and it’s different than happiness, too. And so what I often tell leaders and teams is the words are important. Words matter, definitions matter, and not to get too lost in the semantics. So what I don’t want to do is to go into an organization where they spend the next six hours trying to figure out the difference between happy and joy. So that’s probably not going to be a great ROI for bringing in a consultant for six hours.

But what I want to do with them is I want them to really evaluate those three key drivers. Are they experiencing those? Are they helping to create those for other people? And just as importantly, do they understand the biggest barriers to joy? Because in the majority of teams that I work with, they are completely unaware that they are inadvertently blocking joy for themselves and for everybody around them.

Pete Mockaitis
Interesting. Well, could you share a story along those lines?

Amy Leneker
Absolutely. So here’s a great one. The fifth one. So if you look at the top five, we found 12, but if you just look at the top five, the fifth leading barrier to joy was when there’s isolation or disconnection. So if in the workplace you feel apart from or separate from, that is a barrier to joy.

And yet in a lot of teams I work with, they don’t really want to talk about whether or not they’re connected as a team. They don’t really want to talk about whether or not someone feels isolated on their team. But we have to because what we know is that when you’re in emotional pain, like this driver or this barrier to joy, that the part of your brain that lights up is the exact same part that lights up when you’re in physical pain.

So when people describe a really hard work situation, they might say things like, “This really is painful,” or, “I’m not sure I can take it,” because their brain is processing that pain in the same place. So if we can understand not just what drives it, but if we understand actually what gets in the way of it, we have a much better chance at creating a culture.

Can I share the number one barrier to joy?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, please.

Amy Leneker
So the number one was an overwhelming workload. So when leaders say, “I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to begin,” or if an individual contributor will say, “Gosh, I just wish I had more joy,” what I can say is start with the number one barrier.

If you don’t know where to begin, let’s look at the number one barrier, what is your workload? Do you have a workload that feels sustainable? Because at least we know we can go in with the highest priority and hopefully create some shifts on the margin.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So what’s the two, three, and four?

Amy Leneker
Yeah, let’s fill in the middle because we’ve got the two bookends. So the fourth one is when you have technology problems that disrupt your day. The third…Isn’t that funny?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that actually makes me feel better. It’s like, “I am not just an impatient jerk. This is a universal human condition.”

Amy Leneker
I do a conference every year with the CIOs in Washington state. And so when this came up in the data, I went back to the research team and I’m like, “We got to be really certain that this is there because I’m about to tell a conference full of CIOs that they’re the…

Pete Mockaitis
“You’re killing everybody’s joy. It’s all your fault.”

Amy Leneker
Exactly. The third leading barrier is when there is sudden change without an explanation. And the second was feeling underappreciated. When I work with leaders and teams, I do an exercise where after I share with them that the second leading barrier to joy is feeling underappreciated, I have them take two minutes and appreciate someone at their workplace.

Send an email, send a text message, whatever it is, it just has to be true appreciation because we all have the ability to do something in less than two minutes about the second leading barrier to joy.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Well, that’s really helpful to have that rundown. And I guess, I’m thinking, a sudden change without explanation. I mean, you did the research, so you tell me if this is accurate. For me, at least, I’m thinking sudden change without acceptable explanation.

Because it’s like, there’s a sudden change and the explanation is just like, “Oh, so-and-so wants it this way now.” It’s like, “Well, why didn’t so-and-so mention that a month ago when we started doing this thing, you know?” Or, “So-and-so wants, prefers it to be in a different color,” or whatever.

It’s sort of like… in a way, it’s almost interrelated to feeling underappreciated, “I feel yanked around and disrespected.” It’s like, “Oh, I guess you gave no thought whatsoever to me, the human being, who had to execute this thing. That’s not a great feeling.”

Amy Leneker
I think you’re spot on and I think what you’re describing is backed up not just by research, but what I’m seeing anecdotally in organizations, which is that younger generations have an even stronger desire for the why. That’s what I see. When I go into organizations, younger generations are not tolerating this idea of, “Just do this because we said so.” There’s really this deeper need to understand, “Well, why is that?”

So I think you’re spot on that sometimes it’s not just hearing the change, it’s, “Do I understand the why behind the change?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so then, if we need joy to do our best work, and joy helps with work stress, is it also true that, I guess that would be the dynamic, is that joy helps with stress and stress impedes joy.

And so you’ve identified some barriers. I guess I’d love to know what are some of the top things that make a world of difference rather quickly in this equation?

Amy Leneker
It’s a great question, because I think the most important thing that we can do, regardless of where you sit in an organization, is to look at the three drivers. So we know that meaning, mattering, momentum, that’s what fosters joy. So are you tuned in to each of those three? Do you have those three? And, unfortunately, there are times where someone will say, “No.”

So here’s an example. We had talked earlier about the five kinds of work stress. And one type of work stress is called system stress. It’s when the very system that you’re a part of makes it hard for you to be successful. Things like inequity, unfairness.

When you’re in a toxic work environment, and I hope you’re not, I hope you never find yourself in one, but if you are in a toxic work environment, the ability to feel joy is pretty small. So recognizing that sometimes this isn’t just a personal issue, this isn’t just, “I need to be more resilient. I need to figure out how to manage my stress better,” it’s actually understanding, “Am I in a workplace with system stress that is actually preventing me from doing that?”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So we recognize it and then, hopefully, if you do you, you try to get out of there, I guess, is what you do. Well, let’s hear these five. So we got system, what are the other four?

Amy Leneker
The first type of work stress is schedule. It’s when there is just not enough time in the day to do everything that you need to do. Even if you work through breaks or lunch or you skip a vacation, there just isn’t enough time. You’ll also see schedule stress when folks are just booked back to back to back all day long. That is schedule stress.

The second type is suspense. When you are waiting for information or you’re waiting for a decision, and while you’re waiting, that ambiguity, that uncertainty causes stress. The third type is social, and this is the stress of people. In an ideal world, the people that you work with help you do your job. They make your work enjoyable, but that isn’t always the case. So the third type is when the relationships at work are making it harder for you.

And then the fourth one is sudden. Sudden stress is when something happens out of the ordinary, something unusual, and it requires you to do something. You’ve got to think about something or make a decision or that last minute fire that you’re putting out. That is sudden stress.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m also curious to hear your take on, I don’t know if I would just call it biological stuff, but my stress joy situation is largely impacted by, “Have I slept enough? Have I exercised? Have I eaten enough and not junk in recent times?” How do you think about these in the domain of stress and joy?

Amy Leneker
It’s a huge component of it. So what I think we’ve done that has done a tremendous disservice to employees and to entire organizations is that we have ended up in a place where you’ve got one who blames the other. So what I see is organizations blame employees for everything you just said, “You’re not sleeping well enough. You’re not eating well enough. You’re not taking breaks and walks and all the things.”

And then you have employees blaming organizations saying, “My workload is too high. I can’t be successful here.” So the only way this works is when everybody understands the role that they play. So, yes, individuals have a role. Yes, leaders have a role and organizations have a role.

Where I think we have really missed the boat is that we have turned this into a shame-blame finger-pointing game rather than coming together and saying, “If our goal is to really have a healthy workplace that thrives, what does that look like? And what is everybody responsible for in order to make that happen?”

So long answer to your question, yes, absolutely, those things matter and they’re not enough. So in our research, 25%, this blows my mind every time I say it out loud, 25% of working Americans report feeling bullied at least once a week. And many reported feeling bullied more than once a week.

So if that is your experience, if you’re going to work every week feeling bullied, how much sleep would it take to get over that? How many walking breaks do you need to get over that? So that’s where the shame and blame comes in. And I see this all the time because we do workshops on stress. We do workshops on burnout.

But if I go into an organization with system stress, how helpful is my training? I can tell you all the barriers to joy, but if you’re feeling bullied at work, that resolve is not going to come from you alone. That requires a change outside of just you.

Pete Mockaitis
And that is striking, 25% bullied weekly.

Amy Leneker
Isn’t it? It’s heartbreaking!

Pete Mockaitis
What are common examples of workplace bullying that are very prevalent?

Amy Leneker
So in our research, we were clear not to define it because what was important to us was to understand if people felt bullied using their definition. So I think it varies depending on where you work. I think it varies depending on the level of organization you’re in.

I think the important thing is that, “Do you know what that is where you are? Do you know what’s okay and what’s not okay in your workplace? Do you know what to do if you’re feeling bullied and what happens?” So I think that’s the key piece is, “What do you do? How do you tap into those resources if you believe that’s what’s happening for you?”

Pete Mockaitis
I suppose what I’m driving at is if someone finds, it might be minimizing an incidence of bullying, like, “Ah, it’s kind of annoying. Yeah, I kind of don’t care for it,” as opposed to like, “Well, no, actually, that is straight up hostile, toxic, unacceptable stuff.” Could you give us some examples of things that maybe get minimized yet are very common and deeply problematic?

Amy Leneker
Sure, I am a certified mediator. I specialize in workplace conflict. I have over 10,000 hours of mediation hours. And what I see in those mediations is exactly what you just described. That, very often, one person will say, “I didn’t even know this was a big deal.” And the other person says, “This is causing me so much pain and strain that I’ve now brought in a third party mediator to help us get through it.”

I just did a mediation recently where, I mean, you cannot make this up. It was a comment, a misunderstood comment six months ago that had created so much tension and conflict on this team. So rather than those two being able to talk about, “What did you mean by that comment? What was your intent in that?” it created six months of conflict.

So a lot of it comes down to communication. I see a lot of it around when people believe they’re being treated unfairly. So at work, they are experiencing that, “How other people are being treated doesn’t reflect how I’m being treated,” or even that they believe other people are being treated unfairly. I see that as one.

If I had to name a third one, I think it would probably be around this idea of, “What is a respectful workplace?” And when you’ve got different ideas, different generations, different cultures of what respect looks like. So a great example, I just did a mediation with a team because there was a whole team that was not getting along.

And they were frustrated because they would share ideas and they believed that the manager wasn’t hearing them and they were calling it hostile. They were using these words that create a red flag in my head as a mediator.

And what the leader said was, “I do hear your ideas. I’m just not taking them.” So now we’ve got a different conversation to have. It’s not about whether or not they’re hearing you, it’s whether or not they’re taking the ideas. So if I had to sum it up into one, communication would be the one that I see most often in my workplace mediations.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so you’ve got an ABC of Joy method. Can you share this with us?

Amy Leneker
Sure. It is so simple, and I share it with leaders and teams all the time. So the first one is just to be aware of it. So to actually start being aware of, “Am I experiencing joy or am I not?” To not let joy be accidental because joy is really different than toxic positivity.

This is not about forcing joy on people. This isn’t about forcing people to feel positive. So just that first moment of, “Am I aware of just how much joy impacts my world of work and how much it ripples to my world outside of work?”

The B, and it almost sounds silly, but the B is actually breath. It is that so many of us move through the workday in a complete state of stress that we are breathing from our chest and not actually from our belly.

And when I’m doing mediations or when I’m doing tough conversations, I always watch how people are breathing. Because if they’re breathing up here, that’s the breath of stress. And so are we able to get that into our diaphragmatic breathing to make that shift?

And then this C is connection. Stress thrives in isolation. Relief comes through connection. Joy is through connection. So when in doubt, are you feeling connected to the workplace? Who do you feel connected to in the workplace? Because they are going to be a shortcut to joy for you.

Pete Mockaitis
And in your appendix, you’ve got the unstressing method. Are those the ABCs or you got more for us?

Amy Leneker
No, the unstressing method is different. So it’s actually what I’m most excited to share with everyone. I often joke, I went on a work trip recently and I shared it with the barista at the airport, with the ride share driver, and then with the person checking me at the hotel. Because when I say, “How are you?” if someone says, “Oh, to be honest? I’m really stressed.” I’m like, “Well, I got something for you.”

So really simple, three steps. Step number one, you’ve got to see your stress differently. So you’ve got to get all your stressors from your head, from your heart onto paper. And it works best if you can use sticky notes. You don’t have to, but it works best if you can put one stressor per sticky note.

Then you see your stress through the lens of, “Is this important to me? And do I have control over it?” And how you answer those questions, then you place your stressor on the unstressing matrix, because there’s four quadrants. So based on how you answer, “Is it important? Do I have control?” you place it on the matrix.

Step two is we sort it. And you sort your stress into those five categories that you and I talked about just a few minutes ago. Which type of stress is it? And sometimes it’s more than one type. Sometimes it’s all five types, but you write down on those numbers one through five, which type of stress it is.

And what I love about step two is you’ve got this really quick visual of, “What’s actually happening for me right now?” If you look and there’s a whole lot of threes, you’ve got some work to do with the people that you’re working with. If you look at your matrix and you’ve got lots of fives, that’s a red flag that you’re feeling system stress. So it gives you this really quick snapshot into what’s been happening behind the scenes.

So then in step three, we solve it. Because wherever your stressor landed on that matrix, there is a next guiding step for you to take. So you don’t have to feel stuck. You don’t have to feel like you’re in analysis paralysis. There is a next guiding thing for you to do wherever that landed.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so I’d love to work through something here. Let’s say right now I am stressed by the war in Iran. Now that was sudden. I was not expecting that. That just sort of appeared. It is suspenseful. It’s like, “What the heck is going to happen?” It feels unfair. You point the blame anywhere you want, but at least one person did something that wasn’t cool.

And so now it’s completely out of my control. It’s important to me, although not super immediately directly personally, but just in terms of like the wellbeing and flourishing of humanity. And I don’t know, “Are my children going to go to war in years to come?” You know, so there’s that suspense thing.

So, okay, let’s say I have that posted, I’ve put it in the right quadrant, I’ve labeled some of those S category types. Well, now what the heck do I do?

Amy Leneker
The action there is about asking for support that you need because you don’t have control over it. My guess is that you don’t know anyone directly that has control over it. Is that a fair assumption?

Pete Mockaitis
I am not that powerful.

Amy Leneker
Not that powerful. And this example that you gave, I’m hearing it in every workshop that I’m in. Right before this podcast with you, I did a workshop this morning. People are talking about it. This is a huge part of our lives that is completely out of our control and feels wildly important. So that’s quadrant one.

So in quadrant one, it’s about asking for the support that you need, “How do I manage this thing that I have no control over? How am I going to be able to still move forward? How can I still function and be able to do what I need to do while this stressor is here?” And while it’s here for a length of time that we’re not sure of, we don’t know the consequences of it.

So the important thing about understanding when something is in quadrant one is that it frees you up from, “There isn’t an action, a direct action that I need to take, but is there something?” Then you can start to. So what happened just this morning in the workshop was someone said, “Well, but I can write a letter. I can send an email.”

Like, okay, yes. So then you can start to think about, “Are there actions connected to it, even if it’s not directly?” I mean, none of, at least no one I work with has the power to put an end to the stressor, but what are those things that are within our control? So I’m glad you brought up that example. It just came up this morning.

Pete Mockaitis
So then, for asking for support, I suppose some of that support is just kind of me doing things that are helpful for me. But then what is useful support, you and I and our pals can offer to each other in a world where we don’t have the control?

Amy Leneker
I think there is support that we can offer each other through connection, so just by recognizing what you’re going through. And I think sometimes the support needs to come from a professional. You may have really well-intentioned friends, but they may or may not be mental health experts.

So part of quadrant one is recognizing, “Do I need someone who is a professional at this?” Just because you love someone or just because they love you doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re trained to provide support to you on a stressor that’s wildly important to you and outside of your control.

So sometimes that support can come from family or friends or community, and other times it may need to come from someone who’s actually trained in how to do it.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot because a therapist or a professional can really get to some custom stuff there because, like, it could be stressing you in completely different ways than it’s stressing me.

Amy Leneker
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, maybe one person is ruminating. Another feels betrayed, lied to. They don’t feel that they could trust anyone anymore, “And it’s just like this other time in life,” you know, it’s bringing back traumatic memories. Others could be binge watching the news to the detriment of their responsibilities. And so there’s different kinds of interventions that happen there. So, I liked that a lot in terms of support can take a lot of different varieties, but it’s the thing to do when it’s important, but out of your control.

Amy Leneker
And I’ll tell you, I work with a lot of leaders. I work with public sector leaders, Fortune 100 leaders. I work with leaders across industries. The most successful leaders I work with, they have coaches, they have therapists, and most of them have both.

So, I mean, most really successful leaders know that, “I’ve got to surround myself with the support that I need to be successful.” And the really good ones have gotten really good at figuring out what that support looks like.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. All right. Well, Amy, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Amy Leneker
Here’s what I would offer, that if you’re listening to this, and you are feeling wild amounts of work stress, to know that you are not alone. Over 80% of people are right there with you.

If you’re listening to this and you’re not feeling that way, then I hope that you can go back into work tomorrow with some empathy for people who might be because we are not all having the same experience at the same time. So that’s what I would love to leave before we jump into the next part.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, now could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Amy Leneker
Anne Lamott says that, “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save. They just stand there shining.”

And I think that is such a beautiful metaphor for stress that we don’t have to go running all over our workplaces looking for people to save, looking for stress to eliminate, that if we can take really good care of ourselves, that that very notion of standing like a lighthouse in our own wellness has a ripple effect on everybody.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite book?

Amy Leneker
I’m going to go with Dare to Lead. When I read Dare to Lead by Brene Brown, it felt like these pieces of the leadership puzzle that I had been missing fell into place.

And I was so inspired by that book that I ended up getting trained by her and certified by her to bring Dare to Lead into organizations to help people be courageous. So that book, it changed my life. And it’s not hyperbole to say that. It literally changed my life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite tool?

Amy Leneker
Is a confetti cannon a tool?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool, yeah.

Amy Leneker
Because I keep this puppy on my desk because you never know when a confetti moment is going to hit. So I think this is my favorite tool, that when there’s a celebration, I always try to have a confetti cannon not too far away.

Pete Mockaitis
Now, are confetti cannons, I’ve never owned one or interacted with one personally, are they refillable, reusable?

Amy Leneker
This one is not. There probably are. I bet there are some environmentally safe ones that are. This one isn’t. This is so cute. I just realized, while I was on the call with you, my daughter wrote “Cheers to Monday.” Can you see that?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s sweet.

Amy Leneker
That’s so cute because I sent two of these off this week with the book lot so she was really sweet and cleaned the office and then put this. That’s so darling. Super cute.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, it’s 1,140 some interviews, I’ve asked people about a favorite tool, and this is the first time confetti cannon has appeared.

Amy Leneker
Really? I love it! Let’s name the episode that.

Pete Mockaitis
And it’s so good. And a favorite habit?

Amy Leneker
Whenever I am driving in my car, I call my parents. And it just is such a great way to connect with two people that I love more than anything else in the world.

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

Amy Leneker
I think what I’m hearing back most often now is what I shared with you right at the end about stress, thriving, and isolation, that many times after I give this talk, people will come up and sometimes they’re even crying saying that they didn’t realize that they had been disconnecting from people that they love. They had been isolating from people that they cared about. And so, unfortunately, stress just takes on this spiral. So that’s what I’m hearing right now a lot.

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

Amy Leneker
Oh, thank you. I love that question. AmyLeneker.com is the best way. And I’m also on all the socials and I would love to connect, so reach out. I’d love to stay connected.

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

Amy Leneker
My call to action would be to use the stress ruler today. On a scale of zero to 10, how challenging has your stress been? Ask the people you love that same question and then do something about it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Amy, thank you.

Amy Leneker
Thank you. This was so fun. I loved being here.

Mar 30
0

1141: How to Stop Burnout Before It Starts with Guy Winch

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Guy Winch shares the simple strategies for taking back control of your mind, energy, and attention from work.

You’ll Learn

  1. How to stop rumination loops
  2. The trick to dealing with difficult situations beyond your control
  3. The overlooked key to build into your weekly schedule

About Guy

Guy Winch Ph.D. is an internationally renowned psychologist who advocates for integrating the science of emotional health into our daily lives. His science based self-help books have been translated into 30 languages and his 3 viral TED Talks have garnered over 35 million views. 

He advises start-ups in the mental health space, worked with the US and UK governments, and has created emotional health programs for fortune 500 companies. His work has been featured in the NY Times, WSJ, the Boston Globe, CNN, Time, Psychology Today, and other major outlets. He is the co-host of the Ambie Nominated Dear Therapists podcast. He lives and maintains a private practice in Manhattan.

Resources Mentioned

Thank you, Sponsors!

Guy Winch Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Guy, welcome!

Guy Winch
Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to chat about Mind Over Grind. Could you kick us off with your dramatic story about being stuck in an elevator?

Guy Winch
Yes. So this is actually a story of how I learned, or figured out, rather, that I had burnout because I was a year in to my career, one year. So it’s not exactly what you tend to think of when you think about burnout. But it occurred to me when I was, that was a Friday night, I was coming back from work. I was in the elevator with a neighbor and the elevator stalled and shuddered and just stopped between floors.

And the neighbor actually happened to be a physician in an ER, used to emergencies, one would think, started hitting all the buttons, pounding on the door, and going, “This is my nightmare! This is my nightmare!” And I was so depleted, what came out of my mouth is I just looked at him, and I said, “And this is my nightmare.” And it was such a cruel, unempathetic thing to say.

I am a psychologist, I do know the right thing to say, “Here’s a person in distress. This is literally what I trained for,” and that’s what came out of my mouth. And so when you act out of character in a very substantial way, at least for me, you ask yourself, “What’s going on? Why would I do something like that?” And then when I got home, I realized, “Wow, I am just so drained. I feel like I’ve been doing this for 50 years. I just had nothing left.”

And I realized, “Wow, I’m a year in. That is a major problem.” And the thing is, you don’t learn about burnout in graduate school. At least I didn’t. You know, the PhD never mentioned. So it’s not as if it was something I was alerted to. It just wasn’t something that occurred to me. But that’s what was going on. I was totally burnt out.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s a nice alert right there. So when we act out of character in kind of a snippy, snappy, unkind, impatient sort of a way, that could be a clue, “Oh, I’m not a jerk. Well, maybe. Maybe I am.”

Guy Winch
No, you qualified with the out of character part when you said that.

Pete Mockaitis
Out of character, right. So that could well be an indicator, a little sign, “Hmm, there may be burnout afoot here.”

Guy Winch
Burnout, you might be depressed, but there’s something going on, is the thing. Something is going on. If it’s that uncharacteristic for you, you have to ask yourself, “What’s happening?”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, tell us, that’s one sort of dramatic illustration, like, “Oh, something’s going on here.” Could you give us a couple other signs that, “Oh, maybe I need to pay attention here”?

Guy Winch
Well, with burnout, I mean, the primary symptom is exhaustion. And it’s the kind of bone-tired, this kind of deep feeling of exhaustion that, you know, it’s not a good night’s sleep will remedy that. Neither will a good weekend remedy that. It feels like every day is a slog.

You feel very jaded about what you’re doing. You don’t know if you’re doing a good job. You don’t necessarily care all that much anymore. And you feel so overloaded that every new thing that comes down the pike, every new, like, for me, it was like, I was, to the point where any new request someone, you know, I hadn’t seen for a while, “Oh, do you have time for a session?” I would get so angry or resentful.

Like, “No, I don’t. Just leave me alone. I’m doing enough.” It was that kind of feeling of like, I am taxed beyond what I have and I can’t. But you have to keep going. So you keep going, there’s this kind of numbness that develops.

And it impacts you inside the workplace and without. It’s not as if you can’t be burnt out, totally burnt out at work and be absolutely jovial at home. That doesn’t happen. So it’s impacting you in every area of your life.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, we’re going to dig into a lot of potential interventions, strategies, things you can do. But maybe, first, could you share with us any particularly surprising discoveries that you’ve made in the world of burnout that maybe a lot of folks haven’t heard?

Guy Winch
Well, one thing that’s interesting to me, and this is part of what I got when I decided to actually really start to look into this more seriously. I mean, obviously from year one in my career, I was alerted. But the pandemic was an interesting time because the pandemic, especially the shutdowns that happened at the beginning, there was a moment for emotional health in the workplace.

Like, all the companies were like, “Oh, my goodness, we’re so worried about now everyone’s virtual.” I was giving like, I don’t know, like 15, 20 talks a week to companies about how to maintain emotional health at work in teams when you’re all virtual. All the companies were flooding, their resource pages were here, resources and help, and everyone was aware.

And the discussion of work-life balance came into the picture. People were going on job interviews and asking, “What’s the work-life balance in this company?” Nobody would have dared ask that before. It’s like, “Why? Are you planning to slack off? That’s not necessarily making us want to hire you.” But, suddenly, that became legit. So awareness went up.

Companies were putting a lot of resources into it. And individual workers, both with quiet quitting and their own prioritizing, were trying to do something about work-life balance. And yet, as that was happening, as that moment was happening, work stress and burnout were peaking and have remained at all-time highs in the workplace. And that’s a paradox.

How is it everyone is so aware, everyone on both ends, both the employees and the employers, are trying to do something about it, and it keeps going up? That’s the thing. And so what got me interested is that. And what I found and why I wrote my book, Mind Over Grind, is that the answer is that it works a little bit like a pinball machine.

The work stress shoots out, but then it starts dinging around in your life within and outside of work. And so it makes it harder to, you know, you get home, you’re more likely to have a conflict with your partner, which is going to make you more stressed the next day, which is going to make you come home and ruminate about the bad things that happen, which is going to impair your sleep, which is going to make you more susceptible and more irritable, so more bad things will happen.

It just keeps digging around back and forth. And the ball of stress, as it were, remains in play for much, much longer, and that’s why the burnout is happening and the stress is so high, because it’s escaped the workplace. It’s now operating outside the workplace in our lives in all kinds of ways, some of which we’re aware of, many of which we’re not. And that’s why things keep getting bad, because unless we turn off all those dingers, not just at work, then it will remain problematic.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s a spooky, scary picture there in terms of the cascade, the doom loop that one thing begets another and another and another, like an avalanche, snowball going downhill. So then what do you recommend? If we find ourselves in the early or the later stages of this kind of situation, what are the top things that we should be doing?

Guy Winch
So, first of all, I don’t think it’s a big if. In other words, the workplace right now is really difficult. It’s very demanding for many people. You don’t have to be burnt out to be susceptible to some of these things that are going on. And I’ll give you just one example.

If you have a very difficult day at work, something went wrong, you had a conflict with a co-worker, your boss treated you really poorly, you were one of the many people who were subject to either harassment, or bias, or bullying, or truly even incivility, which is incredibly common in the workplace, just rudeness, you are likely to come home and stew about that.

Ruminate is the word we use professionally. To ruminate means to chew over. You’re likely to come home and chew over about those things because they’re going to bother you, and you’re like, “Why would they say that to me? And why would they do that? And I wish I wouldn’t.”

And then you’re starting to, you’ll spend the evening like imagining having this fantasy conversation with your boss that you actually never have because he’ll fire you, but you’re like, “I wish I could say this to her. And I wish I could say that to him,” and all these mic drop moments that you imagine. It is going to be extremely difficult after those kinds of days to switch off and be present in whatever your family life, personal life is that evening.

Work will hijack your thoughts, and that is extremely, extremely common. And when it does, we are not aware that we’re being hijacked. We think, “Well, we’re processing. Isn’t that a good thing? Wouldn’t a psychologist say processing is good?”

Pete Mockaitis
That sounds wholesome. PhD approved.

Guy Winch
“Sounds wholesome. I’m thinking things through.” You’re not thinking things through. You’re churning. You’re spinning. You’re in an emotional hamster wheel. Thinking things through, by definition, means that there’s a start point and an end point. That end point is a takeaway, a conclusion, an insight, an action item.

But what you’re doing is, again, when you’re doing fantasy conversations about how you’ll tell someone off that you’ll never have, there’s nothing. You’re not doing anything there. But what you are doing, mind you, when you’re ruminating, is, number one, you’re flooding your system with cortisol. You’re stressing yourself out. You are picking the scabs off whatever emotional wounds that left.

So all the irritation, the annoyance, the upset, the insult that you experienced during the workday, by replaying it, you are re-experiencing all those things. You are adding hours of unpaid overtime into your evening. You are checked out from whatever it is and whoever is around you. So you’re actually doing a significant amount and you’re impairing your sleep. You’re more likely to eat unhealthy foods.

There’s just this list of things that are bad when you’re ruminating, and most people are not aware when they’re doing it, but it’s actually quite damaging.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, so very clear. Rumination, bad. So how do we knock it off? Sometimes that’s easier said than done.

Guy Winch
First all, it actually is a little bit easier said than done, but it has to start with the awareness that what you’re doing isn’t useful. And the way you know that is, because when you’re trying to figure something out, that’s a mental process. You’re in your head. You’re strategizing. You’re thinking. You’re analyzing.

When you’re ruminating, you’re in your chest. It’s visceral because you’re upset again, you’re charged again, you’re angry again. And so you know it because, A, you’ve had that thought for the tenth time. You’re not actually getting anywhere.

You’re just replaying how upsetting something was, or your fantasy arguments, or like just imagining, or remembering all the other times they said the insulting thing to you, just literally replaying the greatest hits. That’s when you’re ruminating.

So, first of all, step one, catch it. Label it as rumination. Label it as unuseful and damaging thought. There’s two kinds of self-reflection. There’s more, but just for the sake of argument. There’s healthy and unhealthy. Productive, unproductive. This is unhealthy and unproductive.

The solution, therefore, is to convert the ruminating into healthy and productive self-reflection. Healthy and productive self-reflection has a point. It has a goal. So, in this case, whatever it is that’s troubling you, ask yourself, “What is the problem I need to solve here? Is it, do I need to speak to that co-worker who was so dismissive of me, etc.? Should I go to Human Resources to talk about the bias or the harassment or the bullying?”

“Do I need to get support from somebody else, etc? Do I need to address this rudeness? How do I avoid that coworker who constantly upsets me when I see them?” You’re asking questions that you actually need to figure out and answer. Now, what you’re thinking is actually productive because you’re trying to actually figure something out and know how to handle it and have takeaways from that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s a really useful distinction there. We’re thinking it through, so we’re landing somewhere. It’s a plan, a decision, a next to action. I think some of the trickiest parts for me with rumination, because I love figuring stuff out, strategizing, and problem solving, getting to the bottom of stuff. But I think what I have the hardest time is when it seems like there’s not really a solution to the external circumstances.

Guy Winch
Give me a “for instance.”

Pete Mockaitis
So, I guess, but perhaps the for instance would be you have had conversations with a manager or colleague about the matter at hand multiple times. And they have demonstrated a fundamental unwillingness to adjust their behavior in a manner that you would like.

So, in a way, you’re kind of stuck. And I guess, in a way, we always have a choice, “Well, you could leave. You could find a new workplace.” And I guess that’s true, but sometimes, at least in the short term…

Guy Winch 
That’s a nuclear option, for sure.

Pete Mockaitis 
Yeah, in the short term, we find ourselves somewhat stuck like, “Well, you know what, at the moment, I need this job, I need this income. Boss is not responding to my previous requests to adjust their behavior in a way that would accommodate me. He’s done this again and again, and it makes me angry again and again. So it’s not as though I’m going to arrive at a solution or a magical script. All right.”

Guy Winch
No, but here’s what you can arrive at. Yes, but here’s what you can arrive at. There are numerous things you can do. Number one, you can look around and say, “Who does this boss not do it to? Why do they not do it to them? Is there something I can learn from that?”

Number two, “If they’re doing it to everyone, it’s something about the boss. Is there a way I can understand why the boss does this that would make it easier for me to tolerate? Because I have a little bit of understanding, insight into what’s going on with them. Are they simply obtuse, so they’re not aware that they’re being insulting or annoying?”

“Is it that that’s what they get from their manager and, therefore, they’re just passing that down the line? Is it that they have a really difficult home situation, and so they just take out their frustrations and anger on their subordinates at work?”

You can try and reframe the situation so that it’s less activating for you. If you’re stuck there, “How do I make this feel less annoying? It’s going to occur. How do I avoid some of it? And how do I think of it in a different way?”

For example, some people – I’m just giving this as an example – literally do not have the emotional intelligence to recognize and realize when they’re doing something that’s rude and offensive. They literally don’t get it. You can try and point it out, it doesn’t stick. It’s not something that crosses their radar in that way. It’s just they don’t have the apparatus to.

And so it’s not necessarily on purpose. They don’t realize they’re being that difficult. And if you think about it that way, for example, then it’s like a blind person who just like stepped on your foot because they didn’t see it. Like, it’s hurtful, it’s annoying, but there’s only so angry you can get.

So, in other words, I’m just giving examples of you, if you can’t change it, then change how you feel about it so that you don’t have to live in that anger and resentment as much as you have been. Do you know what mean? So there’s always something that you can do to try and better your situation.

Pete Mockaitis
Can you give us some cool examples of reframes that have been really transformational for folks and within their situations?

Guy Winch
Look, it can be as simple as, “I’ve tried so many ways to manage the situation and I’m not managing. Therefore, this is the sign that I actually do need to look at the nuclear option because I’ve done everything before.” But, again, that’s a nuclear option of leaving.

But another one is to understand, you know, people sometimes when they get the backstory of who the person is, why they’re behaving the way they are, develop some empathy for them. They understand that, “Oh, they have a sick kid at home. They’re stressed out beyond belief.”

“They got passed up for this promotion and they’re really, really hurting. And, no, they’re certainly not managing it well, but they’re not, you know, skipping through the tulips while they’re making all of us eat crap.” You know, that’s not the case. Empathy, perspective taking so that you get some kind of empathy and insight for the person and why they’re doing it often helps mitigate the feelings of frustration and anger.

But often it is something that’s more workable because, you know, again, if you see the person doing it to everyone, then it’s about them, but sometimes it’s just, it’s not to everyone, “So what’s different? What am I doing to step on someone’s toes to make them, to make me a target for them?” I’m not talking about bullying, but just about a boss who’s not treating you nicely or respectfully.

Is it bias? And if it’s bias, you can’t do anything about it. You can think of collecting other incidences of it, finding people who will join with you, and consider going to HR. But, again, that can be dangerous and iffy depending on the company.

But just look first at your behavior. Because a lot of people will say to me sometimes, “You know, I realize that every time I come up with an idea, my boss shoots it down. But the only place I come up with these ideas are in these meetings. And he doesn’t like it when people come up with great ideas in the meetings because they’re supposed to be about his ideas, not our ideas.”

“I need to go to him on the side. And then when I go to him on the side, he’s actually, one-on-one, he’s much nicer than in the public forum.” You know what mean? Like, you have to try and figure out the method behind the madness, and that can really transform your perception and your strategy and your handling of the situation.

Pete Mockaitis
Could you share a specific story of a person who had a transformational reframe?

Guy Winch
In my book, I follow five characters, you know, clients of mine throughout. And this is a reframe in the other direction, mind you, but the first person I talk about is a guy called Tony. He’s a trader and he’s in this political fight… he’s the number one trader on the desk with the number two trader on the desk.

And he keeps thinking that the number two trader on the desk is just jealous of him and tries to sabotage him or tries to kind of turn people against him. And so he kind of doesn’t take it seriously enough. When he understands what the number two person on the desk is trying to do is actually oust him entirely, literally sabotage his entire career, that’s transformational for him.

He suddenly looks at everything with very different eyes, with very different levels of alarm, which are appropriate. And sometimes we don’t fully understand the reasons other people at work are doing what they’re doing. And we really need to, because that will reveal a chess game that we might not be aware of.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really powerful. And I’m thinking about movies like “Fight Club” or “The Sixth Sense” where there’s a big reveal that sort of recasts your understanding of everything. It’s like, “Oh, now I have to watch this movie again.” And so that is big in terms of uncovering those things really does bring new things to light.

And what’s so interesting is when, I think a lot of times, when someone’s behavior just doesn’t make any sense to us, it seems there’s often another element that when you understand that, it is that unlock. Like, “Oh, so that’s why you do what you do.” “Oh, you’re trying to oust me.” “Oh, you have a super stressful home life situation.” “Oh, you’ve always learned that had to be tough in certain situations.” “Oh, you think this meeting is about you looking like a brilliant, innovative, creative genius. Okay.”

So it’s like when we’re flummoxed by others’ behavior, there may very well be just a missing piece of the puzzle that can put everything into the right perspective.

Guy Winch
Right. Another example is, “Oh, your self-esteem is so fragile, you are so incapable of owning a mistake that you will, literally, look to blame the most ridiculous people rather than take any ownership or responsibility because you’re constitutionally too threatened by that notion,” let’s say.

Pete Mockaitis
You might not say that out loud to your boss, unprompted.

Guy Winch
No, but it would be useful to understand because then any kind of effort to try and make them see or make them get is like it’s going to be useless and a waste of energy because they cannot, they will not take ownership of that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, this is useful. Thank you. Well, in your book, you’ve got a fun structure in terms of chapter one, Monday morning, chapter two, Monday afternoon, kind of like moving through a work week. Can you share with us what are some of the most transformational practices, not just in the moment when, oh, rumination is striking, but, in general, to have our mind over grind?

Guy Winch
So when we have a difficult and demanding job, when we’re very, very busy, our tendency is, for most people, is, you know, anyone who’s gotten up in the morning are like, “I just need to get through this day,” or, “I just need to get through this week. There’s just so much going on. I just need to get through it.”

That kind of thought, or that kind of strategy, is problematic because what it’s going to do, what that means is it means you’re putting your head down and you’re going from task to task to task. You’re just getting through. What it means you’re not doing is you’re not actually looking at the week more strategically and more intentionally planning out, “How do I manage my energies through this week?”

“How do I utilize my time out of work to recover from this very, very difficult and demanding week? How do I break up the day? If I have 10 minutes here and five minutes there..” you know, some people literally running all the time “…where can I schedule those 10 minutes? What can I do within them that will refresh me a little bit rather than just keep grinding through and just praying for the end of the day to arrive?”

“How can I be more intentional in the breaks that I choose, where I choose to take them, what I choose to do in them, because the default is going to be serve social media or distract myself in some way, as opposed to doing something that will actually revitalize me even in five minutes?”

In the book, I have this whole section about mini breaks, like two minutes here, five minutes here, what you can do that will actually be useful, as opposed to what most people do that is not. So how we curate the rest period, the break period, the recovery options, is super important and it’s the last thing we think of doing when we need it most because we just put our head down and let’s just get through it.

But we need to be more strategic and more deliberate in how we do that. And that makes a huge difference because when we just get through, by the second part of the day, our creativity, our decision-making, our attention to detail, most of our executive functioning is depleted, is on the decline because we don’t, you know, we’re not computers, we don’t keep going at the same level until we crash.

There’s a downward slope that happens quite quickly. So unless you’re really planning for breaks that will refresh you and will revitalize you and kind of restore your functioning to a higher level, you’re not going to do as good work as you might if you are more thoughtful about doing that.

And the second part is what happens after hours. The more stressed and pressured you are at work, the more essential it is to use those times to recover. And the research shows the less likely we are to do that in any way that’s effective.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s a huge nice bright light for us there. If you’re having the thought, “Ooh, just got to get through this day,” it’s like, you know, “Time out, you know, that is probably exactly the wrong thought to be having,” versus, “Where do I get my energy replenished? And I’m going to have to look harder for those opportunities given that there is a whole lot competing for my hours in this day.”

So share with us what are some of the most rejuvenating mini breaks that really go a long way for people?

Guy Winch
So, for example, if you’re sitting all day, and then stand up, go up and down some stairs, do some push-ups if you’re inclined to do that, do something physical for a few minutes, number one. Number two, you have 10 minutes. If you can take a walk around the block, if there’s any nature to be parked in, nature is very restorative. Just sitting among trees, even if it’s for 10 minutes, can really kind of refresh.

If you have a very difficult, you know, say, some people say to me like, “Oh, I have three hours of the most obnoxious client meetings. They always are so hostile and so tense and I have to smile through it because they’re critical clients. I always feel so like, you know, yucky afterwards.”

I’m like, “Great. That’s after those meetings is when you need to make a plan with a coworker to go so you can vent, so you can get support, call your grandmother with a smiling face. If you’re working from home, that’s when you bring the puppy over to get some cuddles. Like, do something to help you recover from the tension of those meetings.”

Meditation can be done in five minutes. If you have a very, very difficult day, like, “Wednesday’s going to be hump day. I just need to get through Wednesday,” what’s your favorite thing you can make yourself for lunch and take it to work on Wednesday?

So even though that’s the hardest day, you can look forward to, “But you know what, I’m going to have this thing at lunch and take 15 minutes and I really enjoy this thing that I’m bringing, and so I’m going to look forward to having that over that day and give myself the treat at lunch that day.”

Be thoughtful about what you can do so it’s not torture all the time, because that’s how the stress happens. We go into fight or flight, the workplace is a modern-day battlefield. Even though it’s not a battlefield, it’s a conference room, but it’s same thing. It’s a cubicle, it doesn’t matter. It’s like we’re on alert all the time. Our bodies are activated in fight or flight. You need to have breaks from that.

And if you come home and you’re ruminating about stuff, you’re still in fight or flight. Or if you come home and you’re so tense that, you know, everyone’s avoiding you, you’re still in fight or flight. So we have to be aware that that’s how burnout happens.

Our systems did not evolve. Our mental and physical body systems, you know, functioning, did not evolve to be activated like that for many, many hours, for most of the day, day after day after day after day. That’s never our evolution. Even in times of war, there was R&R. Nobody stayed at the front forever. And now we are at the front forever.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I really resonate with what you said about lunch. I have actually had days where, “Oh, my gosh, this day is so brutal. But you know what? I’ve got those delicious chicken pineapple meatballs from Costco. And, really, it’s like a bright light.”

Guy Winch
It is though, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Okay. Well, so you mentioned social media is the default. Guy, is your good doctor’s opinion that that is not an efficacious means of rejuvenation?

Guy Winch
No, it’s the researchers’ opinion that it’s not an efficacious means of rejuvenation. There are studies done about it. And, look, when you’re working, if you’re going to, if your social media, there’s two kinds, really, right? It’s your social, actual social media, what your friends are doing.

Tell me how many friends you have that post pictures of them looking absolutely harassed during the workday, looking miserable in a cubicle, crying in the toilets after they got chewed out by their boss. No one posts that. What you will see, they’re drinking Mai Tais on the beach or the time they went out with their coworkers and they’re all semi-drunk and having a great time.

Whatever the thing is, it’s going to make you feel like, “Oh, wow, everybody’s living except me.” It’s not going to make you feel good. That’s one type. And the other type is news and all kinds of things like that. And those algorithms, all of them, are slanted toward getting your attention and activating you and making you upset and outraged and angry, is what will get your attention.

And so they will feed you content that you’re going to be like, “I cannot believe that happened. I can’t believe this.” It will, literally, be activating in all the wrong ways. Relaxing, it will not be. No one’s feed shows like a Philharmonic playing casual classical music with aromatherapy wafting through your phone. We don’t get that. So that’s not going to be useful.

My phone, I don’t, you know, like I post on social media. I have somebody who does it for me, but what I use my phone for, I have trained my algorithm so that if I am going to do that, it is going to show me stuff that is going to make me smile.

And I can show you my phone, you can go to the search, the only thing it will show you is stand-up clips and puppies. That’s it. That’s all you’re getting. In other words, I’ve trained it, I’m not interested in anything else. If I’m coming to you, it’s for like a few seconds of relief. So that’s what it knows to show me. You can train your algorithm.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I was just going to ask, because I find that sometimes when I turn to social media or news, what I’m really after is a quick hit of, like, a palate cleanser. Like, I want something that’s interesting, that’s stimulating, that makes me go, “Hmm.”

Guy Winch
Can you see that you’re going to get that on the news?

Pete Mockaitis 
And is novel and different. Well, I guess usually I don’t but sometimes I do. I think that’s the thing. It’s like the gambler, like pull on the the slot machine one more time. It’s like, “Oh, maybe this time, you know, I’ll hit something makes me go, ‘Huh, that’s really interesting.’”

But I’m gathering, from my own experience and from all the research that, yeah, this isn’t really a great place to to get what I’m after. So one approach is, you’ve just trained it, “Give me puppies and comedy and nothing else.” Are there perhaps superior substitutions? We’ve talked about nature and having a walk and some exercise. That’s cool. Any nice intellectual substitutions for social media?

Guy Winch
Yes, but what you want to do on break from work is you actually want to use the intellectual muscles that are not the same ones that you’ve just used. So, if you’re in a job that’s just very rote or analytical, you might want something that stimulates your feelings of creativity, right?

If you’re in a creative job that’s just very, very artistic, you might want something that gives you puzzles, or something that just uses different, you know, it’s like you want to use a different area of the brain. If those muscles are tired, let’s use other muscles and give them a little bit of a workout.

If you’re working from home, you know what’s great to do for five or 10 minutes if you can? If you play a musical instrument, play it for five or 10 minutes. If you’re a singer, sing for five or 10 minutes. If you’re a dancer, dance for five or 10 minutes.

Like, I know that’s not a lot of time, but it’s enough time to kind of, really, it does two things. Number one, it’s so different from what you’re doing probably for work. And secondly, it’s giving some oxygen to other parts of your personality and your identity that you don’t really get to express that much. So that’s quite refreshing to do.

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Well, Guy, tell me, anything else you really want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Guy Winch
Yes, one other thing. I talked about the recovery after work, too. Our brain doesn’t distinguish that well between physical exhaustion and mental exhaustion. So a lot of people get home after eight, nine hours, let’s say even in the office where they sat all day and they feel, “I am wiped out. All I can do now is veg four to five hours of TV or shows or screens in some kind of ways, but I couldn’t move because I’m wiped out.”

You’re not wiped out physically. You’re drained mentally. And, in fact, doing something physical or doing something, and so they rest for four or five hours, right? They over-index on resting. Resting is half the equation. Resting doesn’t deplete your batteries further, but it doesn’t recharge them.

To recharge your batteries after work, you actually need to do something that you can’t do on a couch. Again, if you’re creative, you need to do the creative endeavor. If you’re a social person, you actually need to meet people and interact.

If you’re athletic, you have to work out in some kind of way. If you’re artistic, you’ve got to practice your art, you’ve got to practice your music, you’ve got to practice your writing, you’ve got to tinker in the garage, you’ve got to organize if you’re an organizer.

You have to do the thing that recharges you. Not every night is that possible. And people say to me, like, “Well…” I have an example of somebody in the book who used to do improv. And they’re like, “Well, I can’t do it. I can’t join a troupe, I can’t perform. I don’t have that kind of time.”

I’m like, “You don’t need a lot of time to do it for 10 or 15 minutes a day with your kids. Ask them what character they want you to be and be that character to fool around.” Like, you play the violin, 15 minutes of, and, again, it’s not a lot, it’s not enough, but picking it up and doing something is enough to kind of make you feel recharged again, remind you that it’s not all about work.

You know, the life part of the work-life balance is the you part as well. It’s not just add an hour of yoga. It’s about live. Be present in the life that you do have. Be present in doing homework with the kids and putting them to bed and having a date night with your partner. Hanging out with your friends. Be present in that.

But people are like, “No, I’m too drained.” So you have to remind yourself that you’re not physically tired. You’re mentally tired. Your body is deceiving you. Your mind is deceiving you into thinking that you’re physically tired.

And everyone has done that and forced themselves up from the couch and forced themselves to then do the recharging thing has come back with a second wind in which they actually expended energy but now they feel more energized.

Everybody knows the ROI is significant but you have to remind yourself of that because if you don’t, if you just veg all evening, you’ll wake up tired the next day, you won’t feel recharged or refreshed. So that’s the biggest mistake. And the more stressed you are at work, the more likely you are to fall into that trap. So you really have to override it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well. now could you share your favourite quote, something you find inspiring?

Guy Winch
So I forget who said it, maybe it was Carl Sagan who said, “The human brain might be the most brilliant machine in the universe.” And so that’s the quote.

“So the human brain might be the most brilliant machine in the entire universe…” Here’s my addition, “…but it requires adult supervision.” In other words, we have to be mindful. We have to be intentional. We can’t just let our mind be on autopilot because it’s smart and it’s brilliant, but not when it comes to emotional and psychological sophistication. It defaults to easy solutions.

It’ll distract us by just, “Go to social media. Just zombie out on the couch.” It’ll tell us all those things, and we have to be able to be the adult and to make the managerial decision about, “That’s not what I need. Here’s what I need. I have to get my ass off the couch and do this. I have to get the chicken pineapple thing from…” I forgot now what it was.

Pete Mockaitis
Hell, yeah, chicken pineapple meatballs.

Guy Winch
But, yes, chicken pineapple meatballs from Costco. “I need to get up and heat that up because that’s what’s going to put a smile on my face, even though I don’t feel like it.” You know, we have to do the adult thing and we have to manage our mind and not just let it be because it doesn’t make the best decisions for us when it’s on autopilot.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And can you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?

Guy Winch
One of the studies that really caught my attention when working on this book is that when one person in a relationship is really stressed out at work for a long period, their partner will start to develop symptoms of burnout because it transfers that substantially to the other people in the house.

And people, most people think like, “No, no, no, I keep it under wraps. I don’t stress everybody out.” Even when you don’t intend to, we do. So there’s one. I’ll just throw in one other one of the same example. When one person in their job is really stressed out, their partner is likely to lose their sex drive, because, you know, again, those things cross over and they impact our loved ones way more than we realize.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a favorite book?

Guy Winch
Here’s one on topic. And I don’t know if this person has been on your podcast, Mita Mallick. Has she been on your podcast? She wrote a book that just came out a few months ago. It’s called The Devil Emails at Midnight. And it’s about difficult bosses and how to handle them, and that she had fallen into the trap of being a difficult boss herself, but it’s a great book about the workplace that’s also quite funny.

One that’s not on this topic at all, but just one that I read recently that I absolutely loved, it’s called Eve. It’s a New York Times bestseller, how female evolution drove 200 million years, how the female body drove 200 million years of evolution. It looks through at evolution, starting literally 200 million years ago, through the lens of women and the female body. And it’s remarkable.

As much as you think as you know about the female body, as much as women think they know about their own body, you will learn so much from this book. And it’s written in such a way that almost every page you want to pause and call someone and say, “Look what I just found out,” you know? It’s great.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Guy Winch
One of the tools that I use daily is gratitude exercises. I really believe in them. And the gratitude exercises is that you really write a paragraph about something that you’re grateful for every day. If something bad happens, you deal with it, you process it, but you also try and find some good in it.

It’s a great balancing act. We’ve evolved to be predisposed to notice the bad, the danger, the difficult stuff that’s coming on the horizon. We need to counterbalance that by intentionally looking for the good and the positive because that comes much less naturally to all of us.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a key nugget you share that seems to really connect and resonate with folks, you hear them quoted back to you often?

Guy Winch
It’s from earlier in my work, but that nugget is that we need to treat psychological and emotional wounds the same way that we do physical wounds. When we are upset, when we are injured emotionally or psychologically, there’s a wound there a lot of the time that we actually have to be informed about and do something to treat.

Much as we would put a bandaid, or a bandage on something, or an ice pack on a sprain, there are ways we need to recover from experiences like rejection and failure. And little exercises that we can do, that will be those bandages and ice packs and pain relievers. And we need to get sophisticated enough to be able to recognize when we’re injured and apply these small little tools and techniques to feel better more quickly.

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

Guy Winch
GuyWinch.com is my website, that’s G-U-Y-W-I-N-C-H.com, where they can get links to all my social media, my books, and my newsletter on Substack. It’s only every two weeks, so it’s not too burdensome, but GuyWinch.com is the place to go for all of that.

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

Guy Winch
Yes, I would like you to be much more thoughtful about how you are managing yourself during the work day. Make informed decisions. Be deliberate. Don’t be on autopilot. Autopilot will fly the plane into a cliff without you realizing it. So just be much more mindful.

Lift up your head and ask yourself, “What do I need this day? What do I need this week? How do I make this intentionally? What do I need to get from Costco that will put a smile on my face?”

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Guy, thank you.

Guy Winch
Thank you.

Mar 26
0

1140: Bringing More Laughter, Fun, and Connection to the Workplace with Chris Duffy

By | Podcasts | No Comments

Chris Duffy discusses how to find the humor in anything—and why that’s important in the workplace.

You’ll Learn

  1. Why to take humor seriously at work
  2. The simple habit that makes you more magnetic
  3. How to find humor in the most unlikely places

About Chris

Chris Duffy is an award-winning comedian, television writer, and radio/podcast host. Chris currently hosts the hit podcast How to Be a Better Human. You can watch his comedic TED talk, “How to find laughter anywhere” online. He has appeared on Good Morning America, ABC News, NPR, and National Geographic Explorer. 

Chris wrote for both seasons of Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas on HBO, executive produced by John Oliver. He’s the creator/host of the streaming game show Wrong Answers Only, where three comedians try to understand what a leading scientist does all day, in partnership with LabX at the National Academy of Sciences. 

Chris is both a former fifth grade teacher and a former fifth grade student.

Resources Mentioned

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Chris Duffy Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Chris, welcome!

Chris Duffy
Thank you so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to talk about humor, and not just for the fun of it, but how it can actually enhance our experience of career and job and be an asset in that zone. But could you kick us off with a fun story about some of your most memorable moments in your career as a comedian?

Chris Duffy
Probably the most memorable moment I’ve ever had in my career as a comedian is I was a fifth-grade teacher before I did comedy. And so I never had use for LinkedIn because, listen, like you don’t get a job as a fifth-grade teacher through LinkedIn, like business networking, and you don’t get a job as a comedian through LinkedIn networking.

So I never had a LinkedIn profile, but I’d always heard about it, and I was curious about the world. So one day I went on and said, like, “Okay, I’m just going to make a profile.” And the first thing I realized is you could just say you work wherever. If you say you work for Nike, they don’t, like, email a Nike hiring manager, which struck me as completely bizarre.

And so I wanted to see how high up I could go. So I made my job on LinkedIn, the CEO of LinkedIn. And I thought, like, when I click save, it’ll say, “Error. You can’t do that.” But instead, not only did it let me do that, it sent an automated email to everyone in my contacts list that said, “Congratulate Chris on his new job. He is now CEO of LinkedIn,” which is, to me, that’s the funniest joke that I’ve ever been involved in. And I didn’t even make it. It was just LinkedIn’s like automatic emailing thing.

And then, I was the CEO of LinkedIn on LinkedIn for a full year. And at a year, it sent another email to everyone in my contacts list saying, “Congratulate Chris on his one year work anniversary as CEO of LinkedIn.” And that started going a little viral.

And so I got a message from someone on LinkedIn’s Trust and Security team. My account was frozen. And you can’t make this up. The person on the Trust and Security team, her name was Faith. And Faith said, “Your account has been locked due to concerns about its inaccuracy.”

I didn’t want to let the joke go because I love the joke so much so I sent her a photo of my license, front and back, and said, “There’s proof that my name is actually Chris Duffy.” And Faith said, “The problem is not that we don’t believe your name is Chris Duffy. The problem is you are claiming to be the CEO of LinkedIn.”

And I said, “Faith, you are taking a pretty disrespectful tone for someone who works for me.” And five seconds later, she permanently deleted my account. And so that was the end of my time on LinkedIn. But a very memorable moment in my comedy career.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s fun. Okay. So one takeaway I’m gleaning right away is, “Go ahead and lie about how senior you are on LinkedIn, and the odds are pretty good, you can skate by for a good while with that.”

Chris Duffy
You know, if there’s one message I have for people, it’s, “Commit some light fraud.” No, that’s not my message. You know, I think the heart of what I like about that is that no one was going to hire me anyway from LinkedIn. So I think the thing that I encourage people to do is to think a little outside of the box, to not be afraid to play around and to have fun and to do something that is silly, even in a place where it’s serious.

And LinkedIn is a great example of a place where people tend to take themselves so seriously. So I think the more that you can be human and playful and fun, the more that things stand out. You definitely can’t and shouldn’t do what I did because, actually, one of my lasting contributions to society after me, they did make it so you can’t do that anymore.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, congratulations. Your ripple…

Chris Duffy
Thank you so much. We all want to have an impact, you know? We want to affect the generations after us.

Pete Mockaitis
…it reverberates. That’s beautiful. All right. And so it’s funny, I’m thinking I actually do follow a couple satire accounts on LinkedIn, and it’s really funny in terms of the difference, like the contrast when there is sort of a vibe, a tone, a subculture, a script. You know what I’m saying?

Like, there’s a little bit of a feel for how a LinkedIn post is “supposed to go,” like one-sentence hook grabbing you like, “I had to fire someone today.” Like, “Huh? What? Why? I had to know the rest, you know.”

Chris Duffy
Yeah, “Here’s what my wedding taught me about peer-to-peer marketing,” you know, something like that. It’s like, “What? What? What are you talking about?” You know, I think it’s true, in a lot of our lives, professional, personal, social, there are these like scripts that we’re supposed to follow or we think we’re supposed to follow, I think is a better way to put it, right?

Where it’s like, someone says, “Hey, how are you?” “I’m doing pretty well. Yeah.” “Oh, crazy weather,” right? Like, you just kind of, like, that’s what small talk is supposed to go like. And I think the thing about when we get into autopilot like that is that things just blur into the background. They’re not memorable and we don’t make real connections and we’re not actually our full human selves.

And, to me, the beauty of humor is that it lets us laugh about and acknowledge these, like, ruts that we get into that we don’t even realize are just like our habits. And the thing that I love about laughing with other people is, like, when you connect with them, you are actually genuinely connected. But also then people like you more, they feel attracted to you. And I don’t mean romantically attracted, like they want to spend time with you.

And there’s a lot of great studies that we can talk about that show that from a professional standpoint, if you are acknowledging things in a funny, humorous way where you’re willing to laugh at yourself, people respect you more even if what you’re acknowledging is your shortcoming.

They did a psychological study where they looked at people in job interviews. And people who acknowledged their shortcomings, like the things they didn’t know but made a joke about it, were much more likely to get hired than people who didn’t acknowledge it at all, or than who acknowledged it in a serious way. Because we like those people, we trust them, and we want people to admit that they’re not perfect, because we’re not perfect either.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s really interesting. And I’m just speculating as to the why behind that. And it feels as though, if someone is capable of acknowledging their shortcomings in a fun, lighthearted way, it kind of gives a subtle implicit permission that, “It’s okay to talk about those kinds of things with me and maybe it’s okay to talk about a broad range of things with me.” And so there’s just a little bit more of a vibe of comfort and safety. I’m totally reading a lot into this, but this is how I’d speculate are the underlying kind of facets that make it go that way.

Chris Duffy
I think that’s totally plausible. And I think another piece is that if you’re willing to laugh about the things that you don’t know or that you’re not good at, it probably means that those are places where you would be able to improve as well because you’re open to feedback on them. You’re open to growth.

Whereas, the things that you get defensive about that are like no-go conversation topics, it’s really hard to then grow in those because you’re locked in to like your idea that, “I already know everything there is to know about this.” And none of us do.

You know, I’ll give you another study that I love psychologists at a number of universities looked at, they did a study where people evaluated job candidates. And so they didn’t know that the people they were evaluating were actually research assistants reading from a script.

But when they were evaluating these candidates, of course, everyone rated the people who were qualified more highly than people who were unqualified. No surprise there. But between the people who were qualified, there were two people who were exactly identical, except one of them spilled a whole cup of coffee on their shirt before they came in for the interview. And they said like, “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, I spilled coffee all over myself.”

And that person, the coffee spiller, was consistently rated higher, was rated more confident, and was the one that people thought they should hire for the job. And, for me, the big lesson that I take away is not, like, if you’re applying for a job, dump a scalding hot cup of coffee on yourself. That’s not the lesson.

The lesson is that we have this idea that we’re supposed to be perfect, that people want us to be flawless and perfect and have no mistakes and just impressive. And, in fact, when you’re like that, people can’t latch onto you. They can’t relate to you at all.

People much prefer someone who is a little bit of a mess, but is still good at their job and good at the things they need to be good at. And so, to me, I think lowering the bar in that way makes you so much more desirable as a job candidate, but also just as a person to work with.

I mean, think about it, Pete, like I’ll give you an example. In your real life, I think there’s an intuitive example, is if you, Pete, walk into a room and you meet someone and he goes, “Hey, by the way, Pete, nice to meet you. I have a six pack. I make a million dollars a year. I give to charity every single day, and I work at a soup kitchen. And, by the way, both of my kids went to Harvard, and I think I’m probably going to be nominated for a Nobel Prize.”

Like, you don’t like that person. You know what I mean? At best, you’re intimidated, and more likely you’re like, “I hate this guy. I never want to see this guy ever again.” That’s certainly how I would feel. Whereas, if you meet someone who’s like, “Hey, can you do me a favor? I think that my pants might have just ripped, right?”

Like, you have a lot more to talk about, a lot more to relate with that guy, even though it’s a little weird because they’re not perfect and you’re not immediately intimidated and are jealous and have all these other feelings about them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And what’s coming to mind right now is, internet personality. Her name is Elyse Myers and I just got her book.

Chris Duffy 
Oh, I love her.

Pete Mockaitis
She’s so delightful. It’s so funny, everyone loves her. That’s kind of where I’m going with that. I think her moniker is like the internet’s best friend or everyone’s best friend on the internet, something like that. And she’s repeatedly sharing her shortcomings, and her foibles, struggles with mental health and more, but she’s clearly very smart and very funny and very insightful and very personable. And when you bring those two things together, yeah, she’s the internet’s best friend.

Chris Duffy
Well, you know, I think the fact that you said very smart is actually, I think, really a huge and important piece here. I, for years now, have hosted a comedy show with the National Academy of Sciences, where we interview scientists about their work.

And, you know, I’ve interviewed Nobel laureates, I’ve interviewed MacArthur geniuses, all these really incredible people. And the number one thing that I’ve noticed is that people who are willing to say, “I don’t know,” or to be funny or to laugh at their own research, those are the people who are actually super intelligent, right?

Like, the people who don’t have a sense of humor and aren’t willing to admit that they don’t know some things or get defensive and blocked off, those are rarely the real geniuses. Because when you actually are exceptional at something, you have a level of confidence and comfort with admitting the limits of your own knowledge and also with trying to explain it simply and not just relying on jargon.

And so I think there’s a real piece there of, like, smart people, you can signal your comfort and your intelligence by laughing and by the things that you’re willing to laugh at and be open about.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I like that a lot. So can you give us maybe a story, an example, of someone in a professional context who upgraded some of their humor skills and found that genuinely helpful or transformative for their career?

Chris Duffy
One that immediately comes to mind is I talked to a former Navy SEAL, Joe Choi. And Joe was in very extreme life-or-death situations often. Even just the training for Navy SEALs can be really, really dangerous.

And when Joe was promoted so that now he was leading a team, he realized really quickly that the way to actually have people respect him, the way to have the men trust him, and know that in these life-or-death situations that he was someone they could rely on wasn’t to be super serious all the time.

The way he put it to me is that the best leaders that he had encountered as a SEAL, the best leaders took the work really seriously, but they did not take themselves so seriously. And so he found that he was able to motivate his team and to get them to be much more connected to him by being willing to laugh at himself.

And he told me probably the most dramatic laugh-at-yourself story I’ve ever heard, which is he was doing a training exercise where you were supposed to grab onto a ladder hanging out of a helicopter while you were in rough ocean waters.

And Joe managed to grab onto the ladder, he was going to demonstrate what to do. And he managed to grab onto the ladder, but he grabbed onto the wrong side. So instead of being able to climb up, he was actually getting dragged under the water. And he was struggling to breathe. He was about to pass out when he finally was able to pull himself up and flip over the ladder and climb up into the helicopter.

And when he got up, he was kind of gasping for breath and struggling. And it had really been a dire situation. And he says that all the guys who he’s supposedly leading are looking at him after this, like, scary and also, you know, not really like great example of how you’re supposed to do it. And one of the guys just said, “Wow, that was some real frog man shit.” And then they all looked at Joe and they saw if he would laugh, and Joe laughed really hard.

And he said that that became this moment for his group where they came back to it and it was like a bonding thing, but it was also a moment where they trusted that he was confident enough and honest enough about what had happened, that he was willing to laugh and acknowledge that he hadn’t done it right. And he said that that was something that really came back again and again in the group trusting him.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really nice. Well, can you share with us, I think we like humor, humor is fun, the points you’re bringing up makes sense. They check out. So what are some things that we do with that knowledge? Do you have any sort of key pro tips or questions or ways you recommend we go forward and do more good humoring?

Chris Duffy
I will say that, I think, the biggest thing that people get wrong about humor is, I think, people often think that having a great sense of humor means you are the one on stage with the microphone or in the circle at the party or at the water cooler where everyone is around listening to your story, and you’re the one that’s getting all the attention.

And I would actually say that not that that’s not good humor, but the people with the best sense of humor aren’t always the ones performing it. They’re not always the ones getting the attention. Often, the people with the best sense of humor are the ones who are laughing the most. So they’re generously giving their attention to other people.

They are noticing things that are odd and unusual and delightful throughout their day. They’re laughing about it, even if they’re not sharing it with other people. And I think that when you broaden your definition of good humor and what good humoring looks like to include that kind of humor, you avoid a lot of the pitfalls.

Because one of the big things that people always say is like, “Well, how do I make a joke that doesn’t offend people? Or, what if I cross a line?” And the answer that I would say to them is the safest way that you can bring more humor into your life is to not be the one making the joke, to find people who make you laugh and to laugh with them. People love that, right?

I mean, like, the number one way to make someone like you is not to talk more, it’s to listen more. So I think if you can bring humor into your life in those other ways, that will really make you magnetic to other people because you’re having fun.

And so something I would ask you is, like, “Who are the people that already make you laugh? How can you spend more time with them? What are the ways that you are naturally laughing already?” So maybe one thing, one exercise that I really encourage, which is really simple, but I think can be transformative is just keep track of everything for a week that makes you laugh, or a month, however long, but write it down.

Write it down on a piece of paper or in a notes app on your phone. And what you’ll find is that just the act of paying attention makes more and more things surface, right? Anytime we direct our attention towards something, we find more and more.

And so having more of that humor and that laughter in your life is going to make you the kind of person who laughs more and has more fun. And that has all these benefits, both professionally and personally.

Pete Mockaitis
And I think that’s a theme that’s come up elsewhere in terms of like gratitude. If you are identifying things that you feel grateful for, or that turned out better than you thought they might in the course of the day, you are more inclined to notice more such things and feel more gratitude.

Chris Duffy
Totally.

Pete Mockaitis
So, in like fashion here, by taking note and attending to that which is funny, you’re having more of those good humor vibes going on.

Chris Duffy
I think this is kind of true of anything, right? Like, I talked to a guy recently who is a roofer. And he was just kind of telling me about, like, the good, what a good roof is versus a bad roof, and, you know, the kinds of roof that he likes working on and all that.

And then I was walking around afterwards, and I noticed all these roofs, right, these things that have been totally invisible to me. All of a sudden, I was like, “That’s like a nice roof. Oh, that roof needs some repairs.” And I have no ability to actually, like, repair a roof or know about it, but just having talked to someone who had a real passion for it and knew a lot about it, all of a sudden, this piece of the world that was invisible became really visible to me.

And I think the same is true kind of for anything, right? Like, if you’re always looking for professional chances to connect, you’ll find more chances to connect. And I think what I love about humor is that it offers us the ability to take ourselves less seriously, to make other people want to be around us, and to have a better time all at once.

Because it’s, like, without trying to think like, “I should have social connections.” If you focus on laughing, people want to be around you. You’re a magnetic person. And so just by noticing more of this stuff, you get those side benefits.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, to do the noticing, I’m just going to pay attention. I’m going to write it down. Are there any key prompts or internal questions you recommend that can generate more of this good stuff?

Chris Duffy
So, for me, for more than a decade, I’ve been a professional comedian, both like writing late-night comedy shows and telling jokes and as a standup, and doing all sorts of other stuff. And what I found is that, actually, the most interesting part of comedy is not the performing.

It’s actually the generating the ideas and the noticing the material because that’s the part that I think anyone can do regardless of whether you perform or not professionally, right? Like everyone can have more laughter in their life.

And so the first thing that I would say is the seed of something funny is something that is a little unusual or off or different than expected. The gap between how things are supposed to be or how we think things are going to go and how they actually are is where comedy lives.

So one of the things that I would do is focus really small. The artist, Sister Corita Kent had a practice that she did where she would, literally, carry around a rectangular frame made of cardboard, and she would just, for her art, would hold up that frame and just look at what was inside the frame, everything else, narrow her field of vision, and that’s where she would find the art.

And I think you can, literally, do that for comedy. Just look at a corner of your house and just spend five minutes noticing all of the small things in that, what are the things that are a little off or a little weird or a little different. And you’re not going to find something laugh-out-loud funny right away, but you might find something small and odd that then you can think about and is the seed of it.

Or, a more relatable way, I think, is, Pete, when you go to someone’s house for the first time, and you go in their bathroom, you notice all sorts of stuff about their bathroom, right? You notice, like, “Where is the toilet paper? Is it hanging over? Is it hanging under? What kind of soap do they have? Do they have a hand towel? Do they have paper towels? Is there a pile of books next to their toilet? Do the books kind of seem weirdly wet? Is there a candle? Is there a little spray?” All this stuff in their bathroom.

But if you go to their house a few times, that fades into the background really quickly. It just becomes a bathroom. So the more that you can switch into that new bathroom mindset where you’re actually noticing the things in your life, the more that you can see the things that are odd and unusual and delightful. And that can really make you laugh.

So can we do an experiment like in real time rather than having this be a…?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, I was just about to go there in terms of looking at a corner for five minutes, how might that turn into some chuckles.

Chris Duffy
So, okay, so right now you’re in a hotel room, right?

Pete Mockaitis
I am in a hotel. I’ve had some flight cancellation action.

Chris Duffy
Great. So a hotel is kind of one of the most kind of stereotypically antiseptic places, right? Like, all the character has been taken out of it. And sometimes that can be hard to find something funny, but sometimes that in itself is the funniness, right? Like, that they’ve tried so hard to make no design choices, that it is bland in a way that is exceptionally bland.

So I would look around and be like, “Is there any art on the walls?” Hotel art is often funny to me, because it’s like, “What is the choice? Why is that the art?” What strikes your interest right away? Or what do you notice right away?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, what’s interesting is there’s these vases on top of inside-floating shelves that are tapered and they’re like pierced. It’s almost like it was a dagger that punched through this hanging shelf.

Chris Duffy
That is already incredible. I mean, that’s already really funny. Like, to think like the person who was like, “I know what they need. They need shelves that have been stabbed by a dagger. That will be our brand.” Like, that. And that’s a good example of, like, you could spend a week in a hotel room and never notice that, I think, but then you see it and you think about it.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And I like what you did there because, in a way, because what you said is like, “The seed is something that’s a little off, unusual, unexpected.” And that was that, but you didn’t bring me into the chuckle zone until you went that extra step associated with imagining the people who were discussing this, and deciding, “Ah, yes, this is what’s necessary.”

Chris Duffy
“This is our masterpiece.”

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s just funny because, but, really, who had this conversation? How did this come about? It’s genuinely silly.

Chris Duffy
Well, it’s also one of those things where, like, I think about this a lot where, like, when I’m in my own house and trying to find things that make me laugh. One thing that I always think is so funny is, like, on my washing machine, it says like, “Bright Whites. TM,” trademark.

And I’m, like, I love the person who was there who was like, “Listen, LG is going to own the phrase bright whites. That is our phrase. That’s really important.” And I’m like, “I think that that is not actually a trademark. Like, you might technically have that trademark, but Bright Whites is not memorable for anyone else. That’s just the white setting on my washing machine. I don’t think that you needed to trademark that.”

And, like, thinking about the person whose job that is, like this was probably like a series of interviews. There’s this, like, in an interview, they’re like, “I have a vision for naming the white cycle, something that we can own that will be like part of LG’s brand.”

And then they had a bunch of meetings and they filed paperwork and there was a lawyer involved. That kind of stuff, thinking about like the world behind the things that you’re seeing that are odd is often where I find things the most funny.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good, yes. And so, once again, it’s sort of like you’re noticing the thing and then you’re going deeper into it. I’m sort of imagining the lawyer there bumping into Bright Whites on like a GE washing machine, and said, “What?”

They just become utterly furious. And he, like, calls up their lawyer and starts cussing them out and screaming. It’s like, “If you think you can pull this stunt, you got another thing coming. I’m going to see you in court.” And they duke it out.

Chris Duffy
“You think you could screw me like this? Oh, you can’t. I will not allow this. No one messes with me.”

Pete Mockaitis 
Yeah, “Bright Whites. The trial of the century.”

Chris Duffy
It’s true. And that often is called the trial of the century. A lot of people don’t know that, but that was the real trial of the century. Something that is a trick that we often do to make something funny in comedy, in professional comedy, but I think you can apply this to your own life, too, is to take an observation and then layer on top an emotion.

So if you’re writing a joke, like one of the ways you can write a joke is, “I find it so scary that…” blank. “I find it so exciting that…” blank. “I am so happy that this thing happened.” Like, putting an emotion tells the audience how to feel about it. And often that, like, “I’m happy that this thing happened…” is what makes the audience laugh, because then you’ve set up like, “Here’s what I expect.” And then you can turn it in another direction.

And I think anytime we’re communicating, letting the people we’re communicating with know how we feel about something, and then the specific detail that we feel that about, that really lets them latch onto something really clearly.

So, like, “I am so confused by the vases in my hotel room,” or, “I absolutely love the way the vases in my hotel room were pierced by a dagger.” That is a sentence that people can latch onto emotionally.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, I’m sort of combining these things. I’m thinking about, if you have an emotion associated with a thing that is unusual, it feels like we’re in comedic territory, per your previous notion. So I’ll throw this out here. When I have all of my laundry done, folded and placed in the dresser, I feel a sense of power.

Chris Duffy
That’s great! Yeah!

Pete Mockaitis
Like, I am unstoppable. So I feel like that’s a little bit unusual to feel a really strong emotional association with these somewhat ordinary occurrences in life. So it feels like we’re in fertile comedic territory here, Chris, but nothing hilarious is coming to mind.

Chris Duffy
Oh, I think that is hilarious. I completely disagree. I think that you feeling like, “I am powerful and I am the master of my domain because I folded my laundry,” is so funny and so relatable and wonderful. And I actually think this hits at a thing that is, you know, talking about how to be awesome at your job.

You just naturally did this piece, which is you took that noticing and then you put it onto yourself. So now we’re laughing at ourselves and the fact that you’re like, “The most powerful I ever feel, the most in control I ever feel is when I finish folding a towel. That towel is perfect,” right? Like, there’s something hilarious about that, and also very relatable, but it’s also that you’re laughing at yourself.

And this, again, like from a professional standpoint, being willing to laugh at yourself, being willing to like give people that in, that lets people connect with you. It lets people not feel intimidated by you, but also be impressed by you because it is really impressive to have this kind of self-knowledge. And so I think you just naturally did it in a really beautiful way. And I think that’s genuinely very, very funny.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Interesting. So that’s funny for you.

Chris Duffy
This is an important thing. Like, it’s funny for me, but often the things that are funniest for other people are actually quite obvious to us. They don’t seem funny because it’s like, “Well, that’s just me being genuine and honest.”

But our authentic, genuine, honest feelings are often very funny to other people because there’s this gap between how we actually feel and how we’re supposed to feel, right? You’re not supposed to feel powerful and in control when you finish folding the laundry, but you actually do.

So for you, it’s kind of like, “But, yeah, that’s how I feel.” And for me, it’s really funny because I haven’t ever thought about it that way.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, you’re illuminating a decade plus mystery for me. And that is the TV show, The Big Bang Theory. I’m not really a fan. I don’t find that amusing. And so we got Sheldon who expresses his ideas in a very, you know, scientific-y, multi-syllables, big words, whatever kind of a way. And then the laugh track always hits.

And I’m just like, “The dude is just expressing his mind. This is not actually a joke at all.” And the funny thing is, in some ways, I, at times, can speak like him. I have a friend who’s like, “Oh, my friend is like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory.” So, for me, it’s not funny because it’s not unusual because I am also talking weird in a way that’s sort of like Sheldon.

And maybe there’s a level of self-insight, self-awareness to be had from that. And that’s really intriguing in terms of, “They think it’s funny, I don’t, because I think that’s just how some people talk and that’s normal-ish, but apparently that’s very…”

Chris Duffy 
What is funny about Sheldon? He is a normal, attractive, intelligent man. He’s a totally socially normal, intelligent, attractive man. I think he is the peak of masculinity and I don’t see anything funny about him. Like, that is a really funny perspective to have, right?

Pete Mockaitis 
Yes, that is what… well, I wouldn’t call him masculine, etc. But, yeah, that’s intriguing that other people will find, and that’s just a good heads up. It’s like, “Hey, don’t get angry if folks are laughing at that. It’s not hostile. They’re just appreciating something that’s kind of special or unique or different about you, relative to perhaps the human norm.”

Chris Duffy
Yeah. Well, I want to unpack that, if it’s okay. I want to unpack that a little bit.

Pete Mockaitis
Sure.

Chris Duffy
On the one hand, sure, most times, I think, people laughing is not something to be offended by. It’s actually like a point of connection. But that doesn’t mean that people can laugh and be really mean in bullying you. So I think it’s possible to, like, you should be offended sometimes. So I think it really depends.

I think one of the things that is challenging about humor in terms of, like, the context that we’re in is there’s no such thing as a universal joke. There’s no such thing that’s always funny. Humor is always subjective. It’s always context-dependent.

So you strike me, I mean, we just met, but you strike me as like a confident, socially-adapted and successful person.

Pete Mockaitis
Handsome.

Chris Duffy
Handsome, charming, wealthy, powerful. You know, I could go on and on.

Pete Mockaitis
That checks out. It checks out.

Chris Duffy
But as a result, like, if we laugh about how you’re like Sheldon in some ways, I don’t think that’s hitting at some sort of like deep insecurity. And so, as a result, it is funny and it’s not bullying. But if that wasn’t the case, and you actually did feel like maybe you were getting, you had like a deep insecurity about how you fit in and that people were always laughing at you, and then we laughed about how you’re like Sheldon, that could actually be a really cruel, mean thing that wasn’t.

So I always go back to, like, “Is the laughter forming connection or is it pushing the person away? Are you trying to exclude them or include them?” And the kind that is really successful in our social lives, in our friendships, in our relationships, in our work is the kind that brings people in and makes people connect to us, not that pushes people away. And that’s always context-dependent. You can’t just have a universal role.

And speaking of that, like laughing at yourself is great in a professional setting, but there are these, like, lines. If you’re the leader of a company, people want to be able to connect to you. But also, you know, I’ve learned about the concept of selective vulnerability, which is like, if you’re a leader and you go into a meeting and you say, “Hey, everyone, the economics are really bad and we’re going to have to lay a bunch of people off, and I’m really terrified and I have no idea how this is going to go.”

Like, that might be really authentic and honest and vulnerable, but it’s not the right thing to say. People are going to be terrified and scared after that. Instead, you might want to be selectively vulnerable. So say like, “Hey, I’m aware that we are going into a really hard time and I just want to say, we acknowledge that and we’re going to figure out the way through together.”

So you’re still kind of acknowledging. You’re not denying the reality, but you’re not saying like, “I’m terrified and I have no idea what to do next,” because that’s not a helpful form of vulnerability. And even if that would get like a laugh in my context, it’s not worth the laugh.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have any thoughts about humor in terms of boosting resilience, ability to bounce back from mistakes, failures, these kinds of things?

Chris Duffy
Totally. I think this goes back to, like, my core message, which is that we think we’re supposed to be perfect. And in fact, you’re not supposed to be perfect. The most resilient people understand that, like, a mistake is part of the process. For me, in my work, right, like if I go up on stage and I tell a joke and it bombs, no one laughs at all, if I say, “Huh, that means I’m a terrible comedian,” then I’ll never tell jokes again.

Instead, what I need to say is, like, “Oh, that was information.” And because the goal isn’t to have one perfect night of comedy, the goal is to, over time, get better and better, then I say, like, “Next time I tell that joke, I will try clarifying it, or I’ll phrase it in a different way.”

And I think that’s kind of true for all jobs, right? It’s, like, if you view it as an iterative repetitive thing where you can laugh about your mistakes and not feel like it’s indicative that you are some huge disaster or failure, then you get better and better because the point is to have the hundredth time be better than the first, not for the first to be perfect.

And laughter, I think, really helps us with that process because it takes away the judgment and shame and it makes it so that it’s, like, fun to share how badly something went and it’s fun to laugh at it rather than to think, “This is like a thing I need to sweep under the rug and not let anyone see.”

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Chris, tell me, any key do’s or don’ts, top things you want to make sure to mention before we hear about some of your favorite things?

Chris Duffy
Well, you know, the number one things I want people to do are keep track of things that are making you laugh naturally, pay attention to the world around you. And I would say that, you know, the number one other thing that you should do once you’ve done those is try taking a small social risk and sharing something that makes you laugh with someone else.

Don’t just have the same regular conversation you have every day, “Pretty hot outside, huh?” or, “Whoa, crazy weather.” Instead, try telling them like, “The other day, on the way to work, I saw a squirrel try and jump from one tree to another and it fell. Have you ever seen that? A squirrel missed the tree?”

Like, even if the other person doesn’t laugh, you’re going to have a different conversation than you would have had otherwise. And I think that is both the seed of connection, but also the seed of so much laughter and joy and comedy.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Thank you. What’s funny with that squirrel, you’re right, that that opens all sorts of avenues of conversation in terms of…

Chris Duffy
What does it make you think? There’s something boiling around in your head right now.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, yeah, I was like, “Well, was the squirrel okay? What happened afterwards? If you plummeted a long distance, you know, was it grass? Was it concrete? Like, did it get up and keep moving? Or was he done for?”

Chris Duffy
Oh, wow. Okay. You know, Pete, that is just indicative of what a kind, caring human being you are. And I will tell you, this is a true thing that happened to me. The squirrel I saw fell a small distance onto grass. It got right back up. But then it looked at me like, “You saw that. Oh, you weren’t supposed to see that.” And then it ran away.

So we just shared a really beautiful interspecies moment of, “Don’t tell anyone about this.” And here I am telling all of the listeners of How to be Awesome at Your Job, and that squirrel is furious somewhere, who is also, by the way, a listener. I could tell. He seemed like he’s listening to this podcast.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, now that makes me laugh because I’m imagining a squirrel with headphones that are, you know, pushing in the squirrel cheeks, you know, even more to make them even more fat and squirrel-like.

Chris Duffy
Yeah, and he’s wearing some of your merch, right, like he has like a T-shirt with your face on it, and he says, like, “That’s nuts.”

Pete Mockaitis
Wow. All right, man. This is your life. Like, all day, your brain gets to play here.

Chris Duffy
As excruciating as that joke was and a terrible dad joke, that is my life. That is for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Chris Duffy
I’ve been thinking about George Orwell talking about humor, and he said, “Every joke is a tiny revolution.”

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite book?

Chris Duffy
One of the best books that I read is Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. I think that’s a really relevant book to our world today and also just a beautifully written book.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?

Chris Duffy
Oh, I want to say a microphone. That’s probably the only tool that I use regularly. And anyone who’s seen me try and do home repair will tell you this is the only tool that I’m safe to be around. So a microphone.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, you sound good, so I’ll ask what are you working with there?

Chris Duffy
Okay, this is a, hold on, I got to look at it. It is an RE320, an Electro-Voice RE320, baby. Oh, yeah, that smooth radio sound. Hello.

Pete Mockaitis
There you go. And a favorite habit?

Chris Duffy
I’ve been trying to do the 7 Minute a day Workout app. And when I do that, I feel a lot better and it only takes seven minutes. So that’s a good habit.

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

Chris Duffy 
When people yell something back at me, it is often, “Sir, you need to move or out of the way.” Probably the key nugget, I think, from all of the work that I’ve done on humor is to be willing to laugh at yourself and to connect with other people through laughing more and taking yourself less seriously. I think even in hard times, finding something to laugh about.

And it could be as simple as watching a clip of outtakes from The Office, or going on Reddit’s contagious laughter Subreddit, or it can be an inside joke that you’ve laughed about with friends. But I think that idea that when you’re having a hard day, going back to something that reliably makes you laugh can transform part of the day, that’s something that I think is the biggest thing, and also kind of an obvious and intuitive one, but that we forget to do so often.

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

Chris Duffy
ChrisDuffyComedy.com. That’s the place.

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

Chris Duffy
At your job, find the person who makes you laugh and spend more time with them this week. And then share something with them that made you laugh. I think that connection, connecting on something that’s lighthearted and fun is going to make that person want to be around you more.

And it’s also going to make them feel really honored that like you’re the person that laughs at them the most in a positive way. And I think that those connections pay dividends in ways that we can never expect professionally.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Chris, thank you.

Chris Duffy
Thank you.