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868: Fostering the Sense of Community at Work with Christine Porath

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Christine Porath says: "Too many people don’t feel any sense of community."

Christine Porath discusses why community is critical to well-being and shares powerful examples of how to build it in the workplace.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The astounding benefits of a sense of community
  2. The one thing to avoid with community-building activities
  3. How vulnerability leads to richer communities

About Christine

Christine Porath is a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. She’s the author of Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace and co-author of The Cost of Bad Behavior. Christine is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and has written articles for New York Times, Wall Street Journal, McKinsey Quarterly, and Washington Post. She frequently delivers talks and has taught in various Executive programs at Harvard, Georgetown, and USC. Prior to her position at Georgetown, she was a faculty member at University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

Christine’s work has been featured worldwide in over 1500 television, radio and print outlets. It has appeared on 20/20, Today, FoxNews, CNN, BBC, NBC, msnbc, CBS, ABC, and NPR. It has also been included in Time, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Fortune, Forbes, NY Times, The Washington Post, and L.A. Times.

Resources Mentioned

Christine Porath Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Christine, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Christine Porath
Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m excited to dig into your wisdom and hear some juicy tidbits from your latest Mastering Community: The Surprising Ways Coming Together Moves Us from Surviving to Thriving. So, for starters, could you maybe share with us a really cool story that has some nifty surprises that illustrates what’s up with community, like what’s at stake and what’s possible and what’s the goodness that we might want to be able to tap into?

Christine Porath
Sure. So, it really was inspired by my brother and sister-in-law’s story. So, in 2008, my brother, Mike, and his wife, Sarah, had a truly terrible life changing day. In the morning, a doctor informed them that their unborn child was missing a kidney, and possibly other organs. And then in the afternoon, they returned home and there was even more devastating news. They had learned from their doctor that their two-year-old daughter, Annabelle, had a rare chromosome disorder, Dup15q, and her mind would probably not develop beyond that of a five-year-old.

And so, feeling lost and scared, my brother turned to Google to try to learn more about this diagnosis, and most of the guidance he found online wasn’t that helpful, but he clicked an old PDF file containing six stories from parents whose children experienced similar disabilities. And the stories contained joy and humor, and they offered reason for hope. And if these parents could cope with these disabilities and even find some joy in the process, maybe Mike and his wife figured they could, too.

And after conquering another parenting challenge with Annabelle, just a couple of months later, Mike realized that solutions could be simple because he had, again, posted online to try to get answers, and that’s where he found them. There was a woman who posted how to teach a child a pincer grasp, how to pick up food, which Annabelle was struggling with. And what Mike realized after trying what she suggested, which was cutting two holes, a sock for her forefinger, a sock for her thumb, and putting Annabelle’s favorite food in the tray, that it didn’t take very long, less than a month, for Annabelle to master that.

And so, through those instances, Mike realized that, oftentimes, lived experience rather than professional expertise can go a long way. And wasn’t it wonderful that communities, in this case of parents suffering with similar disabilities or diagnoses, were helping each other? And so, in 2014, Mike and Sarah bootstrapped a new venture called The Mighty, which is a digital media company connecting people facing disease, disabilities, disorders.

And since then, The Mighty has grown from just a tiny tribe of people to several million people that connect online to help each other, lift each other up. And one of the things that I learned from Mike was that, while groups under The Mighty work created to address specific needs, beyond that they were really solving for the problem of isolation and loneliness.

And I think too many people, I realized, even in the workplace, feel like Mike did, alone or disconnected and suffering, and it was just really inspiring to me to see how they were able to build community from the ground up, and how it’s helped so many people. And since I study stuff in the workplace and I got a frontline seat to see how that evolved, I just was seeing data saying too many people don’t feel any sense of community, about 65%, at work. And this was all pre-pandemic, of course.

And so, I just felt like we could and should do better. And what could we learn from The Mighty and other places like it?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so a couple quick clarifiers, 65% don’t feel any sense of community anywhere or at work?

Christine Porath
At work.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Got you. And this pincer grasp, not that it’s a parenting podcast but I got to know. So, I get a sock and I cut two holes in it, and then that’s the trick, it’s like we got two fingers to work with?

Christine Porath
That’s the trick. And you put a sock on the other hand so there’s no cheating involved, and then you have at it. You put favorite food in a tray and, apparently, that’s the way to get at this. So, it was pretty interesting given that so many physicians and experts and others were trying to help them and nothing was working. And so, it was one of those things where maybe some parents that were facing similar situations knew best.

Pete Mockaitis
I really like that a lot, and I guess I’m discovering that nowadays that when it comes to doing research, what turns up when you ask a friend versus Reddit, versus a Facebook group, versus Google, versus ChatGPT, are quite different. And sometimes with the search engines, I don’t know how to articulate it, but it seems like the top results are often the ones that have put a lot of effort into becoming the top results in terms of their budgets and their search engine optimizers and all that stuff. And the sock pincer insight is not all that monetizable, and so there’s a good chance it’ll not find its way onto the front page of search engine results.

Christine Porath
Yeah. And so, I think one of the things that they learned was just how helpful community can be around similar issues or struggles or that kind of thing. And so, I think we could learn the same from workplace situations as well. What if we had other people to lean on and glean information from who cared about us or cared about our situation?

Pete Mockaitis
And so then in workplaces, how does that often materialize? Is it within one workplace, like the employer, like Microsoft or Google? Or is it sort of a community, like an association across many employers? How do you see those things working?

Christine Porath
Well, I think it could be either but, really, I was looking to try within organizations, try to build communities. So, at a Microsoft, or at a Motley Fool, or at a small company that people might be able to really feel a sense of belonging and feel like they matter, that they cared, that others around them cared about them, and how that could make a real difference on things like engagement. So, there was incentives for leaders to pay attention to were they building communities where people feel connected also?

Pete Mockaitis
So, let’s talk about some of these metrics. Any particularly eye-popping statistics or findings from research? Like, what is the difference that having a great community versus not so much of a community really makes at work?

Christine Porath
Well, we found, when people feel connected with their colleagues, they’re 74% more engaged and 81% more likely to stay with the organization. They’re also far more likely to thrive at work, which we know is connected to performance and things like that. And this was data from over 20,000 people that Tony Schwartz and I collected. So, it ranged across different organizations, across different industries, it was global, so fairly generalizable.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, Tony Schwartz from The Power of Full Engagement?

Christine Porath
Yes, exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful.

Christine Porath
Yeah, and The Energy Project where he founded that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, we’ve had him on and he’s swell. Okay. So, then could you paint a picture for us, inside a work context, do we have a nice illustration of what a great community story looks, sounds, and feels like in practice?

Christine Porath
Well, I think one that is from a smaller organization that I’m pretty familiar with now is Motley Fool, and they’re a best place to work. And one of the things that they do, they have lots of fitness challenges, which are fun, and that kind of thing, but they organize a lot of events where they show up for each other. One of the things that they did, I know, through the pandemic was they realized that people liked to actually teach one another things that they care about, like hobbies.

And so, even on Zoom, they might sign up for something that they felt like they could teach people about. And it ranged anywhere from how to knit, to butchery-type stuff, to all different sorts of things. And what they found is that it really created a sense of community, both the person teaching as well as the person learning. And so, it was a way to increase engagement driven solely by people and what they wanted to connect with others about. So, I like that because it was, really, doesn’t require a lot of resources, and both the learner and teacher benefit. So, that was one that popped.

Pete Mockaitis
That is fun. Can you share another example?

Christine Porath
Sure. The book is full of examples. I think one that comes to mind is Marriott has a TakeCare program, and they’re global. After their merger, they have over 700,000 employees, and yet on the ground, locally, they have what are called TakeCare ambassadors. And those folks in a particular location, let’s say Thailand, on the beach there, they would organize activities that they felt like would contribute to the wellbeing of their employees but also the wellbeing of the community.

So, they might do something around protection of sea turtles, or cleaning up the beach, or painting schools that needed that kind of care. But the idea was that they were often doing something for the local community or that would benefit people. They would have painting bike helmets for kids, and so host these events for local citizens and things like that.

So, I think I’ve seen a lot of doing good for the outside community, which generates a sense of thriving and pride and feeling connected to their coworkers and their organization in a meaningful way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, I’m curious, in practice, when leaders, either very senior or mid level in terms of managing a team, hear this stuff, and think, “Ooh, that’s cool. We should do that,” what are some of the key differentiators that make community-building efforts meaningful and enriching and impactful in the ways we’re going for versus some that kind of miss the mark or feel fake or off?

Christine Porath
Well, I think one that’s gone over well is at Traeger, eating together or cooking together, and they really looked to, with a new headquarters, they cook together six days a week. And I think it’s different from, necessarily, having food on site to try to keep people there for a lot of hours and things like that. But it’s, literally, they’ll make breakfast, I believe, it’s on Monday, and then lunches all the other days together.

And so, from all data and anecdotes shared, that’s a really nice value that they benefit from and enjoy each other’s company. And there’s research behind the fact that cooking together and eating together is a way to form collaboration, get to know each other better, and ends up helping things like performance and so forth. And some of that research was done with firefighters but I think I’ve really seen it take root in different organizations in meaningful ways.

One differentiator at Traeger might also be the fact that the leaders, including the CEO, Jeremy Andrus, participates and is involved in the Monday meetings that they have, which incorporate a lot of peer awards for living the values and things like that. So, I think that that can make a difference, like leaders not only encouraging certain aspects of, let’s say, sustainability or things like that, sustainable work practices, but role-model it as well.

And so, I think that with Tony Schwartz, that was another finding that we had among that large dataset was it’s really important when leaders not only encourage these practices but live them as well, setting the tone for it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then do you have some examples of attempts at community gone wrong where this wasn’t landing with folks, like, “Yeah, this is kind of lame, or awkward, or uncomfortable, or unnatural, and we don’t like this”?

Christine Porath
I think, generally speaking, it’s when they’re forced and mandatory.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, “We’re all having fun now.”

Christine Porath
Yeah, exactly. That you have to participate, that these are after-hour events that you feel like if you’re not there, it’s punishable kind of thing, but those are the ones that come to mind. It’s almost like the forced workplace, you have to do work from the office versus having some flexibility. So, similarly, I think around community events, like, ideally, people have some choice around them.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, I remember one time at work, we went golfing, and so I made it very clear that I, straight up, don’t know how to play golf, and that when I’ve attempted, it went very poorly in terms of, like, divots everywhere, so, like, “Just so we’re clear.” And so then, they’re like, “Oh, you’ll be fine.” I was like, “Well, okay, if you say so. I’ve told you sort of what’s going to happen.”

And then I did it and then they were very frustrated with me, and then they’re like, “We’ve got to let them play through. You’re slowing us down.” I was like, “Well, I kind of told you that was how this was going to go.” And so, I found that very uncomfortable and unpleasant in terms of that experience, as opposed to, I don’t know, either choosing a different activity that everyone likes, or just say, “Okay. Well, hey, check this out. Well, you can hang out on the golf cart and goof around and have some drinks, I don’t know, whatever, and enjoy things that way even if the actual swinging of the club isn’t in the cards for the day.”

So, yeah, that’s a good point. So, there’s a choice, it’s not mandatory. And it seems like with the cooking example, and it’s come up before. It’s like folks are doing stuff collaboratively, and so I think there’s probably some magic there. I’m thinking now about Bob Cialdini and his stuff about singing and/or dancing in unison does cool stuff. That might be harder, I don’t know, depending on the vibe of your workplace. Folks might be really into that or not at all.

And so, I guess that’s maybe one of the themes, is that this will be very individualistic for individuals and teams based on what vibes for them.

Christine Porath
Yeah, I think I really like your example of having some choice around different activities, for example. I’ve seen that go over really well. Or, even if you plan an event, like I attended one at a major league baseball park that they rented out the area where you can eat together and so forth, then you could tour the field. This was an evening activity. The batting cages were open so it was really fun for those of us that wanted to take a crack at swinging against some pitchers, but you didn’t have to.

You could hang out and eat or drink with others. You could walk around and tour the facilities. So, it could be a number of different things that you could do even though there was a large room together where people could hang out. So, it provided a little bit of choose your own path depending on your interests and your abilities and so forth that seem to go over really well as far as most people being happy with the choices and that kind of things.

So, I think that that choice element that you highlighted is really key, if possible. And I know for offsites, oftentimes what they’ll do is just people can choose out of three, four, five activities. And I think that’s a really nice way to promote inclusivity as well, the idea that, depending on your capabilities, cultural differences, interests, those kinds of things, you’re providing a number of different paths for people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, beyond the activities or the outings, are there any other key ingredients in the mix for having great communities at work?

Christine Porath
I think anytime that you can promote healthier living and provide some sense of, whether it’s recovery or rejuvenation or things like that, those are wins as well. I think of Kelly McGonigal’s The Joy of Movement and the idea of that that’s a nice thing for people that are interested in that, but they’re amplifiers, like doing it together, doing it nature, doing it to music, things like that.

And so, one of the examples that I shared was a woman who actually started a program at Dell at the time around just because people were gaining a lot of weight, they weren’t feeling very good, she started covering them for working out an hour each day. And it ended up becoming, Thrive was the program, but people couldn’t wait to be a part of it.

And I think that part of it was it also broke down barriers, she said, of you might have a leader running next to someone that was in the call center, and it tended to break down silos in the organization, and build, cultivate relationships among people that might not have, otherwise, known each other or gotten to meet one another, and so that was a real positive as well as people became far healthier in terms of practices and things like that.

So, that was a nice example that I liked a lot. It doesn’t work for everyone but I think it, overall, had a lot of positive effects for various individuals, and team performance shot up and things like that. So, even though that they were working less or had the capability to work less, given time off to take a break, to work out, things like that, then, overall, it was a real win for the organization.

Pete Mockaitis
And you also mentioned radical candor. We had Kim Scott on the show, and she was swell. But what role does that play in building community? And could you give us some examples?

Christine Porath
Yeah, I love Kim Scott’s work on radical candor, and some of the examples that I share in the book actually tie to Kelly Leonard, who’s at Second City. And he and Kim partnered to teach people radical candor through improvisation and the idea that we’re all a work in progress. But I think radical candor, when people know that you care personally, there’s more liberty to challenge directly.

And I think that that’s a positive as far as we want people sharing feedback, we want people, basically, coaching each other up, like helping people improve. And a great way to do that is through radical candor, given how negative feedback is often awkward for a lot of us. And so, if you can develop a spirit of radical candor, it really helps quite a bit.

And one of the examples that I liked in the book came from Christa Quarles, who, at the time, was CEO of OpenTable. And one of the things that she shared was she learned she had to give it to get it. In other words, she had to be vulnerable and share when she has messed up or needed feedback, and that kind of broke down some of the barriers, such that people were able to see, “Okay, she can handle that kind of criticism or direct feedback. And what happens if we use it?”

But I think she also had to encourage it along the way, suggesting that, “Listen, failure is okay. Like, through failure, we will learn. So, some of that criticism is actually welcome because it’s going to get us to a better place more quickly.” And so, I thought she handled things really well. And if folks were not comfortable speaking up, one of the things that she did was pulled them aside.

Like, this very talented woman who just was reluctant to speak up in a group, and she coached her effectively, and she just let her know, “Listen, if I need to, I’ll tee you up for this, but we need you. We need your voice. We need you involved,” and it really went a long way to developing her but, more importantly at the time, also what the team and the organization needed.

And so, I thought it was an excellent example of leaders as a coach, and getting involved to kind of get the ball rolling for people to be radically candid in ways that maybe didn’t come naturally, but they needed to break out of what Christa Quarles called ruinous empathy, or this idea of not speaking up because you don’t want to hurt someone, which is the most common mistake. And I think Kim says that about 85% of the mistakes are in that arena.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And speaking of mistakes, we talked about not having the forced fun. Is there any other top do’s and don’ts you’d highlight if folks are thinking, “Yeah, I would like to kick up some community at work”? What do you recommend as being some of the very first things they do do and they don’t do?

Christine Porath
Well, I think the idea of uniting people and providing a safe space for people to communicate is huge, and leaders can set the tone for that by being vulnerable, admitting mistakes, admitting failures, things like that. But one of the examples that I used at the beginning of the book is just an example of Phil Jackson, who, you may know, coaching the Chicago Bulls for all those years and winning so many championships.

But Steve Kerr talked about one of the things that brought them to be such a tight knit team was the idea that every day they met in Phil’s kind of film room, so to speak, but they wouldn’t talk about basketball or the X’s and O’s. It was all about connecting. And so, I think that idea of, “Are you providing a safe space where people are communicating and getting to know each other in different ways?”

That could be around activities. It could be around cooking like we talked about. There are so many different ideas behind that, but I think bringing people together and trying to create a place where people can be vulnerable is really huge. So, I liked that example for the idea that just get people talking, sharing information, and that kind of thing.

Another example that I liked was Chuck Robbins at Cisco, and the idea of having a conscious culture. And one of the things that they did, again, well before the pandemic, was they had a program called Love and Load. And the idea was that people would be providing how they were doing, so just a quick full survey, and the leader would get that data and could really quickly address it.

So, if someone was kind of struggling or not having a good week, a leader could check in really quickly around that. And so, I think it’s helping to create touchpoints between leaders and their direct reports, or even peers for that matter, but the idea of being, I think, people need those kinds of little lifts. And so, the more that the leader can create these touchpoints through the day, which Doug Conant talks about quite a bit and has a book on touchpoints, and really turned an organization, Campbell Soup, around with touchpoints. That would be a really good mode to kind of jumpstart things.

It doesn’t take a lot of time. These were moments that Doug talked about in the hallways, in meetings, in the cafeteria, and it was all about connecting with people, and you listen attentively. He would often try to leverage his expertise and then close with, “How can I help?” And those kinds of moments really made a difference.

Another one that Doug talked about, which I love, was he ended up sending 30,000 thank you notes while CEO of Campbell’s. And I think that’s something that, especially nowadays where people may be feeling a little beat down, or a little negative, or just struggling coming off of the pandemic, well, even before that, this was important, but the point is that these thank you notes made a huge difference in making people feel valued.

And so, those small things can make a huge difference in employees’ lives, and get them engaged, get them, retain them in organizations. And it was kind of fun. I had a friend that a few months ago was traveling on a plane and sat behind a gentleman who was raving about where he worked, at Campbell’s, and the fact that 15 years ago, a CEO had written this lowly salesperson a thank you note.

And so, again, 15 years later, someone is still talking about this, still proud of the company, the connections, the sense of community that he felt because of this action. So, I think that small actions can make a huge difference, and you don’t have to be a leader for that to happen.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s beautiful. Well, Christine, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Christine Porath
I think the idea of ubuntu, and, “I am who I am because of who we all are.” I like that idea a lot. And as you may be able to tell, I like sports examples a lot. So, I shared an example of Doc Rivers turning around the Boston Celtics at the time with this rallying cry. But I also love the example, and it was actually the woman, Carla Peñarosa Blatt, who I shared the Dell story about, who found that by taking time out and traveling with her family, not wired into technology and things like that, she and her family really felt a much greater sense of connectedness.

And I think, for her, it was kind of putting away the technology even for short periods of time and really trying to connect with people. And, again, it could be short, over coffee, over a meal. It could be in the backyard, over campfire, what have you. But the point being that the importance of maybe disconnecting from all of our tasks, the technology, so that we can connect better and feel a sense of community.

So, again, I think that that’s something that doesn’t necessarily require huge resources but is an action that could make a big difference in our lives as far as the quality of connection and community that we feel.

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

Christine Porath
I have one quote at the beginning of the book that I like a lot that’s actually from Brene Brown, and it’s just the idea of unlocking our potential. So, I believe it is, “You can’t unlock potential if you cannot unlock people.” So, she’s written about this, which I love.

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

Christine Porath
I think you hit all on the radical candor part that I talk a lot about with respect to respect. The other bit is just how rudeness or incivility is contagious. And so, I often cite that but the good news is civility is contagious as well. And so, again, kind of pointing to small actions and how, for better or worse, they have a lot of different ripple effects and can change how our communities feel. So, I hope that’s empowering for people.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Christine Porath
Man’s Search for Meaning.

Pete Mockaitis
And a favorite tool?

Christine Porath
I like Tony Schwartz’s Energy Audit, or, more generally, just checking in to see how you feel throughout the day, and making adjustments accordingly.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Christine Porath
For me, it’s probably working out, ideally, in the morning to get a jumpstart and feeling good.

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

Christine Porath
I use an example of the 10-5 way which was if people were within 10 feet, they smiled and made eye contact. If they were within five feet, they said hello. And what OSHA healthcare system found is that people felt a stronger sense of civility but also patient satisfaction scores rose as did patient referrals. And so, I just like the idea that it kinda shows how contagion happens even outside of the organization in ways that really help people within and outside organizations to kind of lift them up.

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

Christine Porath
Probably LinkedIn, so just Christine Porath. And I’m on Twitter @PorathC.

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

Christine Porath
I think the idea of think about, “Who do you want to be in different moments?” and just what can we do to lift others up throughout our day.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Christine, this has been a treat. Thank you. I wish you much luck and good community.

Christine Porath
Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show.

840: The Science Behind Strong, Lasting Friendships with Dr. Marisa G. Franco

By | Podcasts | One Comment

 

 

Dr. Marisa G. Franco says: "People like you more than you think, so assume people like you."

Dr. Marisa G. Franco reveals how to harness the science of attachment to foster deeper relationships at work and in life.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The three types of loneliness we all experience.
  2. Why work friends are critical to your wellbeing.
  3. The six practices that help you make and keep friends.

About Marisa

An enlightening psychologist, international speaker, and New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Marisa G. Franco is known for digesting and communicating science in ways that resonate deeply enough with people to change their lives. She works as a professor at The University of Maryland and authored the New York Times bestseller Platonic: How The Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends. She writes about friendship for Psychology Today and has been a featured connection expert for major publications like The New York TimesThe Telegraph, and Vice. She speaks on belonging at corporations, government agencies, non-profits, and universities.

For tips on friendship, you can follow her on Instagram (DrMarisaGFranco), or go to her website, www.DrMarisaGFranco.com, where you can take a quiz to assess your strengths and weaknesses as a friend & reach out for speaking engagements.

Resources Mentioned

Dr. Marisa G. Franco Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Marisa, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Marisa Franco
Thanks so much for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Marisa, I’m so excited to get into some wisdom about friends but, first, I got to hear, I understand you are a polyglot. Tell us, what languages do you speak and how did you get to learn them?

Marisa Franco
Yeah, I speak Italian because my dad is from Italy, so he sent me to live there for half of fifth grade. I speak Haitian Creole because I taught in a social work school in Haiti for two summers, and that’s where my mom is from. And I speak some Spanish, still working on the Spanish thing.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow, so half of fifth grade was enough for you to learn Italian for life?

Marisa Franco
Well, I then came back and took Italian in middle school for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, and went back to study in Florence.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, there you go. That’ll do it. I’ve got a five-year old and a three-year old at home, and so we’re thinking, “Just how much and when is the ticket for language acquisition?” My wife is big on them, knowing French because she studied abroad in France and then knows some. So, yeah, that’s the whole story.

Marisa Franco
That’s awesome, so valuable.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Well, another thing that’s valuable is friendship. How’s that segue, Marisa?

Marisa Franco
Good job. Good job.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. I’d love it if maybe, first, before we talk about the how of friendship, can you tell us why are friends important? And maybe that question doesn’t even need to be asked but some might say, “Hey, you know what, popularity contests are over. I’ve got my family and my coworkers. We get along well enough. Isn’t that enough, Marisa?” What would you say?

Marisa Franco
Well, I would say that friends actually make your relationship with your relationship-partner better. So, research finds that if I make a friend, not only am I less depressed, my relationship-partner is less depressed. Women who are friends with women are more resilient to issues in their marriage when they have friends. When people are in conflict with their spouse, it basically alters their release of the stress hormone cortisol in problematic ways unless they have quality connection outside the marriage.

So, basically, I think we’ve always needed an entire community to feel whole. And when we put all our eggs in one basket with one person, it harms us and it harms our relationship with that person. There’s even three different dimensions of loneliness which really reveal this. So, there’s a form of loneliness called intimate loneliness, which is the desire for connection with people you feel really close to.

But then there’s also relational loneliness, which is the desire to connect with someone kind of as close to you as a friend. But then there’s collective loneliness, which is this desire to be part of a group of people that’s working toward a common goal. And so, you could experience any of these types of loneliness, which means you could have found your soulmate as a spouse but still feel like you’re lacking that larger community that’s working towards a common goal, for example.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s really good. Thank you. Being self-employed and working from home or an office by myself, that’s a nice distinction, for me in particular, because it’s like, “Okay. Well, hey, yeah, my wife is great. That’s cool. And I got friends, and that’s cool.” But, yeah, sometimes it does feel lonely even though I’ve got a great team spread across the world doing their thing. We’re in different spots and, yeah, you can feel that sometimes.

Marisa Franco
Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. And I think the other reason that we feel lonely when we’re not around different types of people is because we have a restricted relationship with ourselves. Like, each person brings out a different part of us. So, when you’re around the same people, the same person all the time, it’s like, “I only experience a certain side of me.”

Like, let’s say I’m really into gardening, and the couple people that I interact with all the time, nobody’s into that. That part of me begins to wither until I find someone to connect with, who has that shared interest, wherein we can talk with depth about that, I can bring out that side of me. And so, the more that we embrace diversity of community, the more that we feel more full and more whole.

And there’s also research that finds that the larger your social network, the more long you will live. And, actually, how large your social network is predicts how long you’ll live, even more so than your diet or how much you’re exercising.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s intriguing. So, how large do I want to be?

Marisa Franco
Well, there’s a lot of complexities to that question because, obviously, you want very quality connections. Quality is very important. So, if it’s like I’m having this large network and I don’t feel quality connection, or I’m having a network that’s so large that it feels like I can’t invest in one person, then that’s not good. So, there’s a bit of a balancing act.

But the other thing is that our desire for a larger social network tends to change throughout our life. So, around 25 is when most of us have, like, the highest number of friends, and that’s because around that age, a lot of us are expanding our sense of identity. And, again, friends help expose us to new things, new information, help us feel different sides of our own identity.

But as people get older, they tend to want to think about how much time they have left, and spending it very intentionally with people that they feel deep quality connectedness with. So, they tend to kind of prune their friendships and be very selective about who they hang out with. So, I would say it also depends on your stage in life, what you might be drawn to and what a good size in terms of, yeah, the amount of people that you keep in your inner circle.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And can you share any research associated with the value of friends for being more awesome at your job, or friends at the workplace?

Marisa Franco
Absolutely. So, interestingly, there’s a study that looked at workplace fulfillment, and the number one factor that predicted how fulfilled people were at work was their sense of relatedness, which is like their sense of connection with the people around them, how much they feel valued by the people around them. And that’s, like, quite striking because it means that you could be doing a job that you really love but if you don’t feel like you have good relationships, your sense of fulfillment will not quite be there.

There’s a factor outside of your work that you’re doing that really is deterministic for your sense of happiness. And I think, often, when we’re choosing careers, we’re so focused on, like, “What exactly am I doing?” and we’re less focused on, like, the culture, and whether people feel valued, and whether people feel connected, even though it’s really, really important.

Other research finds, for example, that lonely employees, they miss work, more work, they report having poor performance, they report thinking about leaving their job more. And so, when I do speaking engagements on connection and belonging at work, I talk about this phenomenon that I call the employee myth, which is the sense that we go to work and we are no longer human, and we don’t have these human needs, and we’re just like clock away at our computer, and our employee identity replace our whole human identity.

And it’s just not true. Like, the same needs that we have outside of the workplace are the same human needs that we have within the workplace. And one of our greatest human needs is to feel connected to other people.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Okay, so that’s a nice juicy why. I also love to hear, thinking over the course of your career in researching friendship stuff, any particularly shocking, or counterintuitive, or extra-fascinating discoveries you’ve made that really left an impression with you?

Marisa Franco
Yes. So, in general, everyone has this negativity bias, which means that we tend to remember negative information more than positive information, it registers more with us. And that, when we’re making predictions, we tend to be inaccurate and often cynical because of our ability to remember this negative information.

So, what that means is that, for example, there’s a study that finds that when strangers interact, they underestimate how liked they are by each other. And the more self-critical you are, the more pronounced this liking gap is, the more likely you are to underestimate how much other people like you. And I think sometimes we think our critical thoughts are the truth, when the study finds that they’re really distorting the truth.

And so, one, I think a really helpful note for people when it comes to making friends is to remember that people like you more than you’re assuming. People are probably a lot more open to you and open to your friendship and connection than you might think.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that is nice. “I’m more charming than I think perhaps, statistically,” if I’m the average and not an egomaniac or a narcissist. Okay. Cool. All right. So, then your book Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends, what’s the big idea or core thesis here?

Marisa Franco
The core thesis is that how we’ve connected has fundamentally shaped who we are. Our personalities are fundamentally a reflection of our experiences of connection or lack thereof, whether you are trusting, open, cynical, aggressive, guarded. Like, all of these things are predicated on your experiences of connection.

Whereas, who you are then affects how you connect. So, it’s not random how you connect with people. These people that have had a history of healthy relationships, they’ve developed a set of assumptions about the world that facilitate them continuing to make healthy relationships. And so, those are what’s called securely attached people, they have this history of healthy relationships, they go into new relationships addressing the relationship in very healthy ways.

Whereas, those people who have relationships that are more difficult or unhealthy in the past, they may have internalized a set of assumptions about the world, like people are always going to abandon you, or you can’t trust anybody, which then inhibit and impede their ability to continue to form relationships with people, so those are the insecurely attached people.

And so, my Platonic is kind of about “How can we all develop more secure attachment in our friendships?” Because, I want to say, sometimes I share this attachment information, and people are like, “Well, good for those people that have healthy relationships. Where does that leave me?” So, I like to make sure I tell people, “You can absolutely change your attachment style.”

The book is actually about how you could change your attachment style in relationships with friends. And all of us can learn to build those secure relationships with other people.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, attachment style, that phrase is bringing me back to college psychology and talking about what went down with babies. Is that what you mean by attachment style? Or, how are you…Could you give us the rundown of the maybe typology of attachment styles?

Marisa Franco
Yes. So, the babies are right, the baby thing. So, this idea that in your early relationships, how your parents interact with you, or your caregivers, created this internal sense of assumptions about how everybody interacts with you.

And so, if your parents were sort of like overbearing and not responsive to your needs, like you kind of pulled away and you need alone time, and they would kind of bother you and not really respect your boundaries, you might have become anxiously attached, which means you always feel rejection and abandonment from other people because your parents weren’t necessarily attuned to you and your needs, and might’ve been kind of hot and cold with their ability to give you love.

Whereas, if you are avoidantly attached, that means that you had parents that kind of suppressed all feelings, like encouraged you to be strong, and take care of it on your own, and encouraged you to be hyper-independent. And so, you learned that if you try to be vulnerable with people, they will not be there for you. So, you are someone who goes into your friendships unemotionally, and you tend to not put much effort into friendships because you don’t trust people. So, you put low effort, low reward.

Whereas, the secure attached people, they had the good-enough parent who was responsive to their needs, who tried to show them love, and let them express emotions. And these securely attached kids, which were about 50% of us, but the rates of secure attachment have been going down, they go on to have these assumptions that, “People will love me,” “I’m worthy,” “My needs matter. Other people’s needs matter too,” and so they go on to build healthy relationships.

But it’s kind of more complicated than that, like there’s all of these intervening things that can happen that can alter your attachment style, like your relationships since your parents, whether you had one person outside of your household who made you feel really secure. So, I say that because I’m, like, you don’t necessarily have to go home and blame your parents because it’s quite complex how attachment styles develop.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Understood. So, those are the three primary flavors there. And so, how do we know which of the three is predominant within us?

Marisa Franco
Yeah. Well, I do have a quiz in Platonic but I could tell you some of the attributes that we tend to see. So, anxiously attached people, they tend to think their friends don’t really like them. They tend to form friendships very quickly because, again, they’re afraid people will abandon them so they want people to show their level of investment very quickly. They tend to overshare almost to test people, “Will you kind of abandon me if you know all these things about me?”

They tend to, yeah, be very comfortable with vulnerability. They tend to be very self-sacrificing in their relationships because they feel like, again, “If I bring up my own needs, you’re going to abandon me,” kind of passive-aggressive because they have that fear of abandonment. Kind of how I describe them is high effort, low reward. Like, they’re putting a lot of time and effort into their relationships, their relationships are important to them, yet they aren’t getting that same reward.

There’s the sense that their relationships are very fragile. And that’s because, anxiously attached people, again, they think people are going to abandon them, so they tend to think they’re being rejected even when they’re not. And so then, they’ll sort of pull away or act out, act aggressively, like not really respect people’s boundaries as a way to kind of sooth their own fears of rejection.

Then you have avoidantly attached people. They are not putting much effort into friendship. They are not initiating as many friendships. They’re more likely to ghost on their friends. You could describe them as, like, loners where they might have a big group of friends but it’s very shallow. The other attachment styles are attracted to vulnerability.

The avoidantly attached person is not, sometimes put off by the vulnerability of other people. They tend to focus a lot on work and less on relationships. So, the avoidantly attached person is low effort, low reward. They’re kind of taking themselves out of the game. You’ll hear them say things like, “I don’t trust people. Like, people can’t be trusted.” That’s their big issue. They think, “If I get too close to people, I’m just going to be harmed and hurt, so let me just keep my distance.”

Then you have securely attached people who I call the super friends. Research finds that secure attachment is related to initiating more friendships, your friendships being more sustainable. Securely attached people tend to address conflict but in very healthy ways where it’s not an attack. It’s, “These are my needs, these are your needs. What do we do, moving forward?”

They are comfortable with vulnerability but they build it more gradually. They’re giving towards their friends, they’re loving towards their friends, but they don’t sacrifice their own sense of self. Like, if it’s like, “This is really depleting me,” they’ll always try to find that balance where, “I want to show up for my friends, but I also want to show up for myself at the same time.”

And so, in some ways, securely attached people really humanize everyone they interact with. They allow everybody to kind of be an individual. Whereas, anxiously attached people, they’re seeing rejection everywhere. They’re kind of imposing that template onto people. Avoidantly attached people, they’re opposing the template that other people are not trustworthy.

So, for example, there are studies that find that if you try to be loving towards an avoidantly attached person, they will assume that it’s because you want something out of them. And so, secure attachment just, like, gives people the flexibility to tell their own stories because they don’t have this wound from the past, that they’re always ready to happen to them again.

Pete Mockaitis
And that’s interesting, and as I think about my own experience, we’ve got our own sort of emotional rollercoaster highs and lows, and moments of stress, and sleep deprivation, versus enthusiasm and openness. I think when I’m at my worst, I just don’t…and the thought of going to some event, for example, or joining some people at a social thing, I think, “Yeah, I just don’t expect the people I encounter there to be very interesting or fun.” Does that fit into a category or am I a unique special flower?

Marisa Franco
Well, it could be attachment but that’s also a symptom of loneliness. And I don’t know if this applies to you or not, because, yeah, you could tell me. But I know that when we are lonely, for example, it’s not just the feeling. It alters how we perceive the world, where we perceive social interactions as less enjoyable. Because, basically, what happens when you’re lonely, if you think about this from an evolutionary perspective, when you are lonely, you are isolated from your tribe, which kept you safe from dangers in the African savannah.

So, when we’re lonely, our brain is like hypervigilant for signs of negativity. Like, lonely people think they’re being rejected when they’re not, they report less compassion for humanity, liking their roommate less. And so, when you’re in a state of loneliness, fundamentally, you want to connect but you also are convinced that if you do connect, people might harm you or reject you, like not physically but just, like, reject you. So, there’s this kind of conundrum that we have when we’re lonely, where actually loneliness is also related to wanting to withdraw from people.

Pete Mockaitis
So, with these wounds, it sounds like a lot of them have to do with family, parenting, childhood stuff. Are there other categories of wounds? I’m thinking about being dumped, for example.

Marisa Franco
Ooh, it hurts.

Pete Mockaitis
What are some of the other kinds of big places where these wounds can come from?

Marisa Franco
I think our brains are really good at learning. And what that means is that if we go through any experience of rejection, bullying is a big one, isolation for a temporary period of time, it can really leave an imprint on us because that’s a form of learning. Your brain is like, “Let me prepare for this happening again. I know what to do,” and all of those things.

So, I think sometimes we think we get over things from our past and we just move on from them, but it’s actually more typical for them to kind of stick with us because our brain is trying to kind of learn from them, and for us to continue to face them or to continue to see them in the future as we move forward in our relationships. Again, it doesn’t have to be something huge.

It could be like a breakup that was really hard can shape your experiences of grief moving forward, or an experience of, for example, social anxiety is related to your experiences in adolescence, and then you’re having social anxiety later in life, or your experience of loneliness as a child can predict your experiences of loneliness in adulthood.

And so, there’s this way that it gets…I mean, I don’t want to be bleak about it because I certainly think there’s ways to get off the trajectory, and to heal from these things, and to, instead, experience growth from these things, but, at the same time, I think people that feel like, “Oh, I’m still struggling with this thing from my past,” I just want to say, like, “Oh, that’s also pretty normal because we’re humans and we’re really sensitive to how we’re coming off socially, and it’s a way for us survive.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, let’s talk about some of these things. You’ve got six proven practices for making friends. Can you walk us through them?

Marisa Franco
Of course, yeah. So, these six proven practices, I read all of the research on…not all of it, a lot of it. I can’t say it was completely exhaustive. But, yeah, a ton of research on what predicted who made friends and who didn’t. And I came up with these six practices, these people that embrace these six practices were just more likely to make and keep friends.

And so, they are taking initiative, vulnerability, authenticity, showing affection toward other people, being authentic, and harmonizing with anger, which is learning how to work through conflict well.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Well, thinking through these six practices, could you expand on them and share a particular action that is really fruitful within each of the practices?

Marisa Franco
Absolutely, yeah. So, initiative, I think one of the biggest takeaways there is that friendship doesn’t happen organically in adulthood, and people that think it does are lonelier over time. Whereas, people that see it as taking effort are less lonely. And so, the takeaway here is that if you want to make friends, you are going to have to take initiative and not be passive, which just looks like, “Hey, it was so great to meet. I love to connect further. Could we exchange contact information?”

Authenticity. I define it in a kind of complex way, which is like who we are without our defense mechanisms. So, our defense mechanisms can really hurt our relationships. Let me define that further. So, let’s say my friend’s kid got into an Ivy League school, my kid didn’t, I feel jealous but my defense mechanism will defend me against that feeling, feeling that feeling.

So, instead of me noticing or acknowledging that jealousy, I say to my friend, “Well, Cornell isn’t really the best Ivy League anyway.” And so, we use these defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from certain feelings at the cost of our relationships. So, I guess the takeaway in authenticity is that what is raw is not authentic, which means the things that you say automatically are often defense mechanisms, they’re not authentic. They’re actually obscuring your authentic feeling.

And so, it can take a while, a pause, to actually understand what you authentically feel if your brain is so quick to try to protect yourself from that feeling.

Pete Mockaitis
And now, well, I’m curious, with this Cornell example, what’s the best way to engage with that person? You are jealous.

Marisa Franco
Yeah, you are jealous.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, the best practice is not to trash Cornell, “Never heard of it.”

Marisa Franco
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
What would be the best move?

Marisa Franco
The goal of authenticity is to be intentional and not reactive. So, intentionality means that you are not letting that feeling control how you act and behave, and you can make a decision as to how you’re acting based off of your values, based off of the needs of the other person, based off of the larger circumstances. It’s like you’re choosing. You’re not being hijacked.

So, for some people, if the jealousy is really strong and they can’t get over it, they can say, “I really want to be happy for your kid, but I’m just struggling because my kid has struggled to get into these schools. So, if I’m not coming off as happy as I would really love to, that’s just what’s going on internally with me.” For other people, they might think, “Well, it’s more important for me to center my friend and her experience of her kid right now, so I’m going to get in touch with the part of me that is happy for them and say, ‘Yeah, I’m really happy for you. Congratulations. That’s really cool.’”

It’s not about a particular response but it’s just about choosing something intentionally that actually reflects you and your values rather than being raw and doing something reactively because there’s a feeling that’s really uncomfortable that you’re trying to escape.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. That’s good. That’s good. And so, authenticity, it’s interesting because the way some people read that word or hear that word, you might be led to, “You must disclose that you feel jealous,” but rather, authenticity can have, it sounds like, many shapes or flavors here.

Marisa Franco
Exactly. Right. Like, people that are authentic are, you think, “Oh, if you’re authentic, you’re only going to think about yourself and your own needs,” but people that are more authentic are actually more likely to consider other people’s needs because inauthenticity is psychologically exhausting so you don’t have the resources to think about other people.

So, when you’re able to just be like, “Oh, this is what I feel. I understand what I feel,” and you kind of clear yourself out psychologically so you can choose and make an intentional choice. Whereas, if you’re always trying to suppress that underlying feeling, it takes a toll on you and you end up relying on some of those defense mechanisms, which is you’re kind of tired so you’re just going into that reactive mode.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, how about vulnerability?

Marisa Franco
Yeah. So, vulnerability, I think the takeaway from that chapter is, as social creatures, we are not strong alone. We are strong through receiving other people’s love and validation, and then internalizing it. So, I interviewed Dr. Michael Slepian who studies secrets, and I found one of his studies that basically looked at who is most resilient regarding the weight of their secrets, they’re least impacted by the secrets.

And he kind of found that it was these people that had told their secrets to someone and received this validating response, who were then best able to cope internally with their secrets. And so his research basically, suggesting that we become strong through being vulnerable with people, and then internalizing their love, and that’s what attachment theory is. These securely attached people who are good at relationships and their mental health is better, so much better, and they’re living longer, they had healthier relationships and they internalize them.

And so, vulnerability is key for our mental health and wellbeing but will also deepen our relationships because we’re social creatures. Whatever we do to better our relationships, often also improves our overall health and wellbeing. So, that’s why we should lean into being vulnerable.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then sharing our secrets more often, it sounds like.

Marisa Franco
Yeah, with people that are trustworthy, of course, but, yes.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then anger?

Marisa Franco
So, the takeaway with anger is that often when it comes to friendship, we suppress conflict and we think that that’s a good way to deal with things. And what ends up happening is that we actually just withdraw, we don’t end up dealing with it, we don’t end up getting over it. And so, there’s research that finds that open empathic conflict is actually linked to deeper intimacy. And if you’re avoiding conflict, you also might be avoiding a form of intimacy within your friendships.

So, the takeaway of that chapter is if you have issues within your friendships, like, address them, don’t attack your friends. That chapter really goes into how to address them because it’s not just bringing up the conflict that matters. It’s bringing it up in a loving way. But if you have a problem and it’s causing you to withdraw, it’s a way better option to bring it up with your friends. It might increase your intimacy with that friendship.

And I think sometimes we withdraw because we’re like, “Well, if I bring this up, are they going to abandon me or get mad at me?” But then you end up withdrawing, and it’s kind of guaranteed that the friendship is going to end rather than you at least had a chance if you were able to bring it up with them.

Pete Mockaitis
That is good. And so, can we hear the crash course in how to bring things up well?

Marisa Franco
Yeah. So, it starts with framing, which is this idea that we want to make sure that we are introducing the conversation and grounding it as an act of love and care for the other person. So, like, “Hey, I just wanted to make sure, I just wanted to bring this up because I love you and I don’t want anything to get between us because you’re so important to me.”

It’s using I-statements, “I felt hurt when this happened,” not saying, “You’re a bad friend.” Ask perspective-taking, “I was wondering what might’ve been going on for you at that time.” And asking for what we want in the future, “In the future, if this situation comes up, like, maybe we can handle it like this. What do you think about it?” So, it’s collaborative, it’s an active reconciliation rather than combat.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then offering generosity, what do you recommend here?

Marisa Franco
So, I recommend being generous freely, it does build friendships, until you feel like it’s exhausting you and it’s taking a toll on you. And at that point, you need to practice something called mutuality, which is different from reciprocity. Reciprocity is like, “I called you, now you call me.” But mutuality is, “I think about both of our experiences, and both of our priorities, and both of our capacities to determine the appropriate amount of generosity to give in a certain moment.”

So, what does that mean, practically speaking? It means that, for example, like, if your friend calls you in a time of need, let’s say they find out their kid is self-harming or something, it might feel like, “I’m so tired. I want to set a boundary,” but if you take a look at mutuality and you take a step back, and you’re like, “My friend’s kid is self-harming and I’m tired. What is the bigger priority in this moment?” then you might want to get on the phone even if you’re tired.

And so, it’s kind of a different way to think about boundaries, to think about boundaries as more of a mutual act for the closest relationships in your life rather than boundaries as just an act of self-protection.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. And when you say generosity, what are the different ways that can be expressed?

Marisa Franco
Well, I really like when we express generosity that reflects our general strengths and talents because I think it feels even better that way. So, what are you good at? Whether it’s art, you can make art for your friends; cooking, baking, doing that for your friends; planning and organizing. You can organize a special day for your friends. Looking up information.

I did a presentation on finances for my friends because I just was really into finance podcasts for a while. So, think about what you enjoy doing anyway and find a way to give it to the people in your life.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And then how about giving affection?

Marisa Franco
Yes. So, affection, there’s this study that looked at friendship pairs for 12 weeks to determine what’s going to predict who stays friends by week 12. And one of the most strongest things was how much affection they shared with one another. There’s this theory called risk-regulation theory, which is basically the idea that we decide how much to invest in a relationship based on our view of how likely we are to get rejected.

So, if you want people to invest in you, you have to basically indicate to them that they won’t be rejected. And so, one of the ways that you do that is that you express affection. You tell people, “I value you.” “I’m so happy to see you.” “It’s great.” You greet them warmly when they arrive. You tell them that, “This was something really meaningful that you said, that I continue to think about.” What affection does is it creates safety so people feel more comfortable investing in a relationship with you.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s a nice six practices there. I’d love it, Marisa, do you have any fun stories or unique ways that folks have done some of this stuff that really sticks with you?

Marisa Franco
I do. So, in my affection chapter, I interviewed a friendship pair that was very close, like they kind of proposed to each other as best friends, and they would cuddle with each other. And I kind of talked in that chapter about the complexities of romantic love that queer communities, there’s this book Ace about asexuality, have pushed us to differentiate between romantic and sexual attraction, that romance is like, “I’m passionate about you. I’m thrilled by you. I yearn for your company.” It’s a sense of excitement about someone.

But sexual attraction is, “I want to have sex with you.” And those two things are distinct, in that it’s actually pretty normal for us to have romantic attraction to friends, and it’s been normal throughout history because, like, early 1800s and before, like people were getting married to people for practical reasons, “Because you’re going to give my family resources.” And the genders were considered so distinct that the idea was you can only really connect intimately to your friends who are the same gender as you.

So, friends were holding hands and writing their names on trees, and writing these deep love letters to each other, and that was all normal. And I think we need to normalize that people have romantic feelings for their friends, which I’m just defining as being really passionate and thrilled by your friend, and very excited kind of like, I don’t know, a fire, having a fire for your friend, people say, “My friend is my soulmate,” all these different things.

And that that is part of friendship, and that, more generally, I think a lot of what we consider normal in romantic relationships could also apply to friendships. There’s no reason why not.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, intriguing, the distinction between romance and sexuality, and, yeah, that’s a brain expander. Okay. And so then, cuddling, writing names on trees. What else?

Marisa Franco
Yeah, writing love letters with each other, sharing the same bed, people used to go bring their friends on their honeymoons, going on special dates together, like all these things that we now consider more typical in our romantic relationships. Like, honestly, for me, my goal is to equalize the value I place on a romantic partner and the value I place on my closest friendships.

And because I understand that the ways that I grew up, and probably most of us have grown up, is that romantic love kind of has this monopoly on love, where the most loving acts we consider only appropriate for a romantic partner and don’t do with our friends even though they could really benefit our friendships and make people feel closer to us and loved and cared for.

So, this came up for me when I was I had a friend coming back from the airport, from a trip to the airport at, like, 12:30 a.m. and I hate staying up late. So, I was faced with the question, this was a friend that I’m close to, and I would love to get closer to, but I was faced with the question of, “Should I offer to pick her up from the airport?”

And I literally asked myself, knowing that romantic love has such a monopoly on love, and we almost have to access our concept of romantic love to access what deep love looks like for a person, that I asked myself, “Would I do this for a romantic partner?” And I said, “Yeah, absolutely. Like, I would stay up late and pick up my romantic partner from the airport to make them feel taken care of.”

So, after I realized that, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do this for my friend. Like, I’m going to pick her up at 12:30,” and, yeah, it really benefited our friendship. From then on, she saw how intentional I was about valuing her, and then she, like, bought me a plant after my plants died. And I wasn’t drinking, and she bought non-alcoholic cocktails. It just created this positive upward cycle of closeness and care for each other.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s very beautiful. And I guess I’m thinking about, if you watch some, like, History Channel documentaries, it seems like, “Some historians believe that they were gay lovers.” Well, now you got me wondering, it’s like, “Why, are they thinking that because they’re imposing our modern viewpoints associated with sexuality being linked to romance, and really close friendships onto a different century where that was not the case?”

Marisa Franco
Possibly. I don’t want to understate that also that there was this erasure, intentional erasure, happening of LGB relationships at the time, and that was also happening. But I think we can give ourselves room for both things, which is that, yes, these gay relationships were erased from history, but also a lot of these relationships could also have been nonsexual and just very intimate with each other.

Like, for me, there’s this book, there’s this photographer who basically had pictures from around those times when friends were allowed to be more intimate. And I just remember seeing men go to take photographs together with their best friend with their arms around them, or like men of a football team laying in each other’s arms.

And it’s public, it’s like a football team so I don’t think it’s something that’s happening behind closed doors, and people are not ashamed of it either. And so, when you look back at those pictures, you see how, yeah, people were just a lot more comfortable with intimacy within friendships back then.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Well, Marisa, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Marisa Franco
I guess one of my big tips for people making friends is to assume that people like you. The reason that I share this is because there’s research on something called the acceptance prophecy, which finds that when people are told by researchers that, “Your personality profile indicates that you will go into this group and be accepted,” and that’s a total lie. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because making that assumption makes people warmer, it makes them friendlier.

Whereas, when we assume we’ll be rejected, we actually reject people. We become cold. We become withdrawn. We are giving signals to other people that we’re rejecting them and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where they reject us back. And we also learned about the liking gap, which is people like us more than we think. So, try to remember to assume people like you.

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

Marisa Franco
There’s a bell hooks’ book All About Love, and actually think she quoted this from someone else, but you could find it in the book. And she describes love, and I’m kind of butchering this probably, but, “Love is helping someone express their inner truth or the essence of who they are and the ways that they are living.” That an active love is fundamentally helping people live a more deeply authentic life.

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

Marisa Franco
Research finds that when we predict the impact of expressing affirmation toward other people, we think it’s going to come off as more awkward than it actually does, and we underestimate how good it makes people feel. So, just don’t undervalue the impact of your kindness and your love toward other people.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite book?

Marisa Franco
There’s this really good book called Attached, which is on attachment theory for romantic relationships.

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

Marisa Franco
I really do use, like, connection skills. I guess, like, as a teacher, I try to say hi to my students. I try to not tell them they’re wrong, but maybe say, “What would someone add to that?” I try to create a safe environment where people feel comfortable engaging, and affirm my students.

Every day, at the end of class, we have an appreciation hat where you share something that stuck out to you that someone else shared, and you give them a little bit of a gift. So, I believe that good learning happens on the backbone of connectedness, and so I try to be intentional about that.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And a favorite habit?

Marisa Franco
Oh, exercise. I love exercising, like, five days a week. I started going back to the gym and it just makes me feel so good physically and mentally.

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

Marisa Franco
Friendship doesn’t happen organically. People like you more than you think, so assume people like you.

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

Marisa Franco
I would point them to my Instagram @drmarisagfranco, that’s D-R-M-A-R-I-S-A-G-F-R-A-N-C-O. And my website, DrMarisaGFranco.com has a quiz to assess your strengths and weaknesses as a friend, and gives you some suggestions on how you can improve. And you can also reach out there for any speaking engagements on connection and belonging within the workplace or outside of it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have any key challenges or calls to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?

Marisa Franco
Yeah. So, one thing that you can do if you want to make friends at work is, and I guess this is if you are hybrid or in-person, is something called reponing, which means varying the settings in which you interact, which tends to deepen your relationships.

So, if you have a work friend that you kind of like, try to invite them to do something outside of work because that’s going to bring up different sides of them and different sides of you, and allow there to be a transition from work-friend to real friends. So, if any of you changes jobs, you have this precedent of hanging out outside of the workplace, and your relationship will be more sustainable.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, Marisa, this has been a treat. I wish you much fun and many good friendships.

Marisa Franco
Thank you so much for having me.

830: Lessons Learned from the World’s Longest Scientific Study on Happiness with Dr. Robert Waldinger

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Dr. Robert Waldinger breaks down key insights on happiness gathered from the Harvard Study of Adult Development.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The top stress regulator—and how to cultivate it in your life
  2. Two big happiness myths to debunk
  3. How to foster warm, authentic relationships with one question 

About Robert

Robert Waldinger is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital, and cofounder of the Lifespan Research Foundation. Dr. Waldinger received his AB from Harvard College and his MD from Harvard Medical School. He is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and he directs a psychotherapy teaching program for Harvard psychiatry residents.

He is also a Zen master (Roshi) and teaches meditation in New England and around the world. Robert is the co-author of the book The Good Life: Lessons From the World’s Longest Scientific Study on Happiness. 

Resources Mentioned

Robert Waldinger Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Bob, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Robert Waldinger
I’m glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, Bob, I’m so excited to hear about your wisdom from your research project, as well as you’re also a Zen master. How does one become a Zen master? What does that consist of?

Robert Waldinger
A lot of meditation and a lot of training. It was years and years of training in Zen.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, who bestows the title of Zen master? How does it…? I’m thinking, like, a chess grandmaster, like I know how that works. But how does one become an official Zen master?

Robert Waldinger
Well, there are no points involved.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Robert Waldinger
Zen is essentially an apprenticeship, and so we end up studying with teachers. I studied with a teacher and, eventually, she gave me authorization to teach. It’s called Dharma transmission. And now I’m a fully transmitted Zen teacher, a Roshi is what it’s called.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s just so fascinating. I took one class on Zen Buddhism in college, so that’s the extent of my background, but it was fascinating. I’m curious, any particular insights that you found.

Pete Mockaitis
That was transformational in a very practical sense in terms of, “Huh, I am more effective and happier because of this perspective or insight or discovery”?

Robert Waldinger
Probably the biggest insight for me has been that everything constantly changes. And, on the one hand, that may sound trivial but, on the other hand, when you really sit on a cushion hour after hour, and you watch all the things that come up in your mind and then pass away, times when you start to get furious, or are euphoric, and then in a moment it’s gone, it really helps you to notice that some of the things we think are so terrible and are always going to be that way, never stay around that long. Similarly, a lot of the joys pass away, and that it’s a helpful perspective to realize that everything comes and passes away.

Pete Mockaitis
That is powerful. And I heard someone once asked Daniel Kahneman something like, “What’s a huge insight everyone needs to understand?” And he said that, “Nothing is as important as we think it is while we’re thinking about it.” And I see a little overlap there, it’s like, “Whoa,” because when you think about something, it is the thing, like, “These drapes, that is absolutely mission critical,” for example, but, really, it doesn’t matter.

Robert Waldinger
Exactly. We have a saying “Don’t believe everything you think,” that one of the things you see when you meditate a lot is how the mind just makes up stories. We’re just constantly making up stories about the world. And we need to do that in a lot of ways to get through. Like, I had a story that I was going to come talk to you right now, and that’s helpful because it got me to get here for you and for us to have this conversation. But many of our stories are just completely out of touch with what’s real. And the more we can have perspective on that, the less we suffer and the less we make other people suffer.

Pete Mockaitis
That is powerful. We had a great conversation with Rene Rodriguez who talks about framing and storytelling, and it’s powerful to convey a message to somebody else but it also really shone a light on, “Whoa, we’re telling stories to ourselves as well all the time.” And the stories we choose and entertain and give airtime to in our brains really affect the way we see things and feel about things. And it’s powerful stuff.

Robert Waldinger
Absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
All right, Bob. Well, we’re already starting deep, so I think that’s a good backdrop for talking about your latest book The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study on Happiness. And I’m excited to chat about this because I’ve read a few articles about this study. Could you, first and foremost, orient us, what is this legendary study?

Robert Waldinger
It is the longest study of adult life that’s ever been done, the longest study of the same people as they go through their whole lives. So, starting with a group of teenagers in 1938, following them all the way through adulthood, into old age, almost all have passed away, and now we’re studying their kids, and their kids are mostly Baby Boomers. So, now, it’s been two generations, thousands of people.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, I understand that we have two populations; one, Harvard undergraduates, and, two, folks in a more disadvantaged community situation. Could you expand on that?

Robert Waldinger
Yes. In fact, there were two studies and that they didn’t even know about each other when they both started in 1938.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, how convenient.

Robert Waldinger
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Same year?

Robert Waldinger
One was started at the Harvard Student Health Service. It was a bunch of Harvard undergrads, sophomore, who were chosen by their deans because they seemed like fine upstanding young men, and it was to be a study of normal young adult development. So, of course, if you want to study normal adult development, you study all white men from Harvard, like it’s the most politically incorrect research sample you could possibly have.

But at that time, that’s what they chose. We’ve since expanded, brought in women. But then the other study, the other group was a group, as you said, of boys from Boston’s poorest neighborhoods. They were all middle schoolers at the time in 1938, and they were studied because they came from some of the most troubled families in the city of Boston.

And the question that the researchers had, also at Harvard, was, “Why is it that some kids who grew up in families that looked like they are destined to fail, grow up with two strikes against them, how do these kids stay out of trouble and stay on good developmental paths? What are the factors that foster resilience even in the face of so much disadvantage?”

And so, that was the question guiding the inner-city group study. And then, eventually, those two studies were brought together, and now these two groups and their children are studied together.
Pete Mockaitis
And so, can you give us a little bit of a summary statistics, if you will, in terms of “We’ve seen a number of outcomes”? And it looks like you have the luxury of attracting tons of different options associated with income and health and death. So, I’m curious, just how much of a difference does having that leg up with Harvard make in terms of wealth and health and whatnot?

Robert Waldinger
It makes a big difference in wealth, certainly. It makes a big difference in health, we think, because the Harvard men were more educated and they got the messages sooner that were coming out that smoking is really bad for you; alcoholism and drug abuse, really bad for you; exercise, hugely important; getting preventive healthcare, hugely important. So, they got those messages.

And what we found, actually, was that 25 of the inner-city men, 25 out of 425, actually went to college and finished college. And those men lived just as long and stayed just as healthy as the Harvard men, and we think it’s not because they had college diplomas. It’s because, first of all, they had the support growing up to get to college and stay in college, and because they had the education that they needed to keep in mind some of the things that were going to set them up for a good health as they went through life.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. Well, so that’s one fascinating little nugget right there, and you got lots of them. So, Bob, I’m going to put it in your court, you’re going to be our master curator here. Could you share with us some of the most surprising, fascinating, actionable discoveries that have come about from this research?

Robert Waldinger
One great big one that, at first, we didn’t even believe, what we found was that the people who had the warmest closest connections with other people stayed healthy longer, they lived longer, and they were, of course, happier. So, relationships with other people were a huge predictor of health as well as happiness.

We didn’t even believe it because we thought, “Well, we know the mind and the body are connected, but how can having good relationships actually get into your body and change your physiology?” So, we’ve been studying that for the last 10 years as other groups have as well. And, as I said, we didn’t believe that at first, and then other research studies began to find the same thing.

And when different research studies all point in the same direction, that’s when you start to have more confidence in your research findings that it’s not by chance.

Pete Mockaitis
I remember reading an article, I guess that was your predecessor George Vaillant running the study, when interviewed, said that a key takeaway is, as he put it, “Love. Full stop. That’s what it’s about.” I think The Beatles and wisdom traditions have been sharing this message for quite a while, and now it bears out in a long-term study hardcore.

Robert Waldinger
Well, that’s what’s cool about this. Our clergy could tell us this, our grandparents could tell us this, for centuries back they’ve told us this, but the science now says, for those of us who are skeptics and want some data, the data really shows that warm connections with other people make a huge difference in our lives.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, let’s dig into this then, warm, close relationships. What’s constitutes warm? What’s constitutes close? And how do we get more of those going in our lives?

Robert Waldinger
Yeah. Well, first of all, let me say it doesn’t have to all be close, and we can talk about that later in terms of the different kinds of relationships. But what we’ve been finding is that everybody needs at least one person who has their back, and that’s not always the case. So, when our original guys were asked, “Who could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared?”

Some people could list several people they could call. Some people couldn’t list anybody, not a soul on the planet. And some of those people who couldn’t list anybody were married. So, what we know is having that sense that there’s somebody there who will be there when you really need them, that that’s an essential component of wellbeing that it makes the world feel safer.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Robert Waldinger
And one of the things that we’re finding is that this seems to have a lot to do with good relationships helping us manage stress. If you think about it, life is full of stressors. You have young kids. I imagine you have stressors every day, like, “Oh, no, this is happening. Whoa!” And when I have something bad happen in my day, I can literally feel my body start to get revved up. I go into fight or flight mode. My heart rate goes up.

And that’s okay. We’re meant to respond that way when we have stressors. But then, when the stressors go in the body, it’s meant to come back to equilibrium. And what we find, if I have an upsetting day and I have somebody at home I can talk to, or someone I can call up, and they’re a good listener, I can literally feel my body calm down when I talk to them about my day.

What if you don’t have anybody in the world? What we think happens is that those people who are lonely or socially isolated stay in this chronic flight or fight mode. And what that means is they have higher levels of circulating stress hormones, they have higher levels of chronic inflammation, and that those things actually wear away your coronary arteries. They wear away your joints. They break down different body systems. And so, we think that what’s so valuable about relationships is that they are real stress regulators.

Pete Mockaitis
Someone once told me I listened for differences or disagreement, and so I think that makes total sense to me. I guess I’m thinking, in the hierarchy of stress regulators, I suppose there are any number of practices from deep breathing to mindfulness, to yoga, to exercise, to hobbies. Do we have a relative sense that are relationships sort of the ultimate stress buster? Or, is it comparable to, I don’t know, if this could be measured, like, how does having a great friend or partner you can rely on compare from a stress-relieving asset perspective to a good exercise or mindfulness routine?

Robert Waldinger
I don’t think anybody has done those comparisons exactly but there is a little bit of evidence there. So, they did a big analysis of lots of studies of loneliness, and they found that the experience of loneliness, if you’re chronically lonely, it’s as bad for your health as smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day or being obese. And what we know is that, on average, about 30% of people will tell you they’re lonely.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Okay, so that tells me, if you have a good smoking buddy, and you only smoke two or three…just kidding. Just kidding.

Robert Waldinger
And you eat a lot of Big Macs, yeah, absolutely.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that is handy. Okay. So, relationships, huge. And then zooming into professionals and being awesome at their job, I understand there are some takeaways associated with some drivers of differing income levels. What’s the story here?

Robert Waldinger
Yeah. So, we’re always asking the question, “Does money make us happier?” and people have actually started to study it. Like, how much does our happiness go up as we make more money? And it turns out that, yes, in recent years in the United States, your happiness goes up until your basic needs are met. So, until you reach about $75,000 a year in average household income, until you get to that point, your happiness keeps going up as you make more money.

But once you get to that 75k and you keep making more money, you hardly get much of a boost in happiness at all. What that means is that once our basic needs are met materially, more money doesn’t make us happier.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Good to know. Good to know. So, there’s the impact of money on happiness. If I’m flipping it around, what are the drivers that you’ve discovered within this study that tend to explain or point to earning more money even if, as you just said, it’s not necessarily going to make us happier?

Robert Waldinger
Well, we don’t find greater happiness or greater unhappiness. So, earning more money isn’t bad. It just doesn’t make you happier. You just have more money. And so, the difficulty is that, as you might know, when they survey young people, like people on their 20s just starting out, and they say, “What are you going to prioritize as you go through your adult life?” most of them, the majority will say, “I need to get rich.”

So, we’re giving each other the messages all day long in the media that, “Boy, if you buy this car, you’re going to be happier,” “If you buy this kind of pasta and serve it to your family, you’re going to have the best family dinners ever.” There are just all these ways in which we are given the messages that if you buy the right stuff, if you have enough money to buy all the right stuff, you’ll be happier, you’ll have a better life. And it turns out, that’s not true.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, money doesn’t do it, more so warm relationships does it. And then there’s also the associations with the warm relationships, people who have them also earn more money.

Robert Waldinger
Yes. Well, it turns out that if you have better relationship skills, you’re more successful at work. So, they studied this where they’ve put people on teams, and they say, “Which teams perform best?” And it’s not the teams that have the highest collective IQ, it’s not the smartest folks. It’s often the most emotionally attuned and skilled folks because they cooperate better, they are more relaxed, and, therefore, more creative, they’re more engaged in their work, they’re less competitive.

So, what we find is that this thing we call emotional intelligence, which involves having better relationship skills, it’s hugely predictive of how well you do in your work life.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And then, tell us, we have some do’s, cultivate close relationships; we’ve got a don’t, don’t chase maximum money, what are some other top takeaways in terms of folks who want to be happy, successful, flourish, be awesome at their job? What are some of the top things that you recommend they do do or don’t do based on these insights from the study?

Robert Waldinger
Well, one is, don’t expect to be happy all the time. We can get the impression, like when you look at social media and you see what we all present to each other on social media, like, me on a great vacation or about to dig into a great plate of food, it can look like I’m happy all the time, like I’m always having a party.

And what I can tell you from studying thousands of lives is that nobody is happy all the time. And that’s useful because it can seem like other people have it figured out and I don’t, and that turns out not to be the case, that everybody has hard times, everybody struggles with things. And I say that because it can help us feel a little less like an outlier when life isn’t always happy.

The other thing we know is that relationships are not always warm and harmonious. Now, you might be the exception, and you and your partner may never argue ever or disagree ever, but I’ve never met a person who’s in a relationship like that, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Robert Waldinger
So, what we know is that all relationships have conflicts and disagreements. That’s not a problem. But what matters is how we work out our disagreements and if we can find a way to work disagreements out so that we come away feeling okay with each other and like nobody has lost and nobody has won, that’s a big help. And to know that as long as there’s a kind of bedrock of affection and respect, that relationships are quite solid even when we argue with each other.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, let’s expand on some of these best practices then when it comes to these warm close relationships. It’s okay to have some conflicts, some disagreements, but we fall back on having a fundamental foundation of respect. Got it. What are some other things that make all the difference in terms of cultivating these warm close relationships?

Robert Waldinger
Yeah. Well, one thing probably is curiosity. Like, to be genuinely curious about somebody else is a great starter for a relationship. So, let’s say there’s somebody at work and you noticed something on their desk and get curious about it, it gives somebody an opportunity to talk about themselves. It gives you an opportunity to get to know them in a way you might not otherwise.

And it’s not just in starting new relationships that curiosity helps and we do love to talk about ourselves. It’s old relationships. So, you know a coworker, or you know your partner, you think you know everything there is to know about them, but actually you don’t. And it turns out that when we start taking each other for granted, we stop paying attention to who the other person is as they grow and develop. So, if you can bring that sense of curiosity back to an old relationship, that can really liven it up.

One of my meditation teachers had an assignment for us once. He said, “As you sit there, doing something routine or talking to somebody you’ve talked to a hundred times, ask yourself this question, ‘What’s here now that I’ve never noticed before?’” And when you do kind of come with that mindset, it can get really interesting really fast.

Pete Mockaitis
“What’s here now?” You mean when you say here…

Robert Waldinger
Like, “What am I noticing?” So, I’m going to go have dinner with my wife, that we’ve done that for 36 years, lot of meals together. So, what if I come with that mindset? Like, what’s here right now in our discussion? Or, how is she right now that I might not have noticed before? Like, if I’m looking for something new, I get really curious, and that can set me up in a whole different way than, “Ah, yeah, I know what she’s going to say. We’re going to have the same dinner we always have, the same conversation,” right?

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, that’s good. Our brains love that novelty stuff, and so that really seems to unlock a lot of cool motivation-y dopamine-y…is that a word, dopamine-y?

Robert Waldinger
Dopamine-y? I like that.

Pete Mockaitis
In the mix. Very cool. And so then, we can do that in our work relationships, and there are some really cool research associated with the power of having warm close relationships at work, in particular, as well. Could you expand on that?

Robert Waldinger
Yes. The Gallup organization did a survey of 15 million workers around the globe, all ages, all cultures, and they asked the question, “Do you have a best friend at work?” And what they meant was, “Do you have somebody you can talk to about your personal life at work?” Now, many CEOs then, “That’s a distraction. You don’t want that kind of socializing.”

Well, it turned out that only 30% of workers said they had a friend at work, but those workers were seven times more likely to be engaged in their jobs. They were better at engaging customers, if they were customer-facing. They produce higher quality work. They were happier in their jobs, and they were less likely to leave their jobs because the job wasn’t as interchangeable because they had a friend there they wanted to see.

And the people who didn’t have a best friend at work, so seven out of ten people, they were 12 times as likely to be checked out of their work, to be disengaged.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, there you have it. Okay. And I also remember that alcohol was something that came up in the study as being potentially quite destructive. What is the takeaway here?

Robert Waldinger
Big time. Alcoholism, that means abuse, dependence, it destroys people’s families, it destroys their work life. So, the people who became alcoholics, in our study, had marriages that fell apart. Half of the marriages that ended in divorce had one or both partners stuck in alcoholism. And what we found was that the people who were abusing alcohol chronically had a downward trajectory at work. They couldn’t perform well. They didn’t get promoted. Even if they didn’t get fired, they plateaued pretty quickly.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, so how do we make sure that doesn’t happen to us? I mean, you enjoy a beverage from time to time. Any pro tips? Because if you’re watching people year after year after year, that’s an interesting vantage point in terms of, “Huh, this is kind of creeping in there.” And I guess, one, how do you precisely measure that? Do you ask them, “How many drinks do you have?” Or, are there any warning signs? So, if we enjoy a happy hour, how can we make sure we don’t lose control, slipping away over the decades, and fall into this category?

Robert Waldinger
Yeah, key questions. So, we measure it in different ways. So, one way we measure it is, “How many drinks do you have?” And for men, two drinks max a day is all that really is okay for your health. And for women, it’s one drink because, physiologically, they process alcohol differently. But another way to think about this, if you’re just kind of thinking, “Am I drinking too much?” is to ask the people who care about you. Ask them if they’re worried about your drinking.

Do you feel guilty about your drinking? Do you try to cut down and have trouble? Do you find that it’s getting in the way of your getting up in the morning and making it to work or making it to your parenting activities, or whatever they might be? If it’s getting in the way of your life, then it’s probably a problem.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. All right, Bob, anything else we really should know about this study, its insights, and being awesome at your job?

Robert Waldinger
I think just to think about work as not so separate from the rest of your life but to really let yourself say, “Okay, how could I enjoy myself more at work? Particularly, how could I have better connections with other people because I’ll have more fun at work if I do that?” Sorry.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, no problem. Okay. Well, then, now I’d love to hear a little about your favorite things. Could you share a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Robert Waldinger
Yes, there’s a quote by Joseph Campbell, he’s the guy who wrote a book called The Power of Myth, and he was like a PBS guy. And he had a quote that I love, which is, “If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on somebody else’s path.” That has really helped me. When I keep thinking, “Oh, I really should do that because everybody else is doing it,” or, “That’s what seems to get the most applause,” it’s really helpful to be reminded that, “You know, everybody is doing their own thing. Everybody is taking their own path through life.” And I’ve seen that studying these lives over decades.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, next, I want to ask you about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research. You’re intimately involved in a legendary one. Any others that leap to mind?

Robert Waldinger
Any other research that leaps to mind?

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that you think is super cool.

Robert Waldinger
Yeah, when we asked people how they spend their discretionary income, so you got all your needs met, and then you have some income, what are you going to do with it? And are you happier if you buy material things or if you pay for experiences? And paying for experiences could be tickets to a basketball game, or taking your family on a trip, or it could be anything but experiences. And what they find is that the people who use their money to pay for experiences are happier and they stay happier longer than the people who buy material things.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And a favorite book?

Robert Waldinger
Favorite book. Well, actually, one of my really favorite books is so old school. It’s Pride and Prejudice. I just love that book. Another favorite book is The Overstory by Richard Powers. It’s about ecology but it’s a really cool novel. And there’s a book by a Zen teacher, Barry Magid, called Ending the Pursuit of Happiness.

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

Robert Waldinger
A favorite tool is serving lunch.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Robert Waldinger
People really like to be fed and they loosen up and they get more creative when they’re sharing a meal.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, you are the lunch provider.

Robert Waldinger
Yup, for my research group, and they love it.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, now, I want to know what sort of lunches we’re talking about here.

Robert Waldinger
Oh, we get takeout, we get Mexican, we get Thai, we get healthier stuff, too.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And a favorite habit?

Robert Waldinger
Favorite habit is going for a walk every day, and looking at simple stuff, like trees.

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

Robert Waldinger
It’s a quote from a 19th century writer. He said, “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.”

Pete Mockaitis
Yes, I just saw that written in some random decor somewhere. I don’t know, but I like that.

Robert Waldinger
Yeah, yeah, because it’s like it doesn’t look like it from the outside, but everybody has got stuff.

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

Robert Waldinger
Well, to our book, so TheGoodLifeBook.com, you can order the book but, also, to our website. There’s a website about the study, it’s AdultDevelopmentStudy.org. And there you can read some of our highly technical papers and learn more about the study.

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

Robert Waldinger
Yes. Think about somebody you’d like to connect with more at work, and reach out to them and ask them to have coffee, take a walk, do something. Reach out. Make a commitment to do that tomorrow. And just notice, it’s a small decision, and notice the ripple effects. Notice what comes back to you from that small action.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Bob, this has been a treat. I wish you much happiness and goodness in life.

Robert Waldinger
And you, too. I envy you having small kids. I miss that time. My kids are in their 30s and they’re wonderful, but I really miss the time when the kids were young.

822: How to Take Your Next Best Step When Life is Uncertain with Jeff Henderson

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Jeff Henderson shares powerful principles for shrinking the risk of your next career move.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The most important networking question you can ask
  2. How to turn every “no” into powerful motivational fuel
  3. The three things that shrink risk

About Jeff

Jeff Henderson is an entrepreneur, speaker, pastor, and business leader. For seventeen years, he has led three of North Point Ministries’ multisite locations in Atlanta, Georgia—Buckhead Church and two Gwinnett Church locations. He has also helped launch North Point Online, which now reaches over 200,000 people. His bestselling book, Know What You’re FOR, launched a movement in nonprofits around the world and has become a focal point for many businesses. As the founder of the FOR Company, Jeff’s aim is to help organizations build a good name where purpose and profit grow together. Jeff was recently named by Forbes Magazine as one of twenty speakers you shouldn’t miss. Prior to working as a pastor, Jeff started his career in marketing with the Atlanta Braves, Callaway Gardens, Lake Lanier Islands, and Chick-fil-A, Inc., where he led the company’s regional and beverage marketing strategies.

Resources Mentioned

Jeff Henderson Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Jeff, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Jeff Henderson
Pete, it’s so great to be here. I really appreciate it. Been looking forward to this for quite a while, so thank you.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I’m excited to be chatting with you and hearing your wisdom and some insights from your book What to Do Next: Taking Your Best Step When Life Is Uncertain. Could you share with us a time you had to figure out what to do next when life was uncertain and had to take a next great step?

Jeff Henderson
I’ve had four of those, actually, over the last 20 years, and part of that, Pete, was just I was intrigued with the next possibility, but every next possibility comes with a certain amount of risk, so I’ll just start with the one that happened, really was the biggest one over the last few years in terms of the first big risk and trying to figure out what to do next, and that was when I was working in marketing for Chick-fil-A, and my wife and I felt called to help start a nonprofit in the Atlanta area. And we went from working at a multibillion-dollar company with career trajectory to taking a massive pay cut and working for a nonprofit.

And so, you have to ask yourself, “How do you eliminate this risk?” And the reality is you don’t eliminate risk. You shrink this risk. But we were so intrigued with the potential of doing this that it kind of ruined where we were. And I don’t like the word ruined but we were so intrigued about it, we said, “If we don’t go do this, if this nonprofit were to work, we will always look back and regret it.” And that was over 20 years ago, and it was just a formative decision.

And over the course of these 20 years, I’ve made some similar decisions and I began to get questions, such as, “Hey, what was the decision-making process? And how did you know that this was the thing that you were supposed to do?” And so, I began to realize that there were some principles and strategies that I used to help make these decisions. And little did I know that, especially over the last couple of years, people have been asking the same question of themselves, “Hey, what should I do next?”

So, when I left Chick-fil-A, that was a big, big deal, especially moving from for-profit to nonprofit. But as I look back over the course of the years, Pete, I’ve been able to really serve business leaders and nonprofit leaders because I’ve lived in both of those worlds. So, that was a big decision for my wife and me, but we certainly don’t regret it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, could you tell us, what are some of these core principles that helped you figure this stuff out?

Jeff Henderson
The first one is one that I think a lot of times we overlook, and that is the better you finish your current season, the better you begin your next season. And we really need to start talking about finishing well more, I think. Typically, when people think, “Well, I’m going to put in a two-week or three-week notice. What are they going to do? Fire me?”

I think we have to realize that how we finish well honors the people but also honors the work that we’ve done over the time that we’ve been there. And certainly, for some people, next happens to them, right, the company gets downsized, new leader comes in, I get all that. But I think how we finish that current season is really, really important.

That said, one of the principles that Wendy and I really leaned into is understanding that with many advisors, plans succeed, but with few advisors, plans fail. So, we developed a personal advisory board, people that we trust, people that we look up to, that we meet with on a regular basis. And it’s not just about this decision. It’s about parenting, and marriage, and all sorts of decisions.

And, yet, when you get to a decision like this, about what to do next, making a career change, you want as much possible great wisdom that you can possibly get. So, over two years ago when we made this current season, when I left being a pastor of a church, to now serving businesses and nonprofits in a much broader scope, they were the ones that said, “Hey, you guys are going to be empty-nesters in about 18 months. What are you going to do in that season?”

And that was a great question because I’d not really thought about that, and they helped walk us through the decision-making process about how to figure this out. So, who you listen to is a preview of the future you. And then, also, and we’ll talk about this a little bit down the road if you want, but I really do believe in side hustles, experimenting with some things, trying to figure some things out that may or may not work, but you’re going to learn some things, and it might lead you to the next opportunity.

And then the principle that we’ve all heard is who you know is often more important than what you know. Who you know is often more important than what you know. In your personal network, in building, in enhancing and leveraging your personal network is so important. In fact, Pete, when I talk to people and they call me, and they said, “Jeff, I just lost my job, the company got downsized. What’s the first thing that I should do? Should I update my resume?” That’s an important thing, but, no. “Should I update my information on LinkedIn?” That’s important but, no, that’s not the first thing that you should do.

The first thing you should do is look at your phone, look at your contact list, and make a list of the top ten people that you’re going to call immediately that you can meet with to see if they can help you, because I do believe, Pete, that we are about four or five people away from that next opportunity. So, those are a few strategies, and we can talk about more or go more in depth with those. But the overarching principle is when it comes to what to do next, finding it when you’re uncertain, so often I will hear back from people, going, “I just don’t know what to do and I’m a little stuck.”

And the principles that we talk about is don’t let what you don’t know rob you of what you can do. There are some things that you can do. Focus in on that. And when you do that, you’ll be surprised how much that action can propel you forward.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s a nice set of principles there. So, could you share with us, when it comes to some of these relationship pieces, the advisors and the people that you know, any pro tips associated with really developing those relationships well so that they could be of service when necessary?

Jeff Henderson
Let’s talk about building your personal network. I think asking people, contacting them, and saying, “Hey, can I sit down with you for 30 minutes? I want to ask you about your story, I want to ask you about your career, and then I have a question for you.” I think a lot of people are happy to talk about themselves, talk about their career. And I would say, “Hey, how did you get where you are? Tell me your career trajectory. Tell me your career story.”

And then, as you hear that, at the end of…and then, obviously, asking great questions as they tell you, “Hey, I went here, I went there, and how did all that work,” but at the end of the meeting, ultimately, where you’re wanting to lead them to is this question, and that question is, “Who do you know that I need to know? And will you contact them on my behalf?” And not every time someone will say yes but, more often than not, they will say yes. And I believe that person knows someone that can help you.

And then another pro tip would be either show up with a gift, maybe it’s a book that you could give them, a gift card, write a follow-up thank you note, but that is so important because you’re trying to leverage their network, and you’re also trying to add value to them which is why you want to bring a gift.

So, that question, “Who do you know that I need to know? And will you contact them on my behalf?” that’s so helpful. It’s gold, actually, in terms of building your network. And, again, they may say, “No, I don’t know anybody right now.” That’s fine. Every salesperson would tell you, “You got to get through some no’s to get through some yeses.”

But I think what you’ll discover is, more often than not, people will say, “Oh, absolutely. You know, I’m just talking to this guy the other day.” Or, even if they say, “No, there’s no one that I can think of.” “That’s okay. Well, when you do, or if you do, don’t forget, this is how to get in touch with me.”

Now, here’s the other pro tip, Pete, if you can do this while you don’t necessarily need to do this, that’s even better. Building your personal network while you might not actually need it because you don’t need a job right now, you got a job, you’re fine, but I’m telling you, it’s kind of like health insurance or life insurance. This is work insurance. If you have a well-built personal network, it will always come to be beneficial for you in the future.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very good. And if we have any emotional resistance, reluctance, jitters, like, “Oh, I don’t know if I could do that, Jeff. It feels sort of sales-y or pushy or, I don’t know.” Any perspective on that?

Jeff Henderson
You’re listening to fear. You’re listening to doubt and insecurity. And I totally understand this, by the way. In fact, my kids, they’re 23 and 21, and they’ll say, “Dad, we don’t want you to contact this person on my behalf.” And I totally understand that. They want to earn their own way, and I get that. But, at the same time, I’ll say, “Hey, guys, this is how the real world works, and leveraging the people you know, and I know you might not want your dad to call, but there are other people that you can contact that can help you find that next opportunity.”

It’s kind of like this, Pete, one time I was sick, had a cold, and I kept complaining to Wendy that I’m just not feeling better, and she said, “You know what you ought to do? Here’s a radical idea. You might consider going to the doctor.” And I’m like, “No, no, no, I don’t want to go to the doctor.” And she said, “Okay. Well, but here’s this, if you’re not going to go to the doctor, you forfeit the right to complain about being sick, right?”

So, what I tell people when they say, “Oh, Jeff, I don’t want to contact somebody. That’s just a little pushy, a littles sales-y,” I get that. I get that. If you don’t want to do that, you forfeit the right to also complain that you don’t like your job, you don’t like where you are, you’re not sure what to do, “I don’t know how to figure out what to do next.” Okay, if you’re not going to push yourself and push past the fear of this, then you get to stay stuck where you are but you don’t get to complain about it anymore. You’re going to have to push forward. You’re going to have to take action.

But here’s what I’ve discovered about taking action. Even if they say no, the fact that you took action, it’s going to plant a seed that you may never know what comes out of that. But even if someone says no, who knows when they may see or meet somebody that has a job opening, and they remember your email, or your text, or your question, or your phone call. All of that is so, so important, so you got to push through the fear and listen to whether this is real or is this an excuse. And we’ve got to stop being victims and we have to stop listening to our excuses.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that notion that even if they say no, you’ve gained something. And I think you gain something even internally emotionally. This reminds me of my younger days, asking for dates.

Jeff Henderson
Absolutely, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Even if she says no, there is an internal victory associated with having summoned the courage to do so, and, in that way, I am a winner even if I have lost the date that I was seeking.

Jeff Henderson
Absolutely. You feel better about yourself because you stood up, you did something hard, and that gives you a little step of extra courage, whether you get a yes or no, it’s just so important. I’ll give you a quick example along those lines. When I served in the nonprofit world, I had to raise money, and I would sit down with people over coffee and I would cast the vision of, “This is what we’re trying to do and this is our vision of how we’re going to help people.”

And then I would ask them this question, “Will you help me?” and then I would be quiet, and I would just let the silence fill the coffee shop. And you have to do that, Pete. You have to let that awkwardness of the silence kind of fill the space. And then they would say one of three things, they would say, “Yes,” “No,” or, “I’ll think about it or pray about it,” which is also no. So, two of the three are no, but my responsibility was to make the ask. It was their responsibility to provide an answer.

And what I discovered in helping myself to be a better fundraiser is I decided I’m no longer going to answer for people. That’s actually rude for me to rob them of the opportunity to provide an answer. What I’m going to do is I’m going to make the request. And if I do that, whether I got a no or not, I just felt a little stronger that day because I was doing my job trying to raise money.

Well, the same thing is true if you’re trying to build your career or trying to figure out what to do next. You’re going to feel stronger even if you do get a no. Yes, we would like a yes. Absolutely. But even if you get a no from someone that you’re trying to build your network, it’s still going to make you a little bit stronger.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Thank you. You’ve also got a cool concept called the career risk calculator. How does this work?

Jeff Henderson
Many people, Pete, as I mentioned earlier, say, “Hey, I want to make this move but I’ve got to eliminate risk. It cannot be risky.” And I tell them, “Wow, you must live in a different world that I live in because you don’t eliminate risk. But what you can do is you can shrink it.” And so, when it comes to making a career decision or a life decision about what to do next, it doesn’t have to be a leap across the Grand Canyon but it can be reduced to maybe a leap over a mud puddle. You might get wet and muddy and fall and get wet, and no one likes to do that, but you’re not plunging thousands of feet below.

So, what we wanted to do is to help people think through that, so we created, as we called it, the career risk calculator. What we’re trying to do is ask questions to see what kind of level of risk someone is at. So, from 25 questions, and, ultimately, you get a red light, a yellow light, or a green light. The red light is not a pass or fail. It doesn’t mean you failed. The red light simply says, as a red light says when we’re driving around, “Whoa, stop. Before you take another step, you need to think through a few things.”

A yellow light says, “Okay, you’re making some progress but here are a few other things to think through.” And a green light doesn’t necessarily mean, “You have to now move.” It means you’ve done the hard work, here’s a couple of other things that you might consider. And this is just a free resource that we provide at my website JeffHenderson.com.

But once you get that light, once you get that information, we give you a few other things to think through. And part of this is designed for another action statement that I learned from John Maxwell. Early on in this new season of mine, what I’m doing now for two years, my first month, it’s brand new, I’m trying to go out and speak, and it’s COVID and all this kind of stuff, and it’s kind of crazy, but I was at a conference where John Maxwell was speaking, and John said this, and I’ll never forget this, Pete. He said, “I never had a clear vision. I just kept moving forward.”

And that just totally floored me in the best of ways because, I thought, “Wait. Here’s John Maxwell, he’s sold literally millions of books, he’s this leadership guru. You look at somebody like that and think this guy has it all going on. I understand a mere mortal like me, I don’t have a clear vision, but he didn’t have a clear vision? So, I just got to keep moving forward? Well, what are those one or two next steps that I can take?”

And a lot of times, it’s not this gigantic leap. It’s just a small step, picking up the phone and contacting someone, or doing a side hustle, or sending an email, or trying to get my finances together, or getting wise people and say, “Hey, what would you do if you were me?” And so, the career risk assessment basically gives you some small steps to take so that you can keep moving forward. And as you keep moving forward, you’re going to shrink the risk. You can’t eliminate it but you can shrink it. And so, that’s what that career risk calculator is all about.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, that’s cool. Well, can you tell us some of the best ways we can shrink it?

Jeff Henderson
So, first of all, really get to understand two of three things, two of these things that you have control over and one that you really don’t. So, what I mean by that is a lot of times folks will come up to me, Pete, and say, “Hey, I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do.” So, what do you do when you don’t know what to do?

Well, when you don’t know what to do, there are three things to pay attention to. The first one is your gifting. Do you know your strengths? Do you know what you are good at? Because what to do next is usually going to come down that pathway. For example, you’re not going to see me launch a country music career. There’s no musical background in my history. So, I mean, maybe for some people do that but that’s not a gift of mine. So, gifting is really, really important.

The second thing is calling. What breaks your heart? Or, what are you passionate about? And if there’s nothing that you’re passionate about, okay, that’s all right. Well, let’s go out there and let’s try some things. But there’s understanding your gifting and understanding your calling. And then the third thing that is a little bit of the most frustrating thing for folks because they don’t have the most control over this, and that’s timing.

But when you understand your gifting and you understand your calling, what happens is the timing eventually shows up. And it’s kind of a Venn diagram, you have three circles. The first circle is gifting, the second circle is calling, and the third circle is timing. When those three connect right in the middle of that, is how you figure out what to do next.

And a calling often asks the question, “Somebody should do something about that. Who will do something about that? Somebody should start a company that serves customers this way. Somebody should start a nonprofit that does this.” So, that’s kind of a calling. Gifting says, “Somebody should do something about that, and I wonder if that person is me.” That starts talking about gifting.

And when I decided, eventually, to leave Chick-fil-A, I knew that the gifting and the calling were there, it took me a little bit longer to figure out the timing of it. And, generally speaking, it usually takes a little bit longer than we think. That’s why trying to figure out what to do next, it’s something that all of us should be on a journey of because I’m not trying to convince people to quit and leave their job today. I‘m trying to convince people to keep growing to bring the best next version of them to their organizations and to the people in their lives.

And if you continue to do that, even if you stay in the same organization that you’re currently in, you’re going to get better at serving them. And when you get better at serving them, you’re going to get bigger and better opportunities, and that’s what I’ve seen throughout my career. So, I think understanding gifting, calling, and timing, that will help you, especially if you say, “I just don’t know what to do.”

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

Jeff Henderson
Well, I think it’s important to understand that there’s a certain level of emotional awareness that comes into with understand what to do next. Understanding that, especially if a lot of transitions are tricky. As for me, I didn’t leave organizations that I didn’t like. I left organizations that I dearly loved. I left people that I dearly loved, so there’s a lot of emotions that’s associated with all of that. So, I think it’s helpful to process that out, especially if you’ve been downsized in a company, obviously, there’s emotion there.

So, we’ve talked a lot of technical skills and all that today, but I would pay attention to what’s happening internally inside of you because that grief of leaving and the emotions of leaving, it’s a real thing. So, just pay attention not only to the external applications, like, build your network, and sign us and career risk calculator, but also pay attention internally to what’s happening to you because that’s really, really important because the best gift that you can give the organizations and the people you serve is the best emotionally healthy version of you.

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

Jeff Henderson
A favorite quote for me is, “There’s not a limit to what a person can do when he or she doesn’t care who gets the credit.” Now, I think humility is a gamechanger but the reality, too, is we can’t say, “Hey, guess what, Pete? One of the best things about me is my humility. I’m so humble.” At that point, I’ve already forfeited. So, humility isn’t something that I think about. Humility is something that I practice. But I love that quote that there’s not a limit to what we can do if we don’t care who gets the credit.

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

Jeff Henderson
So, for me, I love the research that talks about the fact that if I assume the best for someone, it’s a marriage study and they looked at healthy marriages, and then if there was something that happened, the husband or wife or the partner would say, “You know what, I’m going to assume the best about that,” instead of the fundamental attribution error, which would say, “I’m going to assume the worst about that.” And even if they were wrong, the fact that they assume the best about that particular situation was so helpful and healthy.

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

Jeff Henderson
I would just tell you, from a history standpoint, Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, it’s about Abraham Lincoln and how he hired many of his presidential rivals to be on his cabinet, and how that ultimately led him to abolishing slavery with their help. It was the movie, that book was actually adapted into a movie, Lincoln that Steven Spielberg produced. And I would say a leadership book would be The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell.

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

Jeff Henderson
So, for me, goodness, technology is just rampant, but I created a tool for communicators. I believe leadership comes with a microphone. And it’s called “The Four Presenter Voices,” and it helps me understand what my voice is and how to leverage my voice. So, when I’m preparing for a talk, I go back to that, and go, “Okay, I have this particular voice. Here’s how I need to prepare, and here’s how I need to make sure that the weakness of this particular voice allows me to avoid the weakness of that voice, and to leverage the strength of that voice so that I can communicate the best that I can,” because, again, leadership comes with a microphone.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And could you share a favorite habit, something you do that helps you be awesome at your job?

Jeff Henderson
I really do believe I’m trying to get better. I really do believe the better we finish the night, the better we begin the day. A way to say it is, “A great day begins the night before.” And so, I try to write down three things: one, “What went well today?”; two, “What could I do tomorrow that will move me forward?”; and, number three, “Who could I encourage tomorrow?” And a great day begins the night before. So, I’m trying to be more consistent about doing that, and shutting off technology, reading, and getting really set because the day doesn’t begin when I wake up. Great days begin the night before.

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

Jeff Henderson
There’s a question that I’ve asked over the years for leaders, and the question is for them, or the challenge rather is for them to ask their teams, “What’s it like to be on the other side of me?” That’s going to give them information that everyone else has but the leader, and it’s going to be challenging. They’re going to get some encouraging information, they’re going to get some surprising information about themselves, and they’re going to get some information that will hurt their feelings.

But this is one of the most healthy and emotional awareness questions, I think, that you can ask, and it’s going to help you get to be a better leader. But I challenge people and say you don’t have to do this and you don’t have to ask that question. You just have to know that if you don’t, and if you don’t have the courage to ask that question, you’re going to be the only one that doesn’t know the answer to it, “So, what’s it like to be on the other side of me?”

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

Jeff Henderson
JeffHenderson.com. You’ll see the free assessment that we talked about earlier. Actually, the voices assessment is on there as well, it’s just free. And then you can follow me from there on social media.

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

Jeff Henderson
So, I think in terms of being awesome at your job, the challenge that we need to be mindful of is, ultimately, there’s a wake in our leadership. And I think we need to look back and go, “Is the wake of that leadership, are we making the people in the organizations better?” My first business mentor challenged me with this, he said, “When you leave here, I want you to leave things better than when you found them.”

So, one of the ways that we can be awesome at our job is to know that we will not always be at this job. We’re all one day closer to leaving wherever we are. But when we leave, there is a wake that follows that, so leave things, leave the organization, leave the job, and leave the people better than when you found them.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Jeff, this has been a treat. Thank you. I wish much luck and joy in each of the things you do next.

Jeff Henderson
Thank you so, so much, Pete. I’m honored to be here.

816: How Anyone Can Build Powerful Executive Presence with Harrison Monarth

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Harrison Monarth shares simple but effective approaches to get others to perceive you as a leader.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why it’s easier to build executive presence than you think
  2. The easiest way to improve people’s perception of you
  3. How to still contribute when you don’t have answers

About Harrison

Harrison Monarth is one of today’s most sought-after leadership development-and executive coaches, helping CEOs, senior executives, managers, and high-potential employees develop critical leadership skills and increase their interpersonal effectiveness and ability to influence others. He has personally coached leaders from major organizations in financial services, technology, medical, legal, hospitality and consumer industries, as well as those in start-ups, nonprofits and politics.

Harrison’s client list covers organizations such as General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, MetLife, AT&T, Northrop Grumman, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Deloitte Consulting, Cisco Systems, GE and Standard & Poor’s among others, as well as start-up entrepreneurs, political candidates and Members of Congress.

Resources Mentioned

Harrison Monarth Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Harrison, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.

Harrison Monarth
Hi, there. Thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m excited to hear your wisdom about executive presence and more. And I’ve got to hear the story about you proposing marriage on your first date.

Harrison Monarth
Yes, so I had seen my wife over the course of a couple of years. She worked in the same neighborhood where I worked. At the time, I lived in Denver, Colorado, and had seen her from afar, admired her from afar, she was very beautiful, and didn’t know her but circumstances led us to get to know each other through a mutual friend.

And since I had already been in love with her for a couple of years, at our first date, we had a wonderful first date that dragged into the evening, seeing a movie. And it was after the movie that we went back to our café, and after some more conversation and other shenanigans, I proposed, she accepted, and eight months later, we got married.

And, by the way, it’s been almost 20 years, so that was 19 years ago.

Pete Mockaitis
Hotdog. Congratulations. Well, we keep the show G-rated but I’m curious what shenanigans we’re referring to that lead to both of you feeling, like, “Yup, feel pretty certain this is going to be just fine”?

Harrison Monarth
I think it’s a bit of a cliché when you say you just know and you click with someone, and everything just really connects in all levels. And, yeah, it was that for us, so it’s just a feeling of knowing. Yeah, we’ve been inseparable since.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s awesome. Congratulations.

Harrison Monarth
There’s no secret to it, actually. It’s just I think we’re lucky, so.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah. Well, I think that here’s where I make a forced segue, I think that a lot feels the same way about executive presence, Harrison, in that it feels like, “Hey, some people have it. They’re lucky. They got it. And some people don’t.” But I’d love to hear your perspective on this. Your book Executive Presence, Second Edition: The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO shares some learnable behaviors that anyone can take on.

Maybe, can you kick us off with a particularly surprising or counterintuitive or extra fascinating discovery you’ve made about executive presence from your years of research and work in the field?

Harrison Monarth
Now you said something interesting. I think you said you either have it or you don’t, or people have maybe the perception, “You have it or you don’t.” And I think that is one of those misperceptions about executive presence. It’s often how we describe a nebulous quality-like charisma, somebody has it or they don’t.

Executive presence, I found in my research over the last 20 plus years, and probably unconsciously over many years before that, is a set of behaviors, traits, qualities, characteristics that we can identify and where we can understand that we all have a profile of certain behaviors that serve us, that help us, and others that perhaps get in the way of having an executive presence and having that positive influence.

And so, for me, the big aha was the understanding that, you know what, all these qualities, these behaviors, you don’t have to have all of them, but you need to know where you are on that scale and what you have and what you don’t have, so you have to start somewhere. And then you can create a plan and decide based on your circumstances, based on the company in which you work, the people you work with, the system you’re in, what’s important to develop and what you need to maybe continue doing and what you need to intensify or magnify.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, a collection of behaviors. Harrison, could you perhaps segment the lofty concept of executive presence into a manageable set of categories we can get our arms around?

Harrison Monarth
Sure. So, if I were to break it down, and, again, this is the world according to me. This is by no means an exact science, obviously. But executive presence is a combination of communication, behaviors, communication skills such as managing difficult conversations, about engaging others, being the kind of communicator that can easily engage other people.

Telling strategic stories in business and to explain complex topics and subject matter. Being inspiring and persuading. Helping people understand something and come to a decision. So, these are all, say, behaviors under communication. Political savvy is important. Do you have the ability to create alliances to manage up, to generate buy-in and support from people?

Courage. Competence. To me, you have to have competence in something. You have to be able to communicate both develop a level of expertise and intellect, and develop sort of a persona that lets other people know that you can be counted on, that you’re a person of substance and competence in order to be seen as having that presence.

Delivering results is an important part as well under the category of competence. You can’t deliver results if you can’t contribute value to an organization, to a group, to a team. We’re not necessarily seen as having an executive presence, or we will have an executive presence that’s shallow, like a politician, let’s say in cases.

Acting decisively is part of it. Having courage. Being calm under pressure. Those are all some. I’m not going to rattle off the whole, let’s say, 27 or 30, but those are some that I think are very important.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s a whole boatload of things. I’m curious, if that feels overwhelming for folks, could you give us some hope, some inspiration with a story of someone who was kind of low on this collection of behaviors, but then did some things to make a huge upgrade to executive presence and see good results?

Harrison Monarth
Yes, I can. I had a client not too long ago who was at a management level in a company, and networking was something that she found distasteful. She didn’t like it. It was uncomfortable for her, and just generally reaching out to strangers. Considers herself an introvert and, generally, just uncomfortable with engaging people that she had no business reason to engage.

And so, what I helped her with, a couple things, number one is changing her mindset to basically say, “Look, what can I contribute to the person, to the company, to the organization that would be of value?” So, this one important shift in terms of how to even get out of your shell or think about yourself not by way of grabbing or self-promoting, but to actually contribute value.

The other part was what I talked about, helping her create a stakeholder map. So, creating a visual representation of where people are in the company and who has influence, who is someone that could help you get things done, who is somebody that can help you do better at your job, hit the ground running if you’re new in the job, and, basically, contribute value more quickly.

Once you have those people, once you have a map like this, once you have a good overview of who’s who in the organization, then you obviously need to engage and have substantive, hopefully interesting, conversations. And I think this is where a lot of people have shied away. They are worried that they have nothing in common with the person, that they are at too low a level, let’s say, they’re relatively new in their career, new at the company, “What would that person want to talk about with me?”

And so, what I asked her to do in this case is I asked her what she would be genuinely curious about if she were stuck in an elevator with that person for two hours, “What would you talk about? What would you ask that person that you’re genuinely curious about?” And so, it kind of broke it down for her, and she really thought genuinely about, “Okay, I would want to know this. I would want to know what is the person thinking about our division, or my job, my role, how we could most contribute value, what challenges that they have in a similar role or at a different part of the company.”

There were so many questions that she herself generated after a while, and then she felt very confident all of a sudden to there was no status differential, all of a sudden. It was just, “How can I connect with that leader in a way that I show that I’m genuinely interested in them but so I can learn from them as well?” So, that’s one of the ways I helped, and it made a huge difference for her because, obviously, she uses that now to engage with others that she really has no business reason to connect with.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. So, I’m curious, if we’re going to put forth some effort into developing executive presence, what might you suggest as some top high-leverage starting points in that they need development for a lot of people, and it’s relatively easy to do something about it, in terms of, “Well, just videotape yourself a couple of times, and you’ll stop doing that, bada bing”? Are there any kinds of domains and practices that have a really strong bang for the buck there?

Harrison Monarth
Yes. I’m looking at this as building it from the ground up, because, first of all, again, we’re all a mixed bag. We’re strong in some areas, we’re not so strong in other areas. And so, my recommendation is always to get feedback, first of all. And I ask people two questions. Number one, and to use these questions with others that know them, that can actually make comments, “What do you appreciate about me? How do you perceive me?” number one.

And the second question is, “What would make me even stronger?” And the first question is somewhat open, it’s “How am I perceived? How do you perceive me?” People will generally, because it’s not anonymous, they’re telling you face to face, generally speaking, they’re going to tell you a lot of nice things about you, the things they actually like about you, that they appreciate about you, that make you strong, which is great, but you also need to know what could potentially hold you back.

So, I coach them and ask them the second question in a very specific way, and not, “What are my blind spots?” not “What am I not doing well?” or, “What could I be doing better?” All of these things put the other person in sort of a negative mind space. It puts them into criticizing mode, and nobody wants to criticize you face to face.

And so, what people do like to do, rather than give negative feedback, is they like to give advice, and that’s why I would like to give keep second question, I tell them keep it very positive. Instead of saying, “What are my blind spots? Or, what am I not doing well?” first, I’d tell them, “Thank them for all the nice things they just said about you, because they probably did.” And then you say, “Now, what would make me even stronger?

And the word even is so important because the premise here is that, “Well, you just told me a lot of nice things that I’m strong in these areas. Now, what would make me even stronger?” That will then allow the other person to keep it very positive to actually give you advice. So, for instance, if somebody thinks you’re a micromanager, or that you’re too controlling, had you asked, “What am I not doing well?” chances are they probably wouldn’t have told you the truth, or they might’ve sugarcoated it so much that it would’ve been too vague.

And so, if they do feel though that you’re a little bit of a micromanager, simply by asking the question, “Now, what would make me even stronger?” they could say to you, “Well, if you give people a little bit more autonomy at work, how they arrange their projects, how they set up their time in order to get the results you need and get the work done, that might make them more engaged, and that might increase their productivity, so give them a little more autonomy.” They just told you the exact same thing, and gave you advice rather than criticize you for being a micromanager.

So, I think you start there. You get feedback first. And you said, “Well, what are some quick bang for the buck, basically?” I would say something that anyone can do. So, this will give you an idea of what you need to work on. But I always tell people, whether you’re an introvert, whether you’re shy, whether you’re generally more quiet, these people are typically thinkers, contributing your perspective, your ideas in a meeting is probably the number one thing that could move you up in people’s minds as somebody who’s contributing value and somebody who’s engaged and wants to contribute to solutions and challenges and help solve challenges.

Speaking up, that’s something anyone can do, once we get over the discomfort of doing so, but it’s something that can give you influence almost instantly. And too often, people are just hanging back.

Pete Mockaitis
You know, I’m having flashbacks, Harrison, to in high school and college, my Model United Nations days, going to conferences, pretending to represent different countries. And there was a guy, shout out to Robbie Clayber, if he ever listens to the show, who I just got a chapter started in my high school, and he won a lot of awards for being an outstanding representative.

And it’s like, “So, what’s the trick?” He’s like, “Honestly, just keep going up to the microphone and talking.” I was like, “But what if you don’t have anything smart or insightful or worthwhile to say?” And he said, “It doesn’t even matter. Just the more you get up and say stuff at the microphone,” that’s how he won all these best delegate awards.

And I thought that seemed off, but then in my experiences, as I was watching it happen, too, yes, the exact same pattern played out. Now, life is not exactly, or business careers are not exactly a Model United Nations conference for a high school or college student, but I think some of the same principles apply in that just talk more, and, hopefully, it’s value-added so you’re not just wasting everybody’s time.

But, Harrison, if anyone has concerns that, “Oh, I don’t know if what I have to say is that insightful or worthwhile in speaking up,” do you have any pro tips on either overcoming that resistance, or a quick way you can do an internal safety check, like, “Yup, that is a worthwhile contribution” versus, “No, folks will probably roll their eyes internally and wish I would shut up?”

Harrison Monarth
By the way, there are studies, there are a number of studies from the Haas School of Business, for instance, that showed that in small and medium-sized groups, speaking up and contributing your perspective makes other people see you as having leadership, potential leadership qualities, they see you as influential, and then other studies confirm that as well, and even see you as more competent, by the way, even if you don’t always get the answers right. They just see you as more competent to lead because you’re seen as hardworking, as contributing, again, to solutions, as one that could make a difference to the team. So, there are some great qualities.

But, to your point, “So, what if I feel like I just don’t have anything to add?” So, I’m going to give you the light version, and then I’m going to give you the power version. The light version is, think about, “Why are you there? What’s the point of you even being in this meeting?” And, hopefully, you’ve thought about this beforehand.

And if you haven’t, then maybe you learn a lesson that next time you do think about “Why am I there? What questions do I want to ask? What do I need to find out? What’s the objective? What are we trying to accomplish? Are we trying to solve a problem? Are we trying to brainstorm? Are we trying to come to a decision or discuss, get to a consensus?”

There is obviously some sort of objective. And if there isn’t one, or if you don’t know what the objective is, ask other people, “What are we trying to do here?” and then think about why you, why are you there, and then, hopefully, you can connect the dots there. But generally, I say prepare for these meetings even if you feel, maybe you’re new, and you don’t have anything super relevant to add. Well, you could probably ask some good questions. So, think about what those questions are.

And then you might actually be the person, those meetings often go off the rails, people start rambling, they go all over the place, they go down rabbit holes and start talking about things that really had nothing to do with the meeting objective. So, you could be the person that brings everybody back on track, and say, “Hey, weren’t we trying to decide between A and B? We’re really just going way off of that, so here’s what I would like to add to that discussion.”

And so, there are lots of different things if you prepare, ask questions, and make points, and point out maybe some things that others hadn’t thought about. But then the power version, I want to tell you a quick anecdote. So, I’ve done a lot of work for PepsiCo, and worked with some senior leaders on Indra Nooyi’s leadership team.

And an anecdote that I thought was just incredibly inspiring from her was when Indra Nooyi was a consultant for Boston Consulting in the 1980s, from there she was hired to become the head of strategy for Motorola’s automotive electronics division. And in one of her first executive-level staff meetings, she said she was completely out of her depth.

So, they were talking about two things that she didn’t really have much of a clue about: cars and electronics. And so, she said that based on her skill and experience as a consultant, she could’ve asked smart questions and created a framework of understanding for herself and survived, but that she really wanted to make a difference as soon as possible, make a contribution, have an impact on the business.

And so, what she did, in order to be able to contribute, she hired two professors as tutors for herself, on her own. So, she hired an electronics professor who would teach her about electronics from a thick electronics textbook, and then an automotive technology professor, somebody from the automotive technology college, to teach her about the inner workings of a car. And she would do that for an entire year.

So, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, she would have two hours of electronics tutoring from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m., and then the rest of the week, Thursday, Friday, somebody from the automotive college would stop by and help her, for an entire year. And she said it was extremely hard, but think about it, the impact that had on the others around her and her understanding of subject matter and of being able to connect the dots, to me, that’s another level of wanting to make an impact and wanting to contribute value that that’s up to us.

We have to think about where, “What time can I carve out? Where am I willing to make some sacrifices, of tradeoffs to develop my understanding of things, my expertise?”

Pete Mockaitis
That’s powerful. And I’ve heard it said here a couple times that if you read the top five relevant books to your field, you’ll be more knowledgeable than 90 plus percent of the people in that domain. And I think that varies by domain, but I think that’s often rather true, that it may not take ten hours of one-on-one professor-tutorial a week for 15 plus weeks to pull it off. It might take 16 hours of reading over a couple of months, and, bam, there you are having some knowledgeable perspective.

Harrison Monarth
Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think and then you decide how much further you want to go. And you’ll see, “Do you have an impact? Are you making a difference?” And I agree with you that you don’t have to necessarily have the 10,000 hours that Malcolm Gladwell talks about becoming an expert at something, or a master at something. I think small steps, like you said, reading a couple of books on the topic, reading insights and papers and articles can make a huge difference already.

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

Harrison Monarth
No, I would say the idea of getting feedback, understanding, having developing your internal self-awareness, external self-awareness, how you show up to the world, and then deciding, “What do I need to work on?” is a great foundation to, then, increase your executive presence.

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

Harrison Monarth
There’s a quote by George Bernard Shaw who said that, “Life is not about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely.

Harrison Monarth
And I think that’s powerful because it puts the control in your hands.

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

Harrison Monarth
Francesca Gino, a few years ago, led a study with Adam Grant on gratitude, the power of gratitude. And they found that, aside from Gallup also found that showing gratitude, managers showing gratitude to employees can boost productivity by 5% to 10%, people feeling appreciated by their managers, being more engaged at work, and being happier at work. So, I love that study because it just reinforces something that we all intuitively know, I think.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And could you share a favorite book?

Harrison Monarth
As a matter of fact, right in front of me, it’s called Daily Rituals. Daily Rituals by.. oh, Mason Currey. And it just talks about rituals that famous artists, composers, painters, writers, have had, and it’s full of failures.

So, the book is full of how these people tried to get out of work, tried to avoid work, procrastinated, but then found themselves still producing masterpieces and great works. And I think it just sort of humanizes them, and it makes you feel less like a loser if you don’t feel like getting off the couch for a full day.

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

Harrison Monarth
For me, a favorite tool is reframing, so reframing things. I think the power of reframing, looking at things from different perspectives, first, it makes you calmer. Taking different viewpoints on something because there’s so much that stresses us out, but if we’re able to put things in proper perspective, reframe them in not just one different way or look at one different perspective, but look at it from many different perspectives, it makes you calmer and it actually helps you find solutions. It opens your mind to other approaches.

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

Harrison Monarth
A key nugget. Well, actually, to be honest with you, it’s connected to that, it is this looking at things in a different way. And one thing that people often either cite or remind me of that I’ve talked about at a workshop or in a coaching session is this idea of rather than thinking of yourself, think about others and how you can contribute value to others will make a lot of things easier from speaking up to networking, to increasing visibility, to getting involved with people and things. That just the idea of looking at it from the perspective of “I’d like to make a contribution. I’d like to contribute value” has a huge impact on our willingness, our motivation, to actually go out and do it.

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

Harrison Monarth
LinkedIn is a great way. I’m on LinkedIn. Certainly, we have our website, GuruMaker.com, but LinkedIn, I post on LinkedIn not as often as I’d like but, yeah, messaging on LinkedIn and just connecting that way and staying in touch that way is great.

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

Harrison Monarth
Yes. I would say a challenge would be, and this is often I give challenge in the workshop, I would say pick six people that know you, have worked with you maybe, or working with you, ask them the two questions, “How am I perceived?” Wait for the nice answers and maybe they’ll tell you something interesting. And then the second question, “Now, what would make me even stronger?” and listen, wait for the answers, be grateful for the answers. Probe if you want to have clarity, and then you have something that you can work on, potentially, to make you even more effective and even stronger.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. Harrison, this has been a treat. Thank you. I wish you much fun and success and executive presence.

Harrison Monarth
Thank you very much. Pleasure talking to you.