WEIRDOS IN THE WORKPLACE  ⚡

Intro:

Feeling stressed, distracted, or disconnected at work? Are you a business leader looking to boost productivity, engagement, and retention? Or an employee struggling with burnout and work-life balance? You’re not alone. Today, we’re diving into the powerful connection between employee wellness and business success with Lydia Di Francesco, the Founder of Fit & Healthy 365, and Creator of the 15 Minute Workout Club!

Lydia is a Certified Personal Trainer and a business coach who helps companies and organizations succeed by prioritizing the health and wellbeing of their workforce! Get ready to learn practical techniques that can be used anywhere, anytime, to help your people and your business thrive, by strengthen your mindset, managing stress, and cultivating work-life harmony.

Website Url:

https://www.fithealthy365.com/

Stay Connected with Lydia:

https://ca.linkedin.com/in/lydiadifrancesco

Script: 

Life is short and we aren’t meant to just suffer.

They’re not willing to put their money on something. They’re not willing to like, you know, strategically bet on something. They want to try to do everything. And I think this is a fear response.

Also allows people a proactive approach to their health.

Feels like you’re banging your head against the wall and there’s nothing you can do about it. You feel like there’s nothing you can do about it.

And it’s actually in your best interest to even just take a break. Even if you want to work a lot of hours, take some breaks.

This case is from Alex, who’s the HR director at an employee experience software company. And Alex says, we’ve been riding the wave of rapid growth and success in the tech industry, but an increasing number of our employees are reporting feelings of burnout. Absenteeism is on the rise. Productivity is taking a hit. And there’s a general sense of exhaustion in what used to be a vibrant and energetic workplace. To add to our worries, our pipeline seems to be stagnating and leaves are drying up. I know I’m not the only one who feels an overwhelming sense of impending doom, says Alex. As a company that prides itself on valuing employee experience, that makes sense as an employee experience technology company, it’s incredibly frustrating to find ourselves unable to practice what we preach. The well-being of our employees and the overall health of the organization are at stake. All right, so enter Lydia, a consultant specializing in workplace wellness and employee engagement. Welcome to the show, Lydia.

Hi, Erin. I’m so happy to be here with you.

Excellent. Okay, so for the listeners, please tell them just a little bit about yourself and, you know, why you love this work.

Yeah. So I’ve been in the wellness space for 12 years and counting. And I started out mostly on the fitness side. And then over the years have acquired a bunch of different certifications and knowledge and experience and have been working out for the past five years with on the more corporate side, working with organizations, helping them support their staff with their well-being. And I love this work because for me, just with how I’ve lived my life, like we can maybe get into this later if it’s relevant, but I have had a burnout before. So I know what it’s like. It was surprising to me when I was going through it. And of course, as a wellness professional, I was like, this is kind of ironic, maybe. But I learned a lot. It taught me a lot. And I also learned a lot about how to live my life and how to create a lifestyle that supports my own well-being and make sure that I’m not, you know, heading into a burnout. Again, I’ve learned a lot about work-life harmony and how to bring that about for myself. And I also just really believe that life is short and we aren’t meant to just suffer through it for the most part. Like, obviously, we’re going to have challenging times, of course. But, you know, for lack of better phrase, like life shouldn’t suck always. And work is such a big part of that. You know, so for me, it’s important for people to like, feel like, you know, that’s a good part of their life, or at least not dreading it. You know, that whole like, oh, it’s the Monday, what do they call it? The Monday worries, it’s not the Monday worries, but whatever they call it about worrying about Monday. And then like, you know, people are like, oh my god, it’s I’m so excited. It’s Friday. You know, like, I want people to be okay with every day of the week, and just to be more healthy. You know, I see a lot of people who are not overly healthy and, you know, are kind of putting in the time now hoping to maybe one day just like retire and but who knows where their health is going to be at in that case, and probably not in a good place. So some big motivations for me, you know, I’ve got some big missions in terms of changing workplace culture. And I think it’s a really great time right now, just coming off of the pandemic, you know, where there’s a lot of opportunity to rethink how we do things. And so yeah, it’s a really exciting time to be in the space. the space.

Yeah, it sure is exciting.

And like, I mean, the, from this story, um, when Alex says there’s an overwhelming sense of impending doom, you know, man, like that, that is something that I think a lot of my clients for sure have been feeling this sense of impending doom. Uh, and it’s impacting their, the way that they can like you know perform impacting their health impacting so many different areas um one of I mean I don’t even know where where would you start if you’re if you’re Alex where where do you start so it’s this might be a bit of a weird answer uh Hopefully not.

But I would like weird answers here, by the way. I know, right?

We’re weirdos. Is that what we’re called? Weirdo now? Am I a weirdo now that I’m part of this podcast?

 I mean, are absolutely certified weirdo for sure.

Amazing. I mean, I think I was before, but now it’s official. Hooray, I can get my little like, yeah, we’ll get you a t shirt for sure. 

Yeah we’ll get you a t-shirt for sure um you know I think I was thinking about this um and I honestly would start with a conversation with the leadership team and a real conversation with the leadership team um in the sense of getting their buy-in and real buy-in not fake buy-in and real buy-in, not fake buy-in, and their support. Because I’ve seen time and time again with clients that I’ve worked with, where if the leader is really not on board with changes, especially kind of cultural changes or things that can impact the culture, it’s not going to trickle down to the employees or not in a way that’s as effective. You know, a lot of times I see leaders where they have this sort of like, do as I say, not as I do kind of vibe and it doesn’t work, you know?

So if I’m Alex, I want to make sure that if I’m going to put in a lot of effort to try and make some changes or like hire me and I put in the effort, um, that the leadership team is really, truly understanding that there might need to be some, or really do definitely do need to be some changes made to how things are done. Um, and are they willing to participate actively and be supportive and do the things that need to do that need to be done and then really kind of go from there yeah that would be my starting off okay I as you were talking it struck me that you know obviously they need to be leading by example and I think that’s something that we both have probably seen as, you know, it’s a lot easier to say you’re going to do something than to actually do it. Right.

So, I mean, you know, there’s tools in the toolbox. One of them is building a strong enough business case. What would you suggest to Alex in terms of like, where are we gathering information in order to solve this problem? So we can build the business case that’s so airtight that people can’t ignore it. Right.

Yeah. I mean, I think a bit of what you were saying was in the story piece of the absenteeism, the loss of productivity. You know, I think for me, so the next sort of researchy phase would be survey things like basically informal and formal talking to the staff. Right, so it could be surveys. So for example, like I have a sample wellness survey that I provide to my clients that they could use. And that’s more on the kind of more wellness side of things, sort of pulse check of where people are at. I think looking at the quantitative data that exists.

So in terms of like the absenteeism, in terms of sick days, in terms of any kind of leave that’s been taken, even in terms of, I know there’s sometimes ways to track, like how many meetings do people have, right? And like, are they spending, how many hours a week are people spending in meetings? Whether or not we’re judging that as productive time or not, that’s kind of a different piece, but just as a pure number. So there’s a lot of data that I would look at in order to sort of get a sense of where things are at. And then the qualitative side, which would be part of like the survey, really with how people are feeling, where, where they’re at.

 You know, I think doing some group discussions sometimes can be helpful, one-on-ones, that sort thing I think those are those are really good places to start and then really looking at what does it mean like what is the data saying and what is the impact right of the data in terms of are people heading down a track where they’re going to be taking a stress leave or quitting or you you know, even though even the productivity pieces is so important, especially, you know, for this company that’s growing, you know, they do sounds like they definitely need to be figuring out what’s going on with their lead generation and their sales pipeline. And, you know, we need people to be at their best, right?

 In order to be able to even just think strategically and creatively, right? Like if people are mentally zapped or even physically or emotionally zapped out, right? They’re not going to be on their A game. And even, you know, in terms of problem solving and coming up with good solutions.

So I think it’s really kind of looking at like the big picture of what’s happening in the company in terms of of employees their health their well-being their engagement all that kind of stuff um I definitely see the irony that Alex is talking about right that they’re an employee engagement company and they’re having employee engagement company, and they’re having or employee experience company, and they’re having issues with that.

Yeah.

But, you know, I think if, if they are that kind of a company, and they believe what their values are, then, you know, they should be able to turn things around. Yeah, yeah, you definitely hope for sure. Yeah. Yeah, do you, is it possible to like benchmark some of these data pieces against other, other companies like in the same space or in different spaces?

 Like, have you ever heard of that before? And how common would you say this kind of scenario is based on your experience?

Yeah. I mean, yes, there are some benchmarks. So the survey, for example, that I have, it’s not, I didn’t make it up. I got it from a very reputable source, have benchmarking data that you can compare your results to, which I think is great. So there’s, there’s quite a bit of stuff out there in terms of being able to, to gauge where people are at. stuff out there in terms of being able to to gauge where people are at um and 100% this is a very common problem I would say um this issue of burnout and overwork is certainly on a lot of people’s radar I’m getting a lot of people approaching me a lot of clients talking to me about it wanting to figure out how to solve this issue um you know there’s a lot of clients talking to me about it, wanting to figure out how to solve this issue. You know, there’s a lot of the phrase, a number of people have used with me is that they have to do more with less.

Yeah. I know that’s been a very common theme, at least so far in 2024, which is a challenge, right?

Because a lot of times times there aren’t necessarily a lot of massive things that can change um but at the same time I think that there are components and it’s also I think that a lot of times organizations don’t spend enough time thinking strategically and thinking about what are the pieces that are the most important for their business right in terms of what people are spending their time on and I think that’s where um which I know doesn’t sound like a wellness related thing but it absolutely is. Right. Um, and like urgency and priorities.

And I think I, I see it a lot, especially with the government clients that I work with where everything is portrayed as urgent and priority and you just get more urgent and priority items piled on a Right. A lot of times, if not.

No. Right. And so I think, I mean, maybe a little less in private sector, perhaps. But I think where that’s where sometimes there needs to be a bit of a reality check of like, you know, is this really? Or like, is this how we should be using our time? Like, for example, you know, with Alex and the case, I think a little bit into working with their company, I would want to like have a discussion with their sales team or business development team and basically be like, what are people spending? What has worked in the past? What is working now?

What are people spending their time on? I know for me, that’s something I’ve had to learn as a business owner, right? Of like, I’ve actually learned, I’m not the best at it yet. It’s always a work in progress, but like how to be focusing on the things that make the most impact for myself, for my business, from a financial standpoint.

 Right. And so for me, that’s where I think though, a lot of times people can get caught up in like, let’s call it the busy work. Yeah. Necessarily massively effective.

Yeah. I mean, I see that as well. I, when you were talking about, um, kind of like diversification, like everything’s important. I, I see that almost as like a response to fear. You know, I see that in a lot of leaders where they’re not willing to put their money on something. They’re not willing to like, you know, strategically bet on something. They want to try to do everything.

And I think this is a fear response. It’s like, we’re afraid that what we’re going to put our money on isn’t going to work out. So we’re just going to spread ourselves then and hope that something’s going to work. But guess what? Hoping and praying is not a strategy. right it’s not shocking yeah crazy yeah no I think that could could in a lot of instances that couldn’t very very well that um yeah I mean I think it’s I think it’s also and I know one of the things that we wanted to talk about was the idea of communication and, you know, I’ve seen it and, and I have less of this problem, but in a lot of workplaces, there’s just now an endless number of ways to be communicating with colleagues, right.

Whether it’s, I mean, barely the phone, but sometimes people should be using the phone, you know, email, Slack or Teams, chats, Slack or Teams or Zoom virtual meetings, um, other forms of instant messaging, text messaging. Uh, I don’t even, carrier pigeons, like, I don’t even know. There’s so many different ways and so many different channels. Um, and a couple of friends of mine even that I’ve talked to are like I literally can spend an hour of my day bopping back and forth between all the different channels and you’re literally not getting done no um you know a lot of times stuff like that is just again it sounds so simple of a problem but people don’t take the time to think about it how they just feel that overwhelm of like there’s so many ways of getting a hold of somebody plus not to mention the people who have their notifications on for all of the things oh yeah you know and it’s just there’s like pop-ups and dings and dongs and it’s like, it’s too much for the brain, you know, in people, it’s just, it’s just too much.

So, you know, even having conversations around what do our communications look like? How can we streamline the ways that we communicate with each other and, you know, try and reduce some of the volume or the noise, or at least make it more efficient or effective, right? So I think these are some things to consider as well. I can agree with you more.

You know, those team norms are so important. I don’t know, you know, in this case, we’d have no idea what the team norms are as a company. I think we can probably assume that, you know know if there’s an overwhelming sense of impending doom there’s probably some a sense of urgency right which we know can lead to some really you know toxic behaviors yeah uh and you know a lot of the time things just get derailed so it’s really about like who’s going to be the anchor in the storm who’s going to say like no this isn’t the way we do things here remember we yeah remember our team norms exactly well and I think too like a lot of times people push through um and and especially thinking about this company and how they’re probably overworking a lot.

 You know, they’ve got a lot going on. At a certain point, and it’s different for everybody, you’re just not as effective. No, it’s actually in your best interest to even just take a break. Even if you want to work a lot of hours take some breaks because you’re going to be way more productive when you step away I’ve had times where and I again I’m speaking like high from experience um right where there’s been moments where I’m literally in front of my computer and I’m just like bopping from this checking that checking my email checking whatever I’m really not productive it’s kind of tired and I need a nap but I’m like no no I’ll just I just gotta keep going and I’ve learned that it’s actually better for me when I’m getting this for whatever reason I may be sick I I might’ve had less of a sleep, whatever the case is.

If I’m tired, it may be for some people, they don’t need a nap. They just want to do some sort of other break. But for me, I can take a nap and then I get up and I’m just so much more refreshed and I’m so much faster and my brain is firing on all cylinders. And I’m so much faster and my brain is firing on all cylinders. And I think too often people don’t realize that that’s happening. Yeah. And it’s, again, though, that’s where the leading by example comes into play. And if you have a leadership team that is that sort of like, just go power through, just drink the coffee to stay alert and stay awake.

 That’s again, going to trickle down to, to the staff and see those kinds of behaviors. They’re going to see emails at all hours of the day and feel like that’s normal and also feel like that’s what’s expected you know yeah it’s tricky for sure but uh yeah I think and I always tell people I’m like prove me wrong like if you don’t believe me take those breaks and tell me that you weren’t you know more energized after for sure do you think it’s appropriate to ask your team members if they’re sleeping okay like just like out of like genuine um curiosity or concerned like is that like how how do you dance around that I mean I think it would have it would be less weird if you just didn’t do it like randomly um yeah. You look a little tired today. Yeah. What are you trying to say? We love to hear that.

No, exactly. In the sense of someone said it to me the other day, but I was tired. And I’m like, I also don’t have makeup on today. So, you know, but no, I mean, I think it’s a great question. And I think it, to me, it’s a great question. And I think it, to me, the answer would be yes. And a leader should be having just wellbeing conversations in general, right. Of how are you doing actually? And even, and I say this in my building stress resilience course often, but in a way that’s appropriate finding out a little bit more about people’s personal lives so that you can have a general sense like even just things to ask about but also just for you to know right that maybe that’s why they’re off or maybe that’s why they are behaving a certain way. Right. A lot of times people have things going on in their personal lives that can, as much as people like don’t want to bring that to work, like it can happen. We’re human, of course. And so, you know, having a conversation about like, are you getting enough sleep?

Are you, is your sleep a good quote like are you sleeping okay like not in like again not in a weirdo sense but just in an a caring sense and I think it’s where it’s normal is if having these conversations are habitual regular not and and genuine okay that that is that is a key piece where you have to actually as the leader really do care like it can’t just be like hey how you doing like are you sleeping okay and then they give you an answer and you don’t engage or who can tell actually care like it’s going to be so obvious yeah we know you know in our hearts if someone cares about us or not yeah exactly and so I think that’s where and and I will admit that it can be a lot as a leader to kind of have that on you um right but I mean I think it’s also though from the perspective of and this is also something I tell leaders is like your job is not ever to diagnose anybody your job is not ever to fix anybody it would be as or where appropriate to support in a way that makes sense right and so you know you have a conversation about sleep for example and maybe the answer is no I’m not and then maybe like okay well is again it depends on the relationship but you could be like is there is there like is the reason something related to work for example is it because you’re working till midnight or is it a more personal related thing? Or for some people it could be, um, you know, if I have a menopause workshop that I’m preparing for, right. It could be a woman who is in perimenopause.

And so she’s not sleeping as great because she’s sweating in the night or having cold flashes or whatever. Right. So there’s different reasons why that aren’t necessarily work related. But I would say, you know, the leader’s role would then be to provide some support or direct to other resources that are available to that employee so whether it’s something through the benefits or something else right so again it’s it’s just being I always kind of refer to it as just like being human um in that case um as opposed to being like the fixer because that’s not the job right it’s just your job is to be a caring human to a person who happens to be a report to you. Yeah. So, yeah, I think I think those I think those kinds of conversations are absolutely needed and helpful and can really, you know, benefit everybody right and also for the leader too to maybe even see trends right if they’re talking to their staff and having these conversations you know like in Alex’s company’s case for example like there could be some some things that some of the leaders are seeing that are trends within the organization right because it kind of depends on lots of things, like the demographics of the employees and all that kind of stuff and what other things they might be dealing with. But yeah, I always encourage conversation of all different shapes and forms.

For sure. And then like once you’ve had the conversation, if you’re getting honest feedback, accepting it, right? Because self-awareness, like how do we change anything if we’re not aware and self-aware of what the issues are or if we’re you know if we’re distancing ourselves and the responsibility for them a really good practice for leaders for example regarding we were talking about priorities and urgencies and stuff like that a really great practice is for you as a leader to be obvious about those things when you’re sending off requests to staff, especially if you’re sending things at a time that isn’t like a typical work hour.

Yeah.

So one of the, one of the really great practice for leaders is for them to, uh, set out the expectations. So for example, if I’m sending an email with a, like, Hey, Aaron, I need this info from you. Instead of just leaving it at that, right. Um, you know, maybe saying I need it by x date or if it’s super urgent or like say like oh i i really need this by like 2 p.m today super sorry i just got this last minute request blah blah for the cases right but being um more clear about when you need things especially if you’re asking somebody to do something for you either to get information or to do a task giving some sort of a deadline or a sense of the level of urgency or priority that this could be is really helpful yeah not that complicated no it doesn’t take very long. And it’s free also. Right.

We like free.

And it just can help with clarity. It can help with that expectations, the priority management, even overwhelm in terms of like being given a lot of things, but no being able then to know, okay, this is, I need to do this by this date. And then that also gives someone autonomy to have some more flexibility in how they’re structuring their own time as opposed to just constantly being in reaction mode to somebody else right yeah you know and that’s a really important you know important part of burnout right so?

So, you know, feeling like you have little or little or no control is one of the factors for burnout. You know, lack of clarity. These are other factors being under being unappreciated, and, you know, not recognized, these are some other factors. And these are some some things that I mean, I feel like I’m a very common sense person. I feel like, you know, can be fairly simple, and not super time consuming to help with at least to make better, right and improve. Yeah. So when this came up in the discussion, somebody and a leader that I know said that this was a practice that she did. One of like she kind of works sometimes late in the evenings. And so she would batch send emails, but she would be really clear about when she wanted stuff by.

 And I just was like, that’s so great. Right. Like, so she’s doing work at a time that makes sense for her. Awesome. Love that for her. Um, but she’s also then helping to reduce, you know, overwhelmed from her report, getting like a flurry of emails all of a sudden, um, you know, and not being like, Oh crap. And the instinct to do things right away when you’re asked is real for a lot of people. Absolutely. If you’re like, I feel even for me, like if someone asks me something, absolutely. Unless told otherwise my instinct is like, Oh, they probably want this now.

Right.

And that’s why they’re asking me.

Yeah.

 Um, and a lot of times, like, like even for me as a leader, like I’m just thinking of things all the time and so I might send off a thought because it’s in my brain now and I know if I don’t send it is I’ll get on for sure right yeah I think I think you know what I’m where. Yeah. So for me, I’ve adopted and I’m trying to adopt this practice of being more clear about like, this is urgent, or you can do this on Tuesday or, you know, to work on later, you know, that sort of thing. And again, it’s just, it’s a, it’s a different way of communicating that may take a little bit of time and practice to adopt, but it definitely can alleviate a lot of issues.

 I feel like for sure. When you mentioned like one of the key elements of burnout is a lack of control. I totally get that. I feel like the only times I’ve myself flirted with burnout is when I’ve been very frustrated, you know, and it feels like you’re banging your head against the wall and there’s nothing you can do about it. You feel like there’s nothing you can do about it.

Yeah.

 Like what other tools in the toolbox, just really quickly, because I know we’ve got to kind of wrap up, but what, what kind of, what other tools in the toolbox would you recommend for organizations that are trying to combat this issue?

Oh gosh. Yeah. Great question. No, no, it’s all good. How much time do we have? No, I’m kidding. Yeah, no, I mean, I think, you know, a lot, Oh, another thing that we didn’t talk about, but that’s, that’s again, for me, I’m also about like simple, effective solutions that can have an impact immediately. There’s a lot of things that will take time and there’s some things that can be impactful quickly. Another one, meetings. Again, super common sense, but do we have an established meeting hygiene kind of guidelines, right?

In the sense of, you know, meetings are by default 25 minutes or 50 minutes. So we can have breaks in between. minutes or 50 minutes so we can have breaks in between um you know we always have an agenda or at least a sense of what the meeting is about someone is leading the meeting um and keeping it on track right we have some action item follow-ups like somebody’s been taking notes or something like that um Ideally, really honestly, things are sent in advance. So we’re not wasting time reviewing stuff that people could have or should have reviewed at another time. Right. So even stuff like that.

And really, I love what Shopify did at the beginning of the year where they basically scratched everybody’s meetings and blew it up. Yeah i love it they burned it down deleted all the meetings for those who don’t know they erased everybody’s meetings on their calendars and we’re like okay now you have to really think about what meetings are actually important yeah i mean not just the ones that are habitual, you know, but again, like so many people I talk to just live in meetings and that that’s, that’s a, there’s so many reasons why, but again, having those conversations, thinking about how we can, how we can do this better.

 You know, I, another thing that I’m a big fan of is it, I mean, we were talking about the absenteeism and the sick days and stuff like that, but also like, so sometimes if it’s too much, obviously that’s a sign of a problem, but looking at it also from a sense of like giving people a day off in the sense of like it’s not called a sick day it’s just a day off for whatever reason and again I feel like that number one means you don’t have to justify why you’re taking this time off we’re all adults like we really should be trusted um and it also allows people a proactive approach to their health and i think that that’s also i mean we could that’s a whole other conversation about um proactive health care but you know having a normalized day off policy where people can take a day off because like either for mental health or just because they’re a little fatigued and just need a mental rest day like just from like too much thinking mental rest right yeah you know and and having be okay.

 And having that not be a thing where you have to explain that. Right. I think having like, so from like a policy perspective, I think there’s again, a little, a little shifts and changes that companies can do that can have a good impact. I was chatting with somebody else the other day who was saying that they an employee of theirs had requested time off and and they were like oh yeah I know it’s because I wanted blah blah blah and the leader was like I don’t care like not that they don’t care but like they don’t care right like it’s fine you need the day sounds like me I don’t care you don’t like we have like a no reasons policy basically I don’t need to know any reasons you need the hour you need the day and and I think you know again that’s also goes back to that sort of empowering piece right where where we’re treating people with respect we’re treating them like um they are a grown adult and I and I think for people who say, well, like the what ifs or what abouts, the people who are not going to be doing a good job, it’s going to be obvious regardless.

Yeah. Do you have these great policies or not? It’s going to be clear. And so as long as you know what they’re supposed to be doing and they’re not meeting their goals. They’re not doing it. Exactly. Yeah. So I think there’s, but there’s, I think there’s just a lot of lingering old practices of very like heavy handedness that I think hopefully are kind of being dismantled. If we could say fingers crossed, but I don’t think they will be if we keep with the throwing the spaghetti at the wall strategy, you know, I think that’s really a limiting factor in seeing this transformation go through.

Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, I, I’m, I know we have to wrap up, but I’m something to leave our conversation on maybe for a discussion for the future, or maybe even another person who has more expertise on this. But what I’m super interested in is the changes that are going to happen because of the new generation of workers that are coming into the workforce and how they’ve grown up. Now there’s lots of issues. A lot of them have more higher anxiety, more mental health challenges, but they also are less bought into this concept of like work is life. Yeah. I will do anything and all things for my job. And compared to the older generation.

Right.

So I think that’s going to be a super fascinating thing to look at in terms of how things shift and change. And, you know, I think pendulums have been swinging one way and the other, and, you know, we’ve got to find kind of the good space, maybe a little more of a less extreme option in terms of new things. But I think it’s definitely, there’s, there’s changes coming. I believe it. I’m raising three of them so yeah and I think there’s three gen Z’s I see it as positive and I think like companies better get with the program or they’re gonna miss out and they’re gonna have you know labor shortages and challenges which then cause compounding issues within their companies. S

Oh yeah, the world is not getting any easier.

No, but yeah, I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s again, I think there’s, there’s a lot of solutions that, that can work. And for me, again, if I can, I can just go back to the idea that a lot of it is related to culture and related to how you’re operating as a business as a company as a team what the leadership is like and and really taking an approach that prioritizes people’s well-being I think really that’s just so important and it’s it’s the way of the future right everything every decision from the lens of well-being yes absolutely yeah like and it’s just again it does go back to the productivity as well right where it’s there’s such a strong link there and in terms of like high performance and all that kind of stuff and yeah so I think it’s it’s for for leaders to acknowledge agree and then take the steps that need to be taken within their companies to make the changes so that they can see these things happen and they can have success and everybody wins right when I think when everybody is operating at their best everybody wins the company wins people win it’s it’s a win-win-win situation so winning all around exactly yeah for sure and the good news is we’re still not we’re not jaded yet um we don’t do believe this is possible and even likely I think yeah I mean I have a realistic mindset but I do I am heartened by the people and the companies that are making the changes so I just sort of like wait for the others to catch up and I just focus on yeah because it can be it can be very depressing to think about all the problems, but I focus on the people that are doing the good work and hoping that’s going to just trickle and people will see and notice and it will expand from there.

Definitely.

Thank you so much for coming to the show.

Of course. It’s been a pleasure.

Yeah. Lady lady so great to chat with you really appreciate you you know coming on and talking about these deep issues and all this sort of great yeah we weirdos we like our deep issues we go deep

Yeah.

Don’t forget to stay weird stay wonderful and don’t stay out of trouble\