Podcasts about friday pulse

Welcome to another insightful episode of Marketing Versus the World! This week, host Abbie Dando sits down with Jaye Cowle, the founder of Launch Online, a dynamic paid search agency. Together, they dive into the debate on branded versus non-branded search and explore Jaye's proven formula for happiness at work. Tune in to discover expert strategies, industry insights, and actionable tips to elevate both your marketing efforts and workplace satisfaction.In this episode, Abbie and Jaye discuss:Jaye's JourneyFounder of Launch Online, a leading paid search agency.Career transition from in-house marketing to founding her own agency.The mission of Launch Online and its focus on happiness and performance.Branded vs Non-Branded Search Debate:Understanding the BalanceThe ongoing debate on the effectiveness of branded versus non-branded search.How to determine the right balance for your business.The importance of a unified approach to customer journey optimisation.Customer-Centric MarketingThe shift from siloed tactics to a customer-first approach.Unified commerce and its impact on marketing strategies.How to create a cohesive brand narrative across all channels.Google Search Generative ExperienceThe impact of Google's evolving search landscape on paid and organic strategies.Adapting to changes and focusing on customer needs.The role of AI and machine learning in modern advertising.Proven Formula for Happiness at Work:The Journey to Happiness:Jaye's personal motivation for placing happiness at the core of Launch Online.The challenges and rewards of creating a happy workplace.The importance of psychological safety and transparency in the workplace.Actionable Tips for Happiness:Building trust and psychological safety among employees.The role of leadership in fostering a positive work environment.Implementing employee engagement tools like Friday Pulse to monitor and improve happiness.Key Takeaways From This Episode:Customer-Centric Marketing: Keep your customer at the heart of all decisions to drive revenue and growth.Balanced Search Strategy: Combine branded and non-branded search tactics to maximise visibility and customer acquisition.Happiness at Work: Focus on creating a transparent, trusting, and engaging workplace to boost employee satisfaction and performance.Adapt to Change: Stay flexible and responsive to industry changes, particularly with advancements in AI and search technology.What you'll get from this episode:Jaye Cowle shares invaluable insights into creating effective search strategies and fostering a happy work environment. You'll learn how to balance branded and non-branded search efforts, improve customer satisfaction, and implement practical steps to enhance workplace happiness. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to optimise their marketing approach and cultivate a positive company culture.Marketing Vs The World is produced and managed by Urban Podcasts.

In this HRchat episode, we consider what it takes to achieve happiness at work. Tune in as we also share ways to better measure employee engagement. Our guest this time is Nic Marks, CEO and Founder of Friday Pulse. Nic was once described as a “Statistician with a Soul” because of his unusual combination of ‘hard' statistical skills and ‘soft' people skills, he draws on scientific evidence to show that everyone benefits when businesses take happiness seriously.In 2018, Nic founded Friday Pulse an innovative tech business based in London to be the catalyst in changing the world of work for the better.Nic was recently a speaker at Disrupt London 19.0. Check out the latest London chapter 5-minute lightning talks here. Questions for Nic include:What does happiness at work mean to you?How did you get into measuring happiness? Can one measure happiness?Can employees 'game' a happiness test? After all, many employees wouldn't want low engagement scores.What incentivizes employees and does that differ between generations/industries? Why does happiness at work matter?What are the big drivers of team happiness?If teams are happy, will they get complacent? Won't they just slack off?You have a free happiness at work test at fridayone.com. Tell me moreMore About NicNic has been an advisor to the UK Government Office for Science on the Wellbeing Foresight Programme and has written over 20 publications. In 2010 Nic was invited to speak at the prestigious TED global conference. His TED talk has now been watched well over two million times, and he authored one of the original three TEDbooks, entitled ‘A Happiness Manifesto'. Nic was named as one of the Top Ten Original Thinkers by the UK's Institute of Directors magazine and his work was listed as one of Forbes Magazine's Seven Most Powerful Ideas in 2011.Nic founded Friday Pulse in 2018 - a weekly science-led pulse that provides leaders with actionable data on their teams' happiness, and is currently writing a book on why happiness is a serious business.Feature Your Brand on the HRchat PodcastThe HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score. Want to share the story of how your business is helping to shape the world of work? We offer sponsored episodes, audio adverts, email campaigns, and a host of other options. Check out packages here. Follow us on LinkedIn Subscribe to our newsletter Check out our in-person events

 In this episode, I'm honored to have Nic Marks, a renowned statistician, happiness expert, and the founder of Friday Pulse, as my guest. Nic Marks is celebrated for his innovative approach to measuring happiness and well-being, particularly in the workplace. His work has revolutionized how organizations think about employee satisfaction and productivity. In our conversation, we delve into Nic's journey and explore his groundbreaking methods for assessing happiness. We discuss how organizations can foster a positive work environment and the impact this has on overall business success. Nic shares his insights on the five ways to well-being and how individuals can apply these principles in their daily lives. We also touch upon the challenges of maintaining personal happiness in today's fast-paced world and how to find balance amidst the chaos. Join us for an enlightening discussion with Nic Marks, where you will learn: - The importance of happiness and well-being in the workplace. - Innovative methods for measuring and improving employee satisfaction. - Practical advice on applying the five ways to well-being in your daily life. - Strategies for maintaining personal happiness in a demanding world. - Insights into creating a positive and productive work environment. Discover more about Nic Marks' work and his contributions to the field of happiness research: https://nicmarks.org/

Ever wondered how to create a culture of happiness within your organization? Nic Marks, reveals his unique approach to fostering employee well-being leveraging the science of emotions.Nic is the founder and CEO of Friday Pulse, an organization focusing on changing the world of work. He has been featured in publications including the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Wired UK, and The Huffington Post.In our conversation, we talk about:

The happiness and wellbeing of team members is critical to the success of any organization. But many leaders struggle to know how to measure wellbeing in ways that provide insights and inspire change. In the third episode of the Better Being Series, host and Aon's Chief Wellbeing Officer, Rachel Fellowes, is joined by Nic Marks, The Happiness Expert, CEO and founder of Friday Pulse, for a conversation about happiness data and why measuring wellbeing in organizations is a critical first step to improving it. [2:20] The genesis of Nic's interest in happiness and wellbeing. [5:00] The desire to achieve happiness is a global one. [7:17] Key distinctions between individual and collective happiness. [9:28] Metrics that provide insights into individual and group happiness and wellbeing. [13:01] The expected ROI on team happiness and success. [14:53] Advice for leaders who want to increase their team's happiness. [20:40] Nic reveals his vision for a future filled with happiness. [23:26] Advice for leaders who are seeking increased wellbeing for their team.Additional Resources:Aon's websiteAon's Human Sustainability Index (HSI)Rachel Fellowes on LinkedInOn Aon's Better Being Series – Part 1: Human Sustainability with Rachel Fellowes and Lisa StevensOn Aon's Better Being Series - Part 2: Physical Wellbeing and Resilience with Rachel Fellowes and Daniel ScottAdditional resources from Nic Marks:LinkedInFriday PulseFriday OneNic Marks' WebsiteThe Happy Planet IndexThe Happy Planet Ted TalkTweetables:“We are born into this world designed for relationships.” — Nic Marks“Great teams are both happy and successful.” — Nic Marks“Bringing together a team to work on a common goal and project is really important. The human side of it is really important.” — Nic Marks“If you measure weekly team happiness, you've got a metric you can talk about every week.” — Nic Marks“Ironically, happiness is more engaging than engagement because it's more appealing to people.” — Nic Marks“Value is not only financial, it's about the wellbeing of the population of the people and the planet and future generations.” — Nic Marks

Are you ready to unlock the secret to building a thriving business?   In this episode of the Happy Hustle Podcast, I chat with Nic Marks, a Happiness Expert, CEO & Founder of Friday Pulse. Nic talk about why happiness matters and reveals the key drivers of happiness at work. Nic has captured the hearts and minds of millions with his inspiring TED talk, watched by well over a million people worldwide. He has been hailed as a "Statistician with a Soul," combining his expertise in hard statistics with his deep understanding of people. Nic draws upon scientific evidence to showcase the incredible benefits that arise when businesses prioritize happiness. He founded Friday Pulse an innovative tech business based in London to be the catalyst in changing the world of work for the better.   During our conversation, Nic and I explore the seven successes of happy teams and provide actionable insights on how to build a happy team. From staff retention and talent attraction to increased productivity, resilience, creativity, collaboration, and overall business value, Nic's expertise sheds light on the incredible impact that happiness can have on your organization.   If you're curious to assess your own happiness at work, I encourage you to visit https://fridayone.com and gauge your happiness levels. O Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain valuable insights from a true happiness pioneer.   Connect with Cary!https://www.instagram.com/cary__jack/https://www.facebook.com/SirCaryJackhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/cary-jack-kendzior/https://twitter.com/thehappyhustlehttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFDNsD59tLxv2JfEuSsNMOQ/featured  Get a free copy of his new book,  The Happy Hustle, 10 Alignments to Avoid Burnout & Achieve Blissful Balance https://www.thehappyhustlebook.com/  Sign up for The Journey: 10 Days To Become a Happy Hustler Online Course http://www.thehappyhustle.com/JourneyApply to the Montana Mastermind Epic Camping Adventure https://caryjack.com/montana “It's time to Happy Hustle, a blissfully balanced life you love, full of passion, purpose, and positive impact!” Episode Sponsor Did you know that 4 out of 5 Americans are magnesium deficient?  And almost everyone is at suboptimal levels. And that's a big problem because magnesium is involved in more than 600 biochemical reactions in our body. Now here's what most people DON'T know: taking just any magnesium supplement won't solve your problem because most supplements use the cheapest kinds that your body can't use or absorb. That's why I exclusively recommend Magnesium Breakthrough. It's the only full-spectrum magnesium supplement with 7 unique forms of magnesium that your body can actually use and absorb. When you get all 7 critical forms of magnesium, pretty much every function in your body gets upgraded... from your brain... to your sleep... pain, and inflammation...and less stress. BiOptimizers only offers this discount once a year, so don't miss out. Just go to www.bioptimizers.com/happy and enter code happy10 to get 10% off any order.   I assure you that all BiOptimizers supplements are best in class. If for some reason you feel differently, you can get a full refund, no questions asked. They are so confident that they offer a 365-day money-back guarantee! 

Listen to the Friday Pulse team talk about the Contactless Donation Points being installed in Nottingham. 

Nic Marks's TED talk on the Happy Planet Index has been viewed millions of times. He studied maths at Cambridge, is a trained therapist and statistician and was a member of the Think Tank (New Economics Foundation) working on wellbeing that became hugely successful and influential at Governmental level. A happy team is a successful team. Happiness is ill defined and therefore can be thought of at three different levels. ‘I feel happy' which is an emotion, ‘I am happy with…' which is a cognitive judgement and ‘I am a happy person' which is a personal trait. Happiness is not a state to reach and maintain, it is a wave function where we go up and down; in and out of happiness. When we are happy, we should carry on, when not happy we need to make a change. Happiness all the time would actually be dysfunctional. Happiness is a very social emotion. We are 30% more likely to laugh in the presence of another person. This is all about generosity and giving, our ability to have multiple relationships which require the investment of time. “Are you happy at work?' is a simple question relevant and east to answer from the CEO to the newest intern (from shop floor to the top floor)KPI's are usually a lagging indicator, so leaders need to consider focusing on leading indicators such as a weekly ‘happiness' check in for teams. Happy individuals deliver better quality and quantity of work and creativity is heavily linked to positivity.We can't separate our home and work life as regards happiness, organisations are full of human beings who need care, empathy and understanding to allow all to feel valued and deliver value. This episode is packed full of top tips and strategies for any leader to start to make happiness a KPI in their organisations. To check out your own happiness at work see: www.fridayone.comTo learn more about Friday Pulse: www.fridaypulse.comRead more about Nic and his work: www.nicmarks.org and www.happyplanetindex.org 

Special Guest: Nic Marks: Happiness Expert, TED Speaker and Founder of Friday Pulse Introducing *Nic Marks*, statistician, author, TED speaker and founder of Friday Pulse. Nic specializes in using the science of wellbeing to help individuals, businesses, and governments to track happiness. Nic is a unique statistician with an unusual specialty – happiness. He has been working to create measures of people's quality of life for the past three decades, with an emphasis on their emotional experience and happiness. Nic trained as a statistician, studying Mathematics, Economics and Management Studies at Cambridge University, and then completing his MSc at the University of Lancaster. Since then, he has been on a mission to measure wellbeing and create lasting, positive change. Most companies are great at measuring and tracking financial KPIs. Some have good process orientated KPIs. But very few have good people KPIs. They tend to either be snapshots in time – like an annual engagement survey. Or what can be called “lagging indicators” that only measure what has happened – like staff turnover. How would it be if you knew how every team was feeling every week? Team happiness is the best people metric to track. It predicts retention, productivity and innovation. Learn more about organisations that have been tracking happiness through the pandemic and how they weathered the waves of Covid better than most in the UK. Join us as we discuss how team happiness predicts retention, productivity and innovation. Listen Live (Archive Available) Host: Jo Dodds

Nic Marks was once described as a "statistician with a soul" due to his unusual combination of 'hard' statistical skills and 'soft' people skills. He has been working in the field of happiness, wellbeing, and quality of life for over 25 years with a particular emphasis on measurement and how to create positive change. He is the founder of Friday Pulse and has worked with over 1,000 organizations and teams measuring and improving their happiness at work. In 2008, Nic and his colleagues created the Five Ways to Wellbeing for the UK Government Office of Science. They were designed to be the mental health equivalent of five fruit and vegetables a day. They have since been used very widely in the UK and globally as a framework for promoting positive mental health. In 2010, he gave a TED talk on his work in public policy, which has now been watched over 2 million times. Nic has been applying his creative thinking to the world of work since 2012. He is the founder of Friday Pulse and has worked with over 1,000 organizations and teams measuring and improving their happiness at work. Social Media Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksnic/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/fridaymatters/ https://www.facebook.com/fridaypulse/ https://fridaypulse.com/ https://nicmarks.org/

My guest today is Nic Marks. Nic is one of the world's leading experts on happiness and the founder of Friday Pulse, a tool to help organizations find out how happy their people are at work. Nic also created the Happy Planet Index to show which countries have the happiest people, and he spent years thinking about how to be happy and the relationship between happiness and success.So in this episode, we talk about how to be happy. Nic talks about his mentor, a Chilean economist who changed his life, his five ways to wellbeing and much more. Nic starts off by explaining what Friday Pulse is for:And so I'm a statistician by trade. So I'm looking to create a measure that is useful for organisations and basically, our measure is happy weeks, which is “have people had a good week?”. That builds up into a metric for an organisation that allows them to track how every team, how the whole organisation is and it's very, very responsive. I mean, most organizations don't have a responsive people metric. Most of their people metrics are quite lagging. So they would obviously look at things like retention and things like that, they might look at engagement and tend to do that in a once a year survey, maybe once a quarter. I want to create something very at the moment......So by measuring it weekly, you start to get into that it's very fluid and that's what I really like about it. And, we create useful data for team leaders and organizations to understand their happiness and their organization.✔ Links: Nic Marks:https://nicmarks.org/Nic Marks on Twitter:https://twitter.com/iamnicmarksNic Marks on TED Talk:https://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_indexFriday Pulse:https://fridaypulse.com/?__cf_chl_captcha_tk__=pmd_dtjkDJiY_9ZitGC0Z7d4mEl0paXU.DmSXB.ozjsQWD4-1634373516-0-gqNtZGzNAyWjcnBszQpRHappy Planet Index:http://happyplanetindex.org/Subscribe to Graham's Newsletter: https://www.grahamallcott.com/sign-upOur Show Sponsors: Think Productive - Time Management Training:http://www.thinkproductive.com​​Useful links:https://www.grahamallcott.com/links See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today I connected with Nic Marks, statistician/founder of "Friday Pulse"/author, about measuring quality of life as it relates to our teams and company culture. We touch on key points such as: ·       Types of unhappiness ·       What we measure tends to improve-What we measure matters ·       Balancing the negativity/positivity balance ·       Sitting with discomfort to help employees feel heard ·       How to hit the sweet spot of surveys (creating surveys that work) ·      Creating a team meeting "meal box" for your company ·       Some of the challenges within neuroscience of categorizing emotions ·     The importance of embracing all emotions as valuable data ·       How our hunger to create meaning out of life relates to happiness

Join us in this BREWtiful day as Jon and Nic Marks, CEO, and Founder of Friday Pulse talks about why do we need to measure happiness at work weekly. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/  Website: https://jondwoskin.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/  Email: jon@jondwoskin.com  Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big!

Join us in this BREWtiful day as Jon and Nic Marks, CEO, and Founder of Friday Pulse talks about stats and how he measures happiness. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/  Website: https://jondwoskin.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/  Email: jon@jondwoskin.com  Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big!

Join us in this BREWtiful day as Jon and Nic Marks, CEO, and Founder of Friday Pulse talks about how he measures happiness through adjustment periods. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/  Website: https://jondwoskin.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/  Email: jon@jondwoskin.com  Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big!

Join us in this BREWtiful day as Jon and Nic Marks, CEO of Friday Pulse, talks about how to measure happiness in the workplace. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/  Website: https://jondwoskin.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/  Email: jon@jondwoskin.com  Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big!

Dr Alise Cortez is the Chief Ignition Officer at Gusto, Now! A management consultant who ignites passion and purpose. She's the author of the book Purpose Ignited and the host of her weekly radio show; Working on Purpose Radio. In this show you can learn about: How Alise found her purpose and how she ignites others Why in finding our true passion, it will help us contribute to the world How conscious capitalism is full of purpose The steps and stages to ignite our passion Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services Find out more about Alise below: Alise on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisecortez/ Gusto Now Website: https://www.gusto-now.com Alise Website: https://alisecortez.com Alise on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alisecortez Alise on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alisecortez/   Full Transcript Below: ----more----   Dr. Alise Cortez is a special guest on today's show. She's a management consultant, radio show host and Organizational Logotherapist. But before we get a chance to speak with Alise, it's The Leadership Hacker News. The Leadership Hacker News Steve Rush: We've recently had International Friendship Day. So, in the show today, we explored the notion around should leaders be friends with their coworkers and teammates. So can you be properly friends with somebody you work with? While some will say yes and others will say no, yet there's plenty of research to suggest that generally speaking, we highly value workplace friendships and having these friendships positively impacts on the work that we do and our approach to our jobs. A study of thousands of employees by UK based team building company, Wildgoose found that more than half. In fact, it's 57% of workers said that having a work best friend made their work more enjoyable while 22% argue, it makes them as or more productive. What's more, it seems that many workers who don't have strong relationships in the workplace may be struggling with things like loneliness, since 15% of those who were surveyed don't have a work best friend, but would ideally like one. All of us appreciate having good friends in our lives says Nic Marks, happiness expert, statistician and CEO of the Friday Pulse. Nick's also a good friend and was the guest on show 18, hacking happiness. Nic said, it's good to have people whom care about us and who care for us. Why should work be any different? Especially when we consider how rational the world of work is. Nic explains, we have a thick core relationship within our team, as well as a thinner, more peripheral relationship with other colleagues and customers and suppliers. The quality of these relationships is not only affects our own experience at work, but work is indisputably better when we get along with people, it's also business critical, but workplace friendships remain a controversial topic for a number of reasons, not least because they're associated with the formation of cliques and friendships can also be potentially undermining effectiveness of teams. Some of the worst performing teams, I know are great friends, but they can't get anything done said Pam Hilton, a collaboration expert and author of Supercharged Teams - 30 Tools of Great Teamwork. Collective intelligence research tells us that teams who avoid constructive conflict in favor of consensus make fewer successful decisions because they don't challenge each other enough. Hamilton believes that while it's easy to assume that friendship is the first step towards team ship, it's really the other way around. We need to come to work to achieve something, whether it's to launch a new product or to serve our customers and putting friendship before team ship means that we might launch an inferior product because we don't want to hurt someone's feelings or to forget to serve our customers because we're too busy having a good time. So regardless of whether leaders promote or frown upon workplace friendships, they'll continue to exist. Humans are hardwired to form connections with others, and we're likely to form especially strong bonds with those that we have something in common with. Inevitably, we're likely to find more of those people at work. So, the leadership lesson here is awareness. If we're aware of friendships that are productive and helping us as a business move forward, we should encourage and promote it. But where we recognize their clique and holding back performance of productivity, we should challenge it. That's been The Leadership Hacker News. We're looking forward to hearing from you, interesting stories and any insights that you might have. So please get in touch. Start of Podcast Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is Dr. Alise Cortez. She is the Chief Ignition Officer at Gusto Now. A management consultant who ignites the passion and purpose in her clients. She's the author of the book, Purpose Ignited and the host of a weekly radio show Working on Purpose. Alise, welcome to the show, my friend. Alise Cortez: Thank you so much for having me, Steve. It's so great to be on your show. Steve Rush: It's great to have you on our show too. And we've had the opportunity to have met a few times over the last year or so. Really looking forward to getting into the whole principle of purpose and passion. But before we do that, maybe just for the folks that are listening for the first time and haven't met yet, be great to give us a little bit of a backstory as to your early life and passions. Alise Cortez: Well, I grew up in a small town in Oregon and literally it was a great place to grow up Steve, but honestly, I couldn't get out of there fast enough. And in my late teens, I found myself in Portland and then finally found my way into college at about age 24 after bottling around for a bit and made myself a promise when I got into college, Steve, and that was, I needed to learn French and play the piano. So, I did those things going through my first two years of college. And then I found myself with my boyfriend. And when I was 26 years old, he got moved to Madrid, Spain for his company. And I came with him. I was just a college student. I didn't have a career. And so now here I am, mind you, small town girl from Oregon. I've landed in Madrid, Spain. I can speak French. And I learned some Spanish in the restaurant I worked at when I was waiting tables to get through college so I could speak the Spanish. And so, I'm going to Madrid and I'm like, oh my gosh, this place is amazing. Everybody is kissing, there's amazing communication. So, I went all over Western Europe on my French and my Spanish for about six months. And then they moved us to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where then learned Portuguese and went all over South America for two years. And so, Steve, I just couldn't get that out of my system, right. Steve Rush: Right. Alise Cortez: Once that had been imprinted for like almost three years, there was no going back. So that's where the passion for language and travel started. Steve Rush: And you still have that passion for language and travel now. Alise Cortez: Absolutely, I do in fact, I still use Spanish. I do Spanish programs and I do some Portuguese programs and yes, I keep traveling, absolutely. Steve Rush: What do you think it is that creates that Alise in you? Where does that come from? Alise Cortez: Yeah, good question. So, you know, I remember distinctly when I was growing up in school, my parents had a big restaurant. Breakfast, lunch and dinner place. And I worked there when I was in high school and waited tables. I was the oldest of four siblings and my parents expected, being the oldest that I would take over the restaurant, but what they didn't know, Steve was that all those years that I was waiting tables in the small little town with 4,800 people. And it was that people from really exotic places like Portland, Oregon would pass through and I would learn from them and hear about these outside world experiences. And I just was drawn to what what's out there. What could there be? Steve Rush: You got a really curious mindset as well, haven't you? Which I suspect is why you've ended up doing what you're doing now. Tell us a little bit about how that epiphany came about? Alise Cortez: I do have a curious mindset. I'm learning that more and more as I go through life. You know, I have to say, one of the paths to purpose I should say, Steve is paying attention to and learning from what's ailed us in life. And so, you would think that amazing experiences that I had living in Spain and Brazil, where incredibly phenomenally positive, and they were, but at the same time here I was 26 years old living in Brazil. I had a maid, chauffeur and a gardener. I had the world by the tail, you would think, but there was just one problem. And I problem was that I was miserable in many ways, because what I really wanted to do was to matter. I wanted to make a difference in the world somehow. And all I was doing was consuming a beautiful life. And what we know about meaning and purposes is, when you're serving other people, that's when you're most fulfilled. So actually, had a meaning crisis back in my mid-twenties. And then later on in my early thirties, when I came back to the states, it manifested into what I would call a sort of an early midlife crisis. And so that my friend is when I found my way into getting a PhD. I didn't have an affair, buy a sports car, no. My answer to a midlife crisis was to get my PhD. So that defining rod that I like to say was working its magic. And then just literally over time, I just kept paying attention to, trying to literally, you know, feel my way to what that dividing rod was trying to tell me to do. And that's when I found my way into the human capital industry, some 20 years ago. I began studying meaning and work and identity for my research and PhD, consultant along, engagement performance, leadership, et cetera. And then I have to say, I found myself just this incredible internal force of, you know, replicate that research, at least make it bigger and make it deeper. And I did that in 2014 and I got published by going to a business conference there. And of course, I was in India. So, I have three weeks in India. And I had that experience, right? The experience people talk about going to India, totally stepped into my soul and really realized this is where I need to be. I need to be doing this meaningful purpose stuff really more on a full-time basis. And lo and behold, Steve, right around in there is when VoiceAmerica called me and said, hey, do you want to host your own radio show? Oh my God, this is all connected, right? So that's were working with purpose radio was born. And that's really how it all started for me Steve. It was this ongoing, unfolding, unveiling of like literally my soul emerging from myself, I would say Steve Rush: The one thing I noticed about you Alise is, I still don't think you found the end game for you. I know from our conversations that we've had together, that, you know, every day is a school day for you and you're continually learning and continually evolving your thinking and continue looking for new ways to ignite not only other's purpose, but also finding new elements of purpose for you. Alise Cortez: Oh my gosh, thank you for seeing that. I agree with you. And it's so amazing to be seen like that Steve, thank you for that beautiful gift. Yeah, every day is a learning day for me. And I can't wait to see what's around the corner. I have no idea what I'm doing next in terms of how I use this meaning and purpose work in my life and for my clients, but I love it. Steve Rush: Yeah, and we'll come back to mindset, which I think determines whether you see things as really exciting and alluring versus scary and doubtful. We'll come back to that in a moment because I want to kind of get into the premise of when you started to do your studies, you bumped into the notion of logotherapy, and that really was quite an inspirational guide for you, wasn't it? In terms of how you evolved and developed your own thinking? Alise Cortez: Yeah, you know, I really ran into when I started my PhD studies in my early thirties. And of course, you know, here I was doing a PhD in Human Development. So, I was studying Lifespan Human Development Psychology. Of course, I ran into Viktor Frankl work, he's written like 22 books or something, but logotherapy became really sort of a way of life if you will, for me. And what I was drawn to is that it's really a therapeutic approach that helps people find meaning in life. And the whole premise is that our primary motivational force in life is to find meaning. And so that just made a lot of sense to me. And of course, what did I do? I went off and studied me needing work and identity, but today, why is that one of my two main anchors? It's because that local therapy is really an optimistic approach that teaches that there are no negative or traumatic aspects of life that via the stand we take to them, which is also about mindset. They can't be transmuted into positive achievements. And I find that so empowering. Steve Rush: Yes, yes. Alise Cortez: Why wouldn't I want to stand in that space. Steve Rush: Yeah, so thinking about its linked then to mindset, so you call it your governing star. So, what do you mean by that? Alise Cortez: Well, you know, I love that question. Thank you for that. And so, when we think about mindset, it's really our internal operating system, right. It orients where we put our attention and how we interpret the world. And really frankly, it dictates our success and failure. If we think we can? We can. If we think we can't? We can't. It's just so deciding, right? It's so definitive. So that's why I call it your governing star. Steve Rush: That's quite neat, isn't it? And I suspect that's the reason why when you frame it, as it's exciting, I'm really excited about what's coming around the corner. However, perhaps with a different mindset could feel in fear of that? Alise Cortez: No doubt about that, absolutely right. And thank you for that. That is such a really important point to make for our listeners because how we orient ourselves to the world. In fact, I was just listening to a podcast this morning when I was getting ready. When we say things like, well, I have a terrible memory. Guess what? You're going to forget things. If you say things like, I remember people's names like nobody's business, guess what? You do. It's just so definitive. So, when you think, what's this great beautiful life that I'm going to go live today versus, oh, what am I dragging myself through today? You can see the difference in the energy right there. Steve Rush: And people often say to me, you know, Steve, this is a little bit kind of pink and fluffy, but actually it's based in science. It's neuro-plasticity, it's creating new layers of memory that are either going to help us or hold us back. And I wonder what your experience of that was with perhaps your clients? Alise Cortez: Oh gosh, no question about it. You know, one of the greatest things speaking, neuroplasticity. One of the greatest things that I get to do my work, and I think we talked about this when you were on my show is, I have never replicated the positive feeling of witnessing someone, literally their molecules change in front of my very eyes as they transform themselves, right. Steve Rush: Right. Alise Cortez: I don't know of a better feeling than that. And the work that you and I get to do allows us to do that. So, we literally are witnessing that neuroplasticity in the works as we watch them grow. So yeah, and teaching them away. And that's why like therapy so much Steve is because logotherapy teaches them a way to be able to achieve this for themselves every day of their lives. And therefore, I'm empowering them. They don't need me after we work together. If I do my job right, I've empowered them. Steve Rush: Yeah, and the empowerment creates habits and positive rituals, and eventually it becomes the way we do things, right? Alise Cortez: Yeah, and then it's got infinity to it, right. And magnitude to it, and who knows where that goes. Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly. In your book, one of the things that I read that I really loved, and I want us to explore and share with our listeners is the fact that you encourage people to be moment hunters. So, if I'm listening into this today, how do I become a moment hunter? Alise Cortez: That's such a delicious question. And thank you again for such a lovely read of my book. So, you're the one who read my book. It's so good to know. So, where I got the whole moment hunter idea Steve, as you know, I've been hosting my radio show, Working on Purpose for six years, and generally speaking, the last two or three years of that has really been interviewing subject matter experts and authors and business leaders. And so, I happened to come across a book called Ichigo Ichie and it's by two authors name, Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles. And essentially what they are talking about is this Japanese concept Ichigo Ichie, which means something like what we are experiencing right now will never happen again. And so therefore we have to evaluate each moment like a beautiful treasure, and that takes being present and mindful and grateful for the moments and cherishing them as part of our one precious life. And so, when you realized that you literally can be, at least if you allow yourself. A child skipping through life, really enjoying and savoring the moment, what a difference that is again, then dragging yourself through a day, right? So, if I teach you to become a moment hunter and I I empower you and you learn a lifelong habit of doing that, that is a night and day difference to the way that most people tend to go about living. And that's where I want to be. I want to be at moment hunter. Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. It's one of those things it's academically very easy to say, but it's quite difficult to practice to into a habit of doing so. So where would I start with that? Alise Cortez: Well, it's first it's mindset and I will tell you the first thing, this is a great story actually, the very first thing you can do is literally I kid you not just at the end of your day, just write down, maybe in a journal, three things you're grateful for. And what that starts to do, is it starts having you look for what's good and right in your life. And the story that I want to tell is one of my clients actually started reading my book and he got to the bit that we're talking about here, a gratitude and writing it down. He said, I got through that in my day. And I realized, I couldn't find three things to say that I was grateful for. This is a very successful man, runs an engineering practice. And he said, that's when I realized I need to fire one of my clients, they are just making me miserable. Right? And so, he said, as soon as I got present to that reality, and I then realized what I needed to do, I began to see that there were things to be grateful for. And then I could actually enjoy more moments, but it took him getting present to being miserable with this one particular client and then firing them literally. And what a difference in the lift he got. So again, if you start with what you're grateful for, you'll start to be able to step into the place where you can experience being a moment hunter, and more of that Ichigo Ichie. Steve Rush: And in your experience, the more you do that, does that present itself to be more natural in the future? Alise Cortez: Absolutely, it's a habit so many things in life, right? It becomes a habit, a way of being, right. I bet you I've gone through this, just like any one of us have, if we really think about it. Moments in time where we are more high on life, right? Then other times when we're a bit more low, but there is a way to cultivate that high. And it centered on mindfulness and centered and that's why mindset is so important, right. Steve Rush: Right. Alise Cortez: And you know that in your work that you do, right? If we're in charge of our mindset, we don't let it govern us. We have a much better chance of being able to be an ongoing moment hunter versus someone who's literally either auditing life or worse yet, walking through life dead. Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so, and much of your work is focused on igniting purpose in others now, and you call out that relationships are a massive part of that. Just tell us about your experience? And also, maybe we can get into some of the techniques that you call out in your book. Alise Cortez: Yeah. Yeah, so in my book, I talk about this notion of in terms of wellbeing informed by what Dr. Martin Seligman refers to as the PERMA Model, which of course is an acronym and the R is for relationships. So, what we know about relationships is, we as human beings, we really are, you know, created as a social being, I don't care how introverted you might be or extrovert you might be. We still really do need meaningful relationships in our life to be mentally well and healthy. And so, what we find is that it's the lack of meaningful connection with other people that often contributes to mental and physical demise and where we get into depression and isolation, et cetera. So, finding a way to stoke relationships in a way, the ones that are important to you, not everywhere all the time, but the ones that you choose so that they're healthy and mature and reciprocal is really, really important. And let's take it one step further, right? So, when we're working from the place of purpose, the reason that purpose works so well is that it requires us to be serving other people. So therefore, it got a self-transcendent quality to it. And the moment we step out of being absorbed in our own life and our world, and we focus on serving and helping others, we're already in a better place. We're already in a much more healthy place. Steve Rush: Right. Alise Cortez: So that's two reasons why relationships are so important. Steve Rush: And you've got a technique called lifeline that you call out in your work, tell us how you would use it? Alise Cortez: Yes. So, lifeline refers absolutely to those meaningful connections that you have in your life, whoever they might be. Maybe it's your best friend, maybe it's your partner, maybe it's a child, but the lifeline is really about being, again, mindful and present to that relationship. What are you doing to nurture that relationship? What are you doing to really go looking for and see that other person? And I know that you know this too, because of the work that you do, developing leaders, right, Steve, right. So, to me, what's a great leader? It's the same sort of technique that you would use in the lifeline approach. And that is a great leader of goes looking for what's great and fantastic about the person on their team. And then they look to see how can I lead them to a greater sense of themselves? How can I bring them to see and realize, and go after what I know is even a greater aspect of who they could become? So, to me, a lifeline as you're practicing that sort of set of behaviors in those close relationships in your life. Steve Rush: Yeah, the one thing that struck me in reading that as well was we all have choices about our relationships, but we often don't bring that to our conscience enough and that helps us do that, right? Alise Cortez: Absolutely, exactly right. And again, that's why, you know, it's so important to have silence in our life too. We are the ones in charge here, not the rest of the world. So as fast as the world moves today, right. If we can come back to hold on just a second, I always have one thing under my domain, and that is my mindset. Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely. And it starts there, doesn't it? It literally starts there. Alise Cortez: Literally, yes. And ends there. I would say. Steve Rush: Yeah, definitely so, yeah, I agree with that. Now, true passion. You've called out in your radio show and the work that you do and it's in your book, you call it out as it being a real contributor to the world. Where have you may be seen that play out the most, or maybe some experiences where you've really seen that work? Alise Cortez: This is just where it gets really yummy. How much time did we get to talk about this Steve? That's so awesome, right. Okay, so I want to distinguish two things. So, passion is absolutely a mechanism to be able to contribute to the world meaningfully. So, what I say about passion, and this is absolutely explicated in the book is, passion is really one of our three sources of meaning through energy. I do this through for my local therapy sort of work. So, what passion really is, it's the creative value of what we give of ourselves to the world. It's something only we can uniquely give through our being, right? And so, the more we give of ourselves our passions, the more energy we have, right. And everybody understands the importance of energy, right? So, when we show up and we really channel our passions, what happens there is that can then lead us to our purpose. Not always, but it can, it's one path to our purpose. And when we serve from our purpose, of course, now that's where the real magic happens. And this is where it gets really interesting from my perspective, Steve. So, purpose acts as a unique filter through which each of us sees the world. And then when we look through that lens, we see possibilities, or we do something that no one else we've seen or done. And that is the source of innovation impact that we all aspire for. So, you know, that notion of people confuse passionate and purpose. They're not the same thing, right? Passion is really a way of being in the world. It's really sort of anchored in meaning and the expression of what it is that you find meaningful of yourself and purpose of course, is your north star, why? Which orients all of your activities and why you're doing something and the difference that you hope to leave in the world. So that's how I like to see those two together. It's profoundly important to be able to go after passion and purpose. Steve Rush: And they're not mutually exclusive, are they? Alise Cortez: No, not at all. Steve Rush: And people often get them confused. What causes that? Alise Cortez: That's a great question, you know, one is, we can't go through a day to day, I don't think Steve, without encountering, at least the words, meaning and purpose. People confuse those two words as well. And so, I think the reason people confuse them is because that word, passion, purpose, and even meaning has become so overly utilized and therefore it diminishes its utility. And it just becomes part of the parlance almost like saying things like yeah and huh. Steve Rush: Yeah, indeed. Alise Cortez: It delude it. Steve Rush: Yeah, I can see that. And unconsciously then by just merely saying, I have purpose, doesn't actually mean that you have purpose. It needs to be backed up by lots of other evidence and actions. Alise Cortez: Boy, now you're getting at one of my major pet peeves, Steve. So, when people say things like, you know, if I see another sign that says muffin on purpose, tires on purpose, I'm going to go ballistic, right? So, people say things like, well, you know, I do this on purpose or such is my purpose. Well, just because you declare something which becomes like a goal for you, does not make it purpose. The only thing that makes something purpose is that one, it literally is that which is called from within you and the service through that you're channeling for, makes a difference to the world and is in service of other people. Very often when people say things like, well, such and such is my purpose, engineering is my business or my purpose or whatever. Developing people, even as my purpose, if you just declaring it as something that you do or a goal, it's not your purpose, it's not the same thing at all. Steve Rush: Totally agree with that, totally. Alise Cortez: Right. Steve Rush: So, one of the things that struck me and I've never come across this notion before of conscious capitalism, but underpinning that is all of those things around passion and purpose. But I wondered if you could share with the listeners, what your view of conscious capitalism is and how we might want to use them in our roles as leaders? Alise Cortez: Another yummy topic for me, I actually devoted the last chapter of my book, as you probably know, because you read it, too the idea of conscious capitalism, that's chapter nine. And I have recently joined the board of Conscious Capitalism here in Dallas as well. To me, it makes so much sense. So let me share, there's four tenets actually of a conscious capitalism that will help our listeners really understand how it works and why they might want to be involved. So, the first tenets is just higher purpose. And so, this really gets to knowing your company's why and doing business beyond profit. If you're just in business to make money, that's one is going to get empty pretty fast. And two, you're not going to distinguish yourself in the marketplace among others that have elevated their gaze above just profit. So hard purposes is the first tenant, the second tenant is stakeholder orientation. And what that is, Steve is that's really a recognition that a business has an interdependence on the ecosystem in which it operates. And so, it's important that a business is focused on serving its employees, its customers, its suppliers, investors, the community, and the planet. Those are all part of the ecosystem in which it operates. And too often, what happens is we're focused on investors at the expense of everything else. And that's where the train falls off the tracks. So, the third tenet is conscious leadership. And so, this is the notion really that, you know, the human social organization, right? And so, it's guided by leaders who understand that they need to inspire others to travel along the same path of consciousness and purpose with them. To raise them along the way like I've been saying, and then the fourth tenet is conscious culture, right? So that's the FOS, the values, the principles, the practical's that underlie that social fabric of the business and connects the stakeholders to each other, united in their purpose and their processes. And of course, there people, so those are the four tenets. And if you listen to those, I can't imagine that you go, heck, I don't want to do that, right. Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah. Alise Cortez: What about any of that would make you say that you don't want to play with that? I don't understand. So, to me it's such a natural obvious path that unites the best of what we've been doing together as humanity to bring us forward. So, I think for me, it's a no brainer and it's important that listeners also know that conscious capitalism is only one of like 20 different organizations that are stewarding a similar mindset like this in business. So, this is becoming much more ubiquitous. Steve Rush: And its okay, to make money and be a capitalist underpinning all of the service to other people, if it's purposeful, right? Alise Cortez: Absolutely, in fact, you know, that's the thing about it is, what I appreciate about conscious capitalism is it celebrates capitalism as the best system that we found so far in the world. And frankly extends and expands it so that it actually serves even more interest to lift more boats. So yes, absolutely, profit is fantastic. Steve Rush: There's almost a mystique around the word capitalism because it has a different connotation in people's minds, but actually as you've described it with those principles, it becomes a really honorable and emotive thing to be thinking about as a leader, right. Alise Cortez: Oh, I liked the way you said that, Steve. Yeah, so to me what that is, is why would you get out of bed in the morning and go, you know, I think I just kind of want to fly under the radar and just do the minimum that it takes to get by. Why would you do that? When you could lift your gaze just a little and say, hmm, who could I help today? Who else could I help today? What else could I do to make the world slightly better today? Steve Rush: Yeah, and suppose if there were people listening in today who maybe don't naturally have that passion or still haven't yet found their purpose, maybe having a mindset that says, you know, it's too late for me to change. What would you say to ignite that passion today? Alise Cortez: Oh, well you're not going to like the first thing that I would probably say to them, let me say it anyway. So, if somebody said to me, you know what, it's too late for me to change. I can't find my passion. What I would say to them Steve is, get your shovel. Let's go ahead, you and I both start digging your grave because you're practicing death right now. And that's what I would say. So, it's never too late to work on passion. I don't care if you're in your nineties or a hundred, you know, I will tell you, Steve definitively, both of my parents died 28 days apart in January of 2019 and I'm firmly and all the more affirm in my logotherapy work. My mother was 73 years old. Yes, she had suffered a long time from COPD and she was tired of the suffering. She was ready to leave, but I am absolutely 185% convinced that if she had done something, than sit and watch the TV all day, she got out and even volunteer one hour, a week of her beautiful mind and given to the community. Gave her humor, which is part of her passion. She would still be with us today. That's how important passion and meaning are today. They actually literally can save your life, do save your life. Steve Rush: Yeah, I agree. And it, again comes back down to mindset because if you think you can't, when you think you can, you probably, right, Alise Cortez: You are right, yeah. Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show we get to do is spin around a little and I'm getting now tap into your awesome leadership brain. And the first thing I'm going to do is try and distill your experiences and ideas into your top three. So, if you had to do that, what would they be? Alise Cortez: My top three are, just coming off the last question that you asked. The first and foremost, find and plug into your passion. And the reason why is, just I've shared, when you live and work from it, you're irresistible, you're magnetic. People want to follow people on fire in their own life, right? So that's the first thing. Find and plug in your passion. The second thing which I've already alluded to is become an inspirational leader. And the way you do that is first you're on fire for your own life. And then you go looking for what's amazing and different about each team member that you have and you help them lead them into their greater self. That's how you become an inspirational leader. And then third go looking for and articulate to each of your team members, how their work threads up into the company's overall purpose. So, it's really important. What this does is it helps that individual person recognize just how important the work that they're doing is, and therefore it gives them meaning. And so, when we feel like we're connected to something bigger than ourselves, it's incredibly motivating. So go help them understand how the work they're doing, connects to the company's larger whole and purpose. Steve Rush: I love that, and also connecting those dots will create that higher purpose, which will lead to yes conscious. Alise Cortez: Yes, if we do it right, exactly. Steve Rush: So, the next part of the show, we call it Hack to Attack. So, this is typically where something in your life or work hasn't worked out. Could have been catastrophic or you screwed up. But as a result of the experience, you've learned from it and is now a positive in your life or work. So, what would your Hack to Attack be Alise? Alise Cortez: Well, I'm not recommending this for everyone or anyone for that matter, but this really worked well for me. And it's this little called divorce. Steve Rush: Yeah, little thing, right. Alise Cortez: It was not my idea to get a divorce. I'd been together with my ex-husband for 18 years, but it was a very good idea as it turns out and what it did was it forced me out of a certain apathy that I had fallen into in life. And it forced me to catalyze into a higher being and to grow and to learn from the pain and, you know, starting off in a different place in life. And I needed that. In fact, I will tell you that in my view, we all need this agitation catalyst in our life to grow and change. And I'm not saying it needs to be divorced, but usually it needs to be something pretty hard. Steve Rush: A disruptor. Alise Cortez: A disruptor, yes. Thank you. Steve Rush: Yeah. Alise Cortez: And so that was a huge disruptor for me. And what it did Steve, was it gave me this fantastic clearing that I could pursue, whatever I saw in front of my path that I wanted for myself. There were no more excuses for myself. And that was one of the best Hack to Attacks for me in my life to date so far. Steve Rush: Yeah, do you think you would have found your purpose had that not happened? Alise Cortez: I already had found my purpose. Here's the amazing thing. I was not living not living Steve and you know what? I hated myself for it. I hated myself for it. Steve Rush: Interesting, Isn't it? Yeah, it was always there, but you were probably suppressing a lot of it? Alise Cortez: Yeah, the worst thing is, is that when you're aware of it and you're not doing something about it, I will tell you that it's hell on earth. It really is. Steve Rush: I can see that. The last part of the show, we give you the opportunity to go back and meet Alise and do some time travel and you get to bump into her at 21. And give her some of your words of wisdom. What would your advice to her be? Alise Cortez: Oh gosh, you know, I would tell her to listen to the wisdom emanating from within. So, Steve, when I was about 21 years old, I did know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was one of those people that felt like to your point, I'd always been very curious. I'd done a lot of reading. I found all of this self-help literature in Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled. And you know, I was reading all those kinds of books and I came running to my mother one day and I said, mom, I know exactly what I want to do when I grow up. And I said, I want to lead success seminars. And she burst out laughing. She said, you can't do that. You are not successful. And then of course the little dream in me shriveled up and died. Steve Rush: Yeah. Alise Cortez: Well, what am I doing today essentially is, I'm helping people to really discover that which ignites them and helping them steward their field of human growth and transformation. And I didn't know how to call it anything else back then, except for success, which she was right. I wasn't successful back then. But what I would tell my 21-year-old self is listen to that just because you didn't quite get the words, right. There is a wisdom in there that when you listen to that, which is emanating from within you, it's trying to tell you something. Now the divining rod ultimately came around and took me there, but it took me 20 some years later to get back on that track. Steve Rush: Yeah, indeed. Good words of wisdom to have had at the time, maybe. Alise Cortez: Exactly. Steve Rush: And of course, everything happens for a reason, doesn't it? So, the other kind of, part of your evaluation that you take us on through your book is that it's kind of, everything is a learn. Everything is a lesson. If you choose to have that thought process around it, right? Alise Cortez: Yeah, absolutely, I love that. Everything is a lesson, there's so much to learn and enjoy and appreciate in this wonderful thing called life. Steve Rush: So, what's next for Alise, what are you working on? Alise Cortez: Yeah, gosh, what am I not working on? So, I've got my next a women's anthology book is coming out as being published next month, where I found 25 women from across the world to tell their stories, it's coming out in a book called Passionately Striving and Why. So that's one thing, I'm also working on the men's anthology as well. Looking for stories of men who are working from purpose from around the world, would love to hear from someone if they are. And then the other thing that I'm working on, that's really got my attention. You know, when we were going through the pandemic, I was trying to figure out how can I help? What can I do, right? How can I help more people, especially get out of any kind of a mental or wellbeing, demise or malaise? And I discovered that I could actually take the first part of my book which is really about how to develop passion and purpose within yourself and create that as a wellbeing, subscription, mini model for employees inside companies. So, they get literally a wellbeing, drip of content, of exercises and listening to something for a podcast every week. So, what I'm doing now is bringing that into companies as a subscription model. So that's what it's really got my gaze and my focus right now. Steve Rush: Excellent stuff. Good luck with that. Both projects or good luck with all three projects. Alise Cortez: Thank you. Yes, I told you, I'm having more fun than I'm supposed to have, so don't tell anybody. Steve Rush: I know, it's too late now. It's all out there. Alise Cortez: The cat's out of the bag, is it okay? Steve Rush: Exactly, yeah. So, if folks wanted to find out a little bit more about your work, where's the best place for us to send them? Alise Cortez: Easy to go to my website, alisecortez.com, that's the easiest place to go. Steve Rush: And there's a bunch of resources on there. There's links to your other social media that you're active on as well. And of course, you can get hold of a copy of Purpose Ignited, can't they? Alise Cortez: Absolutely, and please do. Steve Rush: So, I always love chatting to you. There's never a time where we've spoken, where I haven't felt juiced up as a result of it. And that's no exception today. So, I just want to say thank you for unlocking purpose in our lives. Alise Cortez: oh, thank you so much for having me Steve, it's been a delight. Steve Rush: Love chatting to you. Alise Cortez: Likewise.  Steve Rush: Thanks, Alise. Alise Cortez: Likewise, thank you.   Closing   Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.   Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.    

Nic Marks was once described as a statistician with a soul, due to his unusual combination of hard statistical skills and softer people skills. Nic's been working in the field of happiness, wellbeing, and quality of life for over 25 years, with a particular emphasis on measurement and how to create positive change. Nic and his colleagues created the Five Ways to Wellbeing for the UK government office of science, and he's the founder of Friday Pulse, who has worked with over one thousand organizations and teams measuring and improving their happiness at work. In this week's episode, we discover the five evidence-based approaches teams can playfully experiment with as they head back to the office to improve their resilience and wellbeing. Connect with Nic Marks: https://fridaypulse.com/ You'll Learn: [02:45] - Nic explains how we can differentiate happiness and wellbeing in our workplaces [06:08] - Nic outlines the business case for investing in employee wellbeing. [07:23] - Nic outlines the five evidence-based ways we can improve the wellbeing and resilience of teams at work. [09:56] - Nic provides an example of how we can make hybrid working arrangements fairer for teams. [11:42] - Nic shares how leaders can help their teams strike the right balance of learning and challenge without burning people out. [12:56] - Nic explains why encouraging teams to playfully experiment as they work can boost psychological safety, creativity, and innovation. [17:19] - Nic shares how we can optimize meaning and purpose in our teams without creating passion fatigue for workers. [19:27] - Nic shares some suggestions on how teams can set healthy boundaries as they work together. [22:16] - Nic shares insights from the new World Happiness reports on the impact that COVID has had on worker wellbeing. [24:52] - Nic enters the lightning round... Thanks for listening! MPPW Podcast on Facebook Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post. Please leave an honest review for the Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.  And don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It's free! You can also listen to all the episodes of Making Positive Psychology Work streamed directly to your smartphone or iPad through stitcher. No need for downloading or syncing. Until next time, take care!  Thank you, Nic!

Sue Stockdale talks to Nic Marks, statistician and founder & CEO, Friday Pulse about the work he has done on measuring happiness, why it's important to businesses, governments and countries, as well as individuals and how COVID impacted happiness. Described by one client as a “statistician with a soul”, Nic has been working in the field of happiness and wellbeing for over 25 years. In 2010 Nic gave a TED talk on his previous work in public policy, which has now been watched over 2.3million times. Named as one of the Top Ten Original Thinkers by the Institute of Director's Director Magazine, Nic's work was hailed as one of Forbes Magazine's Seven Most Powerful Ideas in 2011. * Free tool to reflect on individual happiness https://fridayone.com * The weekly people check-up for companies https://fridaypulse.com  * Find out more about Nic Marks at https://nicmarks.org* Connect with Nic on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksnic/Key quotes in this podcast:[01.40] Our happiness is very driven by all sorts of social connectedness and relationships and the quality of them.[02.33] We tend to measure what's easy to count, not whats most important.[07.00] If we want to create a future which is good for citizens in the future, then we have to look at how we create that.[10.52] When we feel good, we do good work, but it's very close to our mood.[11.55] I think of happiness like having different wavelengths. There's very long ones, over years and decades and we have good periods of our life, and then there's very, very rapid ones, five moods in the morning.[12.23] We talk about five big drivers to happiness at work. They are Connect, Be Fair, Empower, Challenge, Inspire.[16.20] We definitely find that some organizations worry about opening a Pandora's box of emotions. And the thing is they're there already, if they're not in the light, they're festering and are causing problems.[16.47] We're not trying to shame team leaders. We're basically trying to help them have better conversations with their teams.Read the transcription for this podcast at www.accesstoinspiration.org and connect with us on social media: Twitter www.twitter.com/accessinpirat1Facebook www.facebook.com/accesstoinspirationInstagram www.instagram.com/accesstoinspirationLinkedin www.linkedin.com/company/access-to-inspiration/

#110: Nic Marks is the Ceo and Founder of Friday Pulse, Ted Talk speaker and happiness expert. Today Nic explains why happiness directly impacts you and your team's productivity.Nic's TedTalk, The Happy Planet Index really caught my attention, as did his book The Happiness Manifesto.Implement these systems for a happier company culture that thrives.https://fridayone.comhttps://fridaypulse.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/marksnic/https://nicmarks.orgDM me the code on Instagram @marksavantmedia

Nic Marks is a statistician, policy advisor, speaker, and author known for his work on the Happy Planet Index - the first global measure of sustainable well-being which envisions a future where good lives don't have to cost the earth. He's also the founder and CEO of Happiness Works, an organization focusing on changing the world of work. In this episode we explore meaningful work, happiness in the pandemic, working for a better world at multiple levels of influence and intervention, why measuring happiness helps us make meaningful interventions, and Nic shares much of his own journey through a career working in the economy, government, planet level happiness, climate impact, and now affecting happiness at work. Friday One: https://fridaypulse.com/the-happiness-test/ Friday Pulse: https://fridaypulse.com/ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/betterthanfine/support

Nic Marks, CEO of Friday Pulse understands that Happiness is your ultimate people KPI. Building on the last 20 years, he realised that happiness is a metric you can also apply to the workplace. He has appeared on Ted Talks, worked with Blair and Cameron Governments and has appeared in Forbes, The Guardian, Wired to name a few. Nic's ethos; When we feel supported, we cope better with change. The science of wellbeing can help individuals, teams and organisations get through this difficult time. As a statistician and a trained therapist it's always been his mission to improve people's experience of life.www.fridaypulse.com / www.nicmarks,org Get bonus content on Patreon Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2011, Nic Marks did a TED Talk on "The Happy Planet Index" and it has almost 2.5 Million views. This incredible talk, and his work, have and continue to dramatically change the way we look at happiness at work and in life Since then, Nic has started Friday Pulse, a company designed to score happiness using research and insights from behavioral psychology and systems thinking - then they help consult companies and now individuals on how to be happier at work Nic and I talk about hot topics ranging from 5 ways to be happier at work, the Covid crisis, working from home, and how to be a leader that promotes increasing measurable levels of happiness in your life and in your workplace I highly recommend taking the time to check this episode out! If you enjoy it, make sure to: - review the show - share it with a friend - click one of the links below to learn more! Nic's TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index#t-263509 Friday Pulse: fridaypulse.com Happiness Test: fridayone.com

Happiness vs workNic Marks grew Friday Pulse from a career-long passion for work-life happiness. He draws from Daniel Kahneman's 2004 Day Reconstruction Methodology, in which people were asked to divide their day up into activities they did and then rate each in terms of how happy they felt. The data shows that the time spent on the activity is almost exactly opposed to the amount of happiness gained from it. Nic says, "I found this kind of desperately sad for the human condition. You know, we spend a lot of time at work, and we find it the least enjoyable activity."Feelings are dataTherapists often look at feelings as data and information we can use in decision making. Nic discusses Antonio Damasio's understanding of feelings as a way of receiving signals from our environment. And how feelings help motivate us and adjust to our environments. These elements can help measure happiness "in every data set there is. It's called an Eigenvalue, but basically it's the structure of the data. So in the middle there's a big Good/Bad signal". Friday Pulse Friday Pulse grew from Nic's passion for finding the Good/Bad signal for happiness and translating it into something usable. "We can look at happiness as our Good/Bad signal, and we can put numbers on that... we can say give me a 1 for this, give me a 5 for this, and suddenly we've translated a feeling into data". Friday Pulse collected data on happiness across all client teams in the run-up to 2020, and through the first lockdown. This allowed clients to monitor their happiness each week. Positive and negative emotions It is important to point out the different forms of happiness. Emotions have multiple meanings and evolutionary formations - anger to deal with threats and sadness to deal with loss. So in assessing happiness at work, you also have to understand what type of happiness, and what forms of happiness you want to promote. For example, you want your team to feel curiosity as a form of happiness that is really intellectually engaged. These types of emotion are often harder to measure quantitatively and, as a result, require qualitative data and looking for trends against more obvious measures like staff retention and success. Success = happiness We all want to build happier, more successful teams to scale our companies faster, and Nic's data shows that you can't really maintain one without the other. "If you're building an organisation, don't think that team building and happiness is a nice to have, it's essential". Of course, happy unproductive teams may exist - but as you would expect they will quickly collapse and some teams may be successful even though they are unhappy, and members are likely to leave. "There is a correlation coefficient.  It's true that success does lead to more positive feelings...but the other way round it was twice as strong." To grow though the pandemic at a continued speed, teams will need positive energy for a creative, successful environment. As "in a world that demands more and more innovation from us all the time, mood is massively important." Recommended ReadingThinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel KahnemanThe Strange Order of Things- Antonio Damasio Drive- Daniel Pink You can also find the video of this talk here on our youtube 

Statistician Nic Marks, a fellow of the New Economics Foundation in London, asks why we measure success by productivity instead of by happiness & well-being. He developed The Happy Planet Index, a statistical method to measure, analyse and interpret happiness and then apply evidence to business, education, sustainability, healthcare and economics. He believes that our quality of life is measurable, and that true contentment comes not from the accumulation of material wealth but from our connection to others. How do we know what we are measuring in happiness is actually true? What is the best question to ask someone to get beyond the barriers to really know if they are happy? Is happiness the right metric? Is happiness the right measure or is there an argument that fulfilment is a better gauge?  Some of your research I heard has a 22% improvement in happiness why 22% not 23% or 21%? What is the association between productivity and happiness at work? Is the measure of productivity getting in the way of our genuine happiness at work? Where do happiness and wellness intersect? In Nic's first marriage he was very unhappy at home but happy at work. In hindsight what would he do differently? Nic overlooked red signals. What were the red signals and what should he have done in hindsight? Is Nic now happy? How does he know? Statistics keep Nic grounded. What personal statistics does he keep that allows him to stay grounded? As a kid Nic had a fascination with the power of two. Was that something that his Dad influenced? Nic was a self described very serious young man. How does he see himself today? As a statistician what has Nic discovered about being a man? How Manfred Max-Neef thrilled Nic with the idea that most people don't ask big enough questions. Does Nic see people setting rituals and routines to enable them to stay the course of this feeling of happiness?   LINKS   Nic Marks website https://nicmarks.org   Nic Marks TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index   Friday Pulse https://fridaypulse.com   The Mojo Sessions website https://www.themojosessions.com   The Mojo Sessions on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheMojoSessions?fan_landing=true   The Mojo Sessions on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheMojoSessions/   Gary on Linked in https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-bertwistle-helping-unlock-great-ideas-b5182011/   Gary on Twitter https://twitter.com/GaryBertwistle   The Mojo Sessions on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/themojosessions/   If you like what you hear, we'd be grateful for a review on iTunes -  click here. Happy listening!   © 2021 Gary Bertwistle.  All Rights Reserved.   Any products or companies discussed in the show are not paid endorsements. I am not sponsored by, nor do I have any professional or affiliate relationships of any kind with any of the companies or products highlighted in the show. It's just stuff I like, that I think is cool, that I want to share, and that I believe may be of interest to you as part of the Mojo crew.

Nic Marks shares the research and best practices for more happiness at work. — YOU'LL LEARN — 1) The five elements of a happy work life 2) How to draw the boundary between work and life 3) How to boost motivation and engagement in 5 minutes Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep637 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT NIC — Nic Marks was once described as a "statistician with a soul" due to his unusual combination of 'hard' statistical skills and 'soft' people skills. He has been working in the field of happiness, wellbeing and quality of life over 25 years with a particular emphasis on measurement and how to create positive change. He is the founder of Friday Pulse and has worked with over a 1,000 organizations and teams measuring and improving their happiness at work. • Nic's website: NicMarks.org • Nic's LinkedIn: Nic Marks • Nic's company: Friday Pulse • Personality Test: FridayOne.com — RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Company: HelloFresh • Software: HubSpot • Term: Dunbar numbers • Term: PERMA by Seligman • Study: The Day Reconstruction Method • Book: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink • Book: The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli — THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Canva. Design like a pro–for less time and money at canva.me/awesome • Blinkist: Read or listen to summarized wisdom from thousands of nonfiction books! Free trial available at blinkist.com/awesome See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you're wondering how your team's happiness is, or how you can support employee wellbeing and sustain team morale, then you don't want to miss Nic Marks, CEO and Founder of Friday Pulse, Dom's employee engagement, employee happiness, employee measurement tool of choice. “When I ask how engaged you are, people don't know. You know, it's like, if you ask people, how meaningful is your work? It sounds great. But people don't know what the top of that scale is. Do they have to be Mother Teresa? Do they have to be Nelson Mandela?”Nic's been on the show before (link below), and in that episode, he talked about the work he did previously, and the TED Talk he's done. But today, we're digging into, (again, link below) a chart that Nic and his team have put together, which looks at the weekly employee experience for 2019-2020. It's as clear as day to see how it fell off a cliff in March. So we talk about that and we also talk about why it's come back up. Where are we now? What are the thoughts and hopes for 2021? “The evidence suggests that Homo Sapiens defeated Neanderthals because they out-teamed them. And I think if you bring human beings together, physically together, you get a team that you just don't get, when you're on Zoom.”As usual we discuss book recommendations, and Nic shares fond memories that he has for Tony Hsieh, the founder of Zappos, who passed away recently. This is another great chat with Nic, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.On today's podcast:Measuring employee experience and happiness at workWhy Gallup can't measure engagement (but Friday Pulse can)Unhappiness at work is a signal to moveWhich jobs are suffering more than othersTony Hsieh CEO ZapposLinks:Nic's first podcast episode on The Melting PotNicmarks.org

Happiness in the workplace matters for sustainable wellbeing, safety, productivity and business outcomes. It predicts if teams and organizations are building a better future. Today, our special guest Nick Marks shares his insights on psychological safety and mental-wellbeing, two critical drivers of safety outcomes. He also addresses skeptics by demonstrating how feelings connect to data. Nic Marks, Founder & CEO, Friday Pulse Described by one client as a “statistician with a soul”, Nic has been working in the field of happiness and wellbeing for over 25 years. In 2010 Nic gave a TED talk on his previous work in public policy, which has now been watched over 2.3million times. Named as one of the Top Ten Original Thinkers by the IoD's Director Magazine, Nic's work was hailed as one of Forbes Magazine's Seven Most Powerful Ideas in 2011. As Founder and CEO of Friday Pulse, Nic shares his creative thinking with leading organisations on how positive emotions drive productivity and profit. For More Information: https://fridaypulse.com/ More Episodes: https://thesafetyculture.guru/ Powered By Propulo Consulting: https://propulo.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don't we all want more happiness and well-being? You might not realize how these factors can be measured, but today's guest has devoted his work to this field. He's an expert on happiness and well-being, and he's to share his knowledge with us. Nic Marks is the founder and CEO of Friday Pulse. Described by one client as a “statistician with a soul,” Nic has been working in the field of happiness and well-being for over 25 years. He's done phenomenal work that has been duly recognized and rewarded. In 2010, Nic gave a TED talk on his previous work in public policy; that speech has been viewed over 2.3 million times! His work was hailed as one of Forbes Magazine's Seven Most Powerful Ideas in 2011. As founder and CEO of Friday Pulse, Nic shares his creative thinking with leading organizations on how positive emotions drive productivity and profit. Show Highlights: ●     Nic's journey that brought him to the work he does today ●     What coaches should know regarding the well-being and happiness of their clients within organizations ●     How we are shaped by the environment and systems around us ●     How coaches can use statistics and measurement to create believability ●     How Friday Pulse measures happiness and well-being with goal-specific questions and reflection ●     How to have conversations about Friday Pulse's findings about measuring and improving employee happiness ●     How Friday Pulse supports team leaders to help them be better ●     How to raise awareness about well-being in workplaces ●     A sampling of the benefits of Friday Pulse include being able to tackle problems faster to bring positive changes and delegating responsibility to improve communication ●     Nic's Five Keys to Happiness at Work: connect, be fair, empower, challenge, and inspire Resources: https://fridaypulse.com/ (Website) https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksnic (LinkedIn) https://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index?language=en (TED Talk) Join Meg on FB Live every Wednesday at 9:00 am CT/10 am ET https://www.facebook.com/STaRCoachShow (STaRCoachShow)

Through the dare, Kitty and Klaudia measured their happiness daily with a simple scale of one (very unhappy) to five (very happy).  As much as Kitty was skeptical that we can put a number on happiness, we were delighted to be joined by Nic Marks, the founder of FridayPulse and one of the UK leading experts and statisticians on happiness. Join us on a journey of discovery where we find out how to measure our own happiness, why it is important for our  development and what are the key drivers of happiness at work. Remember, if “if you like it then you better put a ring on it” or rather “if you want to take it seriously, you better put a number on it”Support the show (http://www.andhappiness.co.uk)

Nic Marks is a statistician by trade but also trained as a psychotherapist - so he’s ended up with an unusual mix of hard data skills and soft people skills. Nic started work in consultancy, then academia and then public policy; where he advised the Tony Blair and David Cameron governments on how to measure wellbeing. He did a TED talk in 2010 on this work.  For the last 8 years, Nic has gone from challenging governments how they measure quality of life to challenging businesses how they measure the quality of employees' experience. Nic’s business Friday Pulse is the result of that work. They measure and improve employee happiness, as we know that when people feel good at work they do their best work. Press Play for: How covid-19 has affected the UK Secrets to happiness Quality of life vs longevity How happiness at work is a great thing for everyone (think about it ...miserable people do miserable work!)   Connect with Nic on Twitter and LinkedIn. Learn more at nicmarks.org   Connect with Rick @MrRickJordan on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn    Help others find the show! Subscribe and Review on iTunes Subscribe and Comment on CastBox Subscribe on Google Podcasts or Google Play Follow on Spotify Subscribe and Review on Stitcher   Rick’s company: ReachOut IT   Production Credits

Do you take happiness seriously? 6 questions. 7 minutes. Pure insights. Episode 83: Successful leaders who take happiness seriously achieve more. Wise words from Nic Marks, Statistician and Founder of Friday Pulse.

Nic Marks is the special guest on show 18. He is the CEO and founder of Friday Pulse, Statistician, Happiness Expert, and Ted Speaker. Learn from Nic about: What happiness is and how to measure it How feelings and emotions come before cognition Why some nations and people are happier than others What leadership activities increase happiness in the workforce How human appreciation increases happiness in us all Follow us and explore our social media tribe from our Website: https://leadership-hacker.com Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services Find out more about Nic Marks Below:  www.fridaypulse.com Connect with Nic on LinkedIn Follow Nic on Twitter https://nicmarks.org   Full Transcript Below:    ----more----   Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.   Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.   Joining me on today's show is CEO and founder of Friday Pulse. Statistician, happiness expert, and Ted speaker, its Nic Marks. Before we get to speak with Nic, It is The Leadership Hacker News.   The Leadership Hacker News   Steve Rush: In our role as leaders, we have likely to have made some significant decisions of late. Our approach to making decisions will vary from individual to individual and while some considered and thoughtful strategic decisions would have absolutely been a must at work, recent research has found using a coin toss to decide major life decisions may ultimately make you happier. The new study has found overall happiness increased after a six-month period. The study titled, The Review of Economic Studies published in the Oxford University press also found that people that rely on a coin toss to make a decision are more likely to follow through with their choice and be more satisfied as a result. To find out the impact of using a coin toss economist Professor Steven Levitt from the university of Chicago, asked people to make important decisions such as whether to quit a job, move home, end a relationship or quit smoking using affirmative and negative assigned to either heads or tails of a coin.   Users were also asked to include their own questions such as, Should I get a tattoo? And prior to the coin toss, volunteers were also instructed to help identify third party judicators to verify the outcomes and assessed independently the results. After two months participants and their third party judicators were asked to conduct a survey; which found that participants favoured the status quo, making a change less frequently than they would predicted they would before the coin toss, according to phys.org. However, a further study conducted after six months found that this bias towards the status quo had gone, according to the six month survey. Those who were interested to make certain changes regarding major decisions were more likely to do so, and be happier as a result. Participants also said that they were more likely to make the same decision if they were to choose again.   According to the researchers, the findings were inconsistent with the conventional theory of choice, which states that people who are on the margins should on average report equal happiness, regardless of where they made the decisions. Professor Levitt said, society teaches us quitters, never win and winners never quit. But in reality, the data from his experiment suggests we would all be better off if we did more quitting. He went on to say, “a good rule of thumb in decision making is whenever you cannot decide what you should do choose the action that represents change rather than continue with the status quo”. The leadership lesson here is, we often get stuck in change and we're not sure on which direction to take, and whilst tossing a coin might give us a yes or a no to a certain direction. Does that change really bring something new? So that's been The Leadership Hacker News. We would really encourage you to share with us your insights, ideas, and funny stories around leadership, leaders around the world. Please get in touch.   Start of Podcast   Steve Rush: I am joined on today's show with Nic Marks. He is the CEO and creator of Friday Pulse. He is an author, Ted speaker and a statistician. Nic, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.   Nic Marks: Thank you very much, Steve.   Steve Rush: So statistician, numbers, I guess that must have started at an early age for it to become such a big feature in your life? Tell us a little bit about that.   Nic Marks: Yeah, there is a lot of syllables in that word as well isn't there statistician? I just was, I was good at maths and was not very interested in much else at school. I mean, I did my A- levels with double mass Physics and half of Physics is mass as well. It was sort of I could do, and therefore, you know, I was top, of the year at school, pretty much all the way through and pretty much ended up at Cambridge reading mass before I made a decision about anything and actually ended up not liking maths at Cambridge. Because it is very, very pure and therefore discovering, I was really an applied statistician. I liked using numbers to solve problems rather than the sort of abstractness of mathematics, which is what you get into in that space. So yeah, was kind of, what I was good at.   Steve Rush: So the fascination really was not just about the patterns and the numbers, but actually how can you use these numbers in a positive way and how can I apply them in doing something that is relevant for people?   Nic Marks: Yeah, that was the big eye-opener. When I started sort of solving things, particularly on health statistics, you know, they start setting you problems to solve maybe in A-level and anything that sort of had a bit more human side to it. I got quite, I enjoyed those questions more and that is what I was actually able to do at Cambridge. I was able to switch into an applied statistics course and you know we did sort of industrial psychology and Queuing Theory. I accused even now if I get in a queue and I can see it is badly organized. That put me in a rage and it is partly my Queuing Theory sort of ideas, but yeah, so anything, it was very practical I got interested in.   Steve Rushs: And even more so, during lockdown where there are queue everywhere, I should imagine for you particularly that is really challenging, Right?   Nic Marks: Well actually, what I don't like about queue is when they're not fair, I don't mind a fair queue, and actually the lockdown queue are very fair, aren't they, you know, you're standing there in order and you let older people pass if you're a certain time or key workers and that all seems very fair. What I really hate is like when you come into an airport and you're queuing up and there's a big queue at the, you know, the passport control and you know, one, they haven't put enough people on, but then you can't see if the front of your queue has got one or two people on it. And so the queue go at different rates and you always end up in this lower queue. In fact, you are statistically more likely to end up in this lower queue anyway, and then it feels unfair. And I once actually had an argument with passport control guy, not an argument as a discussion. I said to him, you know, why don't you queue up in a snake? And he said, Oh, actually it makes the average queuing time go up, which is a very fair thing. And I said to him, well, the problem is the experience of queuing is related to the standard deviation, not the mean and he looked at me and went…   Steve Rush: I should imagine that when down well?   Nic Marks: …Can you put that in writing please? My kids were very embarrassed.   Steve Rush: And who would have known that queues have so much applied maths behind it; Which I guess if you look around society that we are in, there are maths and numbers behind everything.   Nic Marks: I mean, totally. I mean, if you do marketing these days, digital marketing, you've got a lot of queuing theory and mathematics in there and about friction and flow and the way you model it. There is so many ways that at least a sort of A-level understanding of mass can really, really help you. I don't think you need to go much beyond that, but well obviously some people do, but it is very interesting to me anyway.   Steve Rush: So beyond University, then you started applying your learned mathematics, what happened next?   Nic Marks: I did a Masters and then I joined a consultancy. Anderson consulting who sort of now called Accenture and did programming and things like that. I quit really, when I realized they were going to sort of move me around the country to wherever they wanted me to work. And I just got engaged and was in London and didn't really want to move around. And I also started to make more choices in my life. I mean I think some people, this comes earlier, but I started thinking actually, what do I really want to work on? And I went to work for sustainability, environmental investment company, and I started getting more interested in things which were sort of, as I say, sort of more socially useful statistics. Yeah, and I did that for a bit, but I also had a slightly kooky side, but slightly different side. I got very into sort of personal development and I used to go to sort of men's encounter groups. Cause I did not really quite understand how to be a man in the world. I found slightly misogynists, and so I just started exploring all that. And the reason for that really was my mum was a therapist and in the end I trained as a therapist as well as do math statistics, which sort of makes for, I think, a very creative mix, but then unusual mix anyway,   Steve Rush: So that creative mixture you now have, has smudged that psychotherapy and your statistician background together to create what you do now. The last 12-15 years of your life. You have been really focusing on the whole principle of happiness and how we can be more focused and understand some of the metrics and numbers that sit behind happiness. Tell us a little bit. About how that came about?   Nic Marks: Yeah, it started in about 2001. I was doing some other work with a think tank in London called New Economics Foundation. And the director then director said to me, Nic, there is this word called wellbeing coming into public policy and no one knows what it means. And can you help us, he said drive some meaning under the word? And I being a statistician, I said, well, I'd like to know how we could measure it because then, you know, policy makers might take it seriously. So we started a project which eventually became my whole work, and it became something called a centre for wellbeing, but we even started to create metrics around wellbeing that was useful for local, national, and international agencies about people's experiences with life effectively. And some people in the field were already calling that happiness and I shy away from that for a while because it sounded a bit light for the government policy.   But I started to realize that it was a much more attractive word than wellbeing and also more relatable. Ultimately, you know, whether we enjoy our lives or not in whatever basis we want to do, there is kind of, what it is about, so you know, and you can talk to anyone about whether they're happy or not. We can then discuss what that means and we can discuss, you know, whether we mean the same thing, but it makes a much more fruitful discussion, so that is kind of how I got into it. Yeah.   Steve Rush: It is really neat principle. The whole happiness thing that I have explored and there are a number of great authors that have written around the similar subject over the last sort of 10 or 15 years. It almost feels a little bit pink and fluffy and subjective, and I guess what you are seeking to do is to create some more objectivity so that leaders can be a bit more thoughtful of their personal impact around that. Would that be a kind of fair assumption?   Nic Marks: It is kind of fair, but I don't like… it is not you, but I don't like this sort of split between objective and subjective because our experience of life is sort of necessarily subjective. You know, we are the subject of that experience and actually, what a lot of statistics and data does is it objectifies things, so it will say we can measure your standard of life because we can see that and touch that. So we can touch your housing, your income, your whatever, we can measure that, but we don't know what you're feeling, so we can't measure that and actually that's not true. It is just a different type of measurement, and then you have to be careful about how you do it, but you can put numbers on it, and so there is a way we use the word subjective. Which makes it feel like it's very loose and it would change for everybody, but actually, whether people enjoy their lives or not is sort of gradable.   Steve Rush: Yeah, that makes those a sense actually. If somebody was to ask you, what does happiness mean? How would you describe it?   Nic Marks: Yeah, I have had various descriptions over the years, but so I often say its feeling good and doing well. And by that, I mean that it got a feeling element, but it's got a functional element to it and we use the word happiness very broadly in English language. So we use it as a sort of momentary feeling. I feel happy, but we also use it as what's tends to be called a cognitive assessment. You know, I feel happy with, or I am happy with, so we are sort of reflecting on a sort of judgment about something. And then there's a school of thought that thinks that happiness is a sort of capability that it's, you know, that knowing or feeding that I can deal with, anything is a feeling of happiness. It is sort of like a perceived resilience going forward that, you know, I can cope with things. So in that sense, I think that there is a functional element to an actually purely from a psychological perspective or a nuisance perspective than our feelings and emotions actually help us acts in the world. So there is a sort of, they are not just there as sort of a nice sensation actually motivate us to behave in certain ways. So that is how I tend to think of it as a, you know, feeling good and doing well.   But then there's another nuance, which I quite like, which goes actually right back to ancient Greek Philosophy, which is whether it's about pleasure and meaning. And the hedonist talk about pleasure and Aristotle and people had talked about, eudemonia thought about it as sort of meaning and virtue. Justified this idea that you can only know if you're happy when you're at the end of your life and you're looking back, which is quite harsh, but in a way I think it's both in the sense that if we have a life which is meaningful, but no fun, then we run out of energy quite quickly. And if it's all fun and pleasure and there's no meaning, then we sort of lose our way and we kind of need both of those parts and, they work in different timeframes and so there's a nice tension between them and a nice synergy between them. And obviously there are times when it get you in life, which, you know, you feel you've got lots of meaning, but no pleasure. And you can get yourself into a crisis about that. I mean, I been divorced and I have actually gotten a situation where my marriage was hugely meaningful to me, but I really did not enjoy it and that created a sort of crack in my life that I had to resolve. I think that way as well, so that's sort of two different ways of feeling good and doing well and pleasure and meaning.   Steve Rush: I quite like the whole principle of it is quite an emotional response as well isn't it. It is a personal response to what is going on around us, I guess.   Nic Mark: Yeah, Our feelings are very much about what is going on around us. They are sort of us, and our environment. In fact, the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio don't know, if you've ever read him. Have you read him?   Steve Rush: I have, I have.   Nic Marks: Have you read his most recent one? The strange order of things.   Steve Rush: Maybe give us a snippet from that.   Nic Marks: It is a funny title of a book, but basically he's talking about feelings and emotions come before cognition come before central nervous systems in our evolutionary history.   Steve Rush: Right.   Nic Markss: And, that they actually help us do three things, feelings. They help us monitor our environments. They help motivate us to act and they help us adjust those actions over time. And that first one of monitoring is sort of, you know, our feelings are actually, I have to say our feelings are data that they actually give us information about what's going on around us. And that's not just our feelings become emotions, but, you know, do we feel hot or cold? Do we feel hungry? Do we feel thirsty? It's basically telling us about, and it's motivating us to act in some sort of ways, but you know, our feeling of feeling frightened is that it feels like there's a danger out there and that we need to help avoid or get ourselves out of that threat. And we often have the feeling well before we have the cognition and that's really his argument is that the feeding comes first. Then we apply our intelligence to that feeling and deciding how we are going to act.   Steve Rush: And the cognition of course prevents us from doing crazy things, which is why the executive part of our brain slows down and stops in some cases what we will deal with those emotional reactions, of course.   Nic Marks: Yeah, I am not a total expert on the absolute specifics in it, but they absolutely are interconnected. Actually, even if you think about something positive, like happiness, which is a little bit of a sort of gateway word to a whole range of positive emotions. We can use the word very broadly, but then actually gets specifics. You know, some people would say, even if I say what happiness, mean to you? They will say contentment and other people will say joy. Contentment and joy quite different. Yeah, one is very high energy and one's quite low energy, and of course, there is actually a whole range of things in there. Like, you know, joy and enjoyment are different and amusement. And, you know, things like enjoyment, amusement, laughter are sort of very social and they are very about bonding with other people.   So when you're having a laugh with people or mucking around, you actually slow down…you shut down your executive decision making and your full intelligence because you're trying to bond, but it doesn't pay you to be your brightest, most sort of challenging self at that moment. You better to conform, so, you know, so actually, there are times when we are happy when, we are probably less intelligent, but there are other times, you know if we think about other forms of happiness, such as curiosity or interest, which are very engaging parts, that sort of positive emotion when we are absolutely fully using our intelligence. And I think it's sometimes why in business and organizations, people get worried about happiness. They try to think people be happy, clappy and not very bright. Well, there is certain forms of it, which that is true for, so they can point to it. But actually what they really want is people to be positive and safe, enthusiastic, and sometimes to have a laugh, but just maybe 5-10% of the time and other times we are doing other bits, so there's really this whole myriad of different positive emotions and we want to be agile and moving around between them.   Steve Rush: Sure. Now society also plays a massive part in this doesn't it? So over the last 10 or 15 years, if you think about it, societies describe happiness with good economies, wealth, good social wellbeing and obedience, having researched just that, all over the planet, what's your take on how that plays out?   Nic Marks: Well, it is for certain that nations have different levels of average happiness and actually different distributions of happiness in them and some that both the averages and the distribution can be explained by economic and societal factors. And, and then there's stuff more below that but you know, if we look at rank orders of nations on happiness, then Scandinavian countries tend to come top, and that's a lot to do with their social safety net. Which is, it's not really to do with the fact that that's the sort of…I was going to say the average, but by the average, I mean the media and the person in the middle is not particularly happy and Scandinavia and say in the UK or the U.S. but where they are, they do much, much better. Is that the bottom half of the distribution or the lowest 25% in terms of income are match less unhappy in Scandinavia than they are in the UK, the U.S. and places like that, so it is more that they don't have the tail of the distribution pulling the mean down. They have more equal distribution of happiness within it, and that's kind of interesting if you, you know, because people often go, oh, well, you know, you could say the Swedes are happier, but, you know, don't, they have high suicide rates, don't they have this. And, you know, I don't find the fins very extrovert, but, and that's probably all true. I mean, but there are other factors also, which is if you live in a broadly happy society and you are unhappy, you probably take it more personally, and so actually countries with a higher happiness rate may possibly have a highest suicide rate. Whereas if you live in a country such as India or Pakistan, or somewhere where there is much lower levels, you know, suicide rates are probably lower because people feel more normalized about their happiness.   Steve Rush: Less highs and lows, is that how I am reading it?   Nic Marks: Yeah, sort of. You feel less personal; you know if everyone around you is happy and you are miserable, you feel it is very much your fault. And so therefore, you know, I'm a burden on other people. Then you get into this very difficult logic where you start thinking it is actually better for you to take your own life, which is tragically, how some people get. Whereas if everybody is, you just feel like, what does that mean to all of us? Which you know, which in the current situation with the anxiety around looked down and COVID because everybody feels in the same boat, we are not sort of; we are feeling more open about our anxiety because we kind of know it's not about us feeling bad. It is about the environment, so that makes it easy to talk about.   Steve Rush: You also spent a significant amount of time pulling together, enormous research to create the Happy Planet Index. Just tell the listeners a little bit about what the Happy Planet Index is?   Nic Marks: Yeah, the Happy Planet Index is sort of a proposed alternative to GDP as a way of measuring the progress of nations. And I've always felt that GDP was a really bad measure of welfare, of the wellbeing of a nation. In fact, one of my first published bits of work is from 94 and it was an alternative to GDP, but it was very complicated. It was very objective. It was basically a huge cost benefit analysis of the economy and had a lot of assumptions in it. And I knew it was very complicated, but when I used to go talk to talks about it, rightly or wrongly, but it did show was that about the mid-seventies was about the highest in this index and it trading often. People go to me, that is how it feels to me, particularly older people would do.   Steve Rush: Right. Nic Marks: And I always thought that is interesting. It does not say anything about what you feel. It is just a whole lot of economic data put together. That started me perhaps thinking about how you measure what you feel, but when it came to the Happy Planet Index, which was released in 2006, so like 12 years after that first bit of work, I want to do something very simple and easier to agree with. I sort of learned that complexity and indicators tends to put people off, or if they get interested, they then start looking at all the assumptions and the debate gets about the detail and not the bigger picture. And so what I did with the HPI was I said, well, you know, what's the outcome you really want from a country, and I said, it's to produce good lives that don't cost the earth and the planet, but in there is the sustainability element of it.   And so I went, well, you could measure good lives by asking, by looking at the data on happiness, across nations, say the quality of people's lives, you can then adjust that for the length of our life, so life expectancy, which is a very good, reliable piece of health statistics. You've got data on from around the world, but you've also got to think about the efficiency as a nation. Like how much resources does it use to get there? So the Happy Planet Index became a, you know, environmental efficiency of delivering wellbeing, a sort of bang for your buck indicator and that is what it is. It rank ordered nations across the world and basically you have some countries which have got high wellbeing, but high environmental impact and that will be typically Western rich countries. You've got countries which have got low wellbeing, but low environmental impact, so those are sub Saharan Africa and other nations, which are really struggling. Then you've got countries which are interesting, which I've got pretty good levels of wellbeing and much lower resource use and typically they were central Latin America and, some of the islands of the world, or some of the Asian countries, which were doing well. And that became interesting to think, you know, okay, how can we create a sustainable future, which is also a good future. Because the problem with the environmental movement, which, you know, I certainly have been a part of and absolutely bought into. I think they sell very negative visions of the future with the idea that you can scare people into changing their behaviour and I think we can all see over the last 25 years that has not worked.   So, you know, how do we do it in a way which we actually say to people, actually, this could be a better future. And in some ways, some of that is going on right now with COVID in that people are thinking about, oh, I'm staying at home, I'm traveling much less. It is actually less stressful for me, and it is about identifying those positives, you know, as we come out of COVID. It would be a shame if we don't take some benefits in reducing carbon emissions and other things. I mean, that would be disappointing having had this forced on us to not, gets some positives out and not everyone welcomes COVID; we could still get some positives out of it.   Steve Rush: Almost the planet's opportunity, if you just start giving back, isn't it at this time?   Nic Marks: Yeah, I mean, there are people that go all that way and say it's in a guy's feedback and I don't go quite to that level, but it's an opportunity, isn't it? I think like any setback is an opportunity to learn, even if you didn't want to get into it.   Steve Rush: We are going to start to talk a little bit about what you're doing at the moment with Friday Pulse, but just before we do, what is the happiest place statistically on earth?   Nic Marks: Well, last year's data showed Finland as the happiest nation. Then I, the only within country data that I know very well is the UK. And the regions of the UK, and I think it always surprises people, but actually London is the least happy region because it's urban because inequalities are high there and things of that, and people are very close together. Whereas the happiest region of the UK is Northern Ireland, which is much more rural and of course, recent memories of troubles, so they've actually got sort of point to go back to.   So there's sort of different things, but at the national level, it's Finland at the moment, but it has been Norway previously and Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark have done well. Costa Rica is a very surprising one that comes through that is particularly happy compared to its GDP. So yeah, that is the way it is sort of is.   Steve Rush: Cool, and what would be the kind of one or two things that are consistent across those higher ranking, happier places?   Nic Marks: So there is income distribution, which they basically tend to be more equal countries which is what Scandinavia is, and actually even Costa Rica is more equal than such of neighbours around it, you know, Nicaragua, Guatemala and all those other places around there. So it does very well in that and there's also high levels of literacy. Gender equality in Costa Rico, which of course are things that Scandinavia is particularly good at, so equality tends to come out stronger than people think, but of course, you know, richer countries are happier. That is sort of undeniable. They are just not becoming any happier with the extra amounts of wealth we have. We are not seeing those countries on a trajectory to become happier. The countries that are on a trajectory to become happier are some of the developing countries because they are reducing poverty. They are reducing, you know, early deaths, so you know that obviously is a positive.   Steve Rush: And I wonder, is it more visible to them at the same time?   Nic Marks: Yes, it probably is. I mean, there are differences between them, like South Korea has been studied quite a lot because they have obviously been one of the Asian tigers and, you know, their happiness levels have gone up, but they are very, very materialistic there. And they haven't gone up as much as say a country like Vietnam or something like that who is slightly less so, so there were interesting differences between them. And some of them have to do with density of population as well, but there's not just sort of one straight pathway, there are differences.   Steve Rush: Makes lots of sense. Thank you very much, Nic. So the organization you lead now, Friday Pulse. Seeks to take that distillation of happiness data, but from the colleagues and customers of the organizations that you work with. To create something that leadership and other colleagues can actually use as a lens to get a sense check of how their workforce feels, how happy they are almost. Tell us a little bit, about how Friday Pulse was created?   Nic Marks: Yeah, I did my Ted talk on the Happy Planet Index and other work I have done in 2010. And obviously that's quite an honour, and I sort of came out of it, thinking it sort of allowed an opportunity to sort of bookend that part of my work and I accidentally got into policy and I done it for 10-12 years then. When you are working on something like climate change, it is quite slow moving and, you know, I thought when I have got something in and maybe do something and I was always interested in business, my dad was a businessman. He led an organization and I thought, well, this is very applicable there. You know, if leaders knew how happy you are not, teams were, that would get them useful information. So I started creating a happiness at work survey, which was a one off survey to begin with and learned a lot about how the data worked in organizations started to get my own opinion about what I thought the drivers of happiness at work were and how we could measure them. But actually hadn't created a tool that was exceptionally responsive. You know, it's like a one off survey, like most other surveys are, but started to think, well actually, what really an organization needs to know is how it's moving through time.   And so start thinking, there is a way of measurement of happiness we call. There is three ways of measuring happiness really, We can do, what is called a cognitive assessment, which is what most surveys are, which is we ask people to look overall and reflect on it. You can do something which is called experience sampling, where you basically bleed people during the day or text them or whatever. Say, how do you feel right now? It gives really nice data, but it's really annoying. So the one in between is called episodal, measurements and you get to the end of an episode, you ask people to reflect back on it. And I decided to go for that way of measuring it and started off asking people various cadences, so a month, how has the last month been. A day, how has your day been? and settled on a week because daily was a little bit too annoying.   And also you could only just ask people how happy were you or not, and nothing more. If you ask them monthly, it was not very responsive. You so much can happen in a month. As we have learned recently and weekly is the sort of sprint of work. We go; we tend to work too, so we ask people on a Friday that is why we called Friday Pulse. You know, how was your week? How did you feel this week? And that creates a very responsive, we call it happiness KPI, but a very responsive metric, which when you group at a team level, there's effectively a measure of team morale. When you group at an organizational level, it is people's experience of the culture of the organization, experience of work right now. And so you can look at that, and I mean, the good thing about a question like that is you can ask, you know, truck driver, that question, you can ask a CEO with that question and they can give you an answer to it.   Whereas if you ask people how engaged were you this week, most people don't even know how to answer that question. They have an idea of what the top of the scale is particularly. They know if they are disengaged, they know where the top of the scale is. So when you ask people how you felt and were you happy or not? They can give you an answer that is very good, reliable data in that way.   Steve Rush: And what do you notice the themes are that contribute to a happy culture at work for leaders listening to this podcast?   Nic Marks: There are some general themes across an organization, and there are ways that you can articulate it. So the way that we do is we say there were five ways to happiness at work and, and they are connect, which is relationships are the most important. They are the cornerstone of creating good experiences or undermining experience for that case, for that matter.   The second one is to be fair, which is if people feel they are treated fairly, respectfully, then they can bring themselves to work much more. The third is to empower them sort of their autonomy delegating yet and use their strengths. The fourth is to challenge them, so this is sort of misunderstanding of happiness that people are happy doing nothing. It is actually not true they board and actually, people would like it when there is a bit of stretch. Not, if you stretch them too much, challenge them too much, they go and stress. If you under challenge them, they are going into apathy and boredom. You've got to get the right sweet spot, which has always tends to be the way anyway, and then the fifth one is to inspire, which is about meaning purpose, where they feel it doing is worthwhile.   So those five things connect be fair, impact, challenge, inspire are the big drivers, but then there is specific things that go on, which has really to do with the environment and what is going on around them very locally. Which is that some people, some teams will find them in a very stressful situation or their work environments are stressful. So with people moving remote at the moment and very quickly moved remote a few weeks ago, you know, that some people were happier working at home than others and lots to do their environments, whether they got children, whether they have the right equipment at home, where they had a quiet space, you know, whatever it was. So some of those things are very, very local and some of those bigger, broader cultural things. So yeah, those two effects really.   Steve Rush: And like any business and any part of any business it is feedback, data that I am getting an also alien to that is that leadership choices to what I do with that information as I receive it. Right?   Nic Marks: Totally and in fact, the whole of Friday Pulse is really a feedback loop. And actually it's very similar to therapy in some ways, which is that in therapy. Therapist listens to their client, and they reflect back to them and then they work with them about the challenges that they are facing. And we listened to the population, the employees by asking them every Friday, how do they feel? We feed that back to them and the team leaders, and then senior leaders, you stack the data up in nice reporting, and that enables people to then work together to make better experiences. So one of the things I am very keen on this, people don't just focus on the negatives. Don't just focus on the deficits. They actually appreciate the assets and the positives going on, and so on a Friday, we don't only ask people how they felt. We also asked them, what was success for you this week? Have you got anyone you want to thank because appreciating each other, is really important for both sides of that equation. Then we give people the opportunity to share a frustration or an idea to make things better. But actually most of our clients really, really work on accentuating the positive because in lots of ways, businesses tend to focus on how do you solve problems? What comes up? And actually probably often don't take the time to go, yes, good job, and to actually get that human appreciation, which actually we all really respond well to.   Steve Rush: And hitting back to the neuroscience we talked on a little bit earlier; of course, it will release different neurotransmitters that create that self-fulfilling prophecy of getting additional positive outcomes from our thinking and our behaviours, which helps improve happiness of course.   Nic Marks: It certainly does. And I mean, all of this works together, you know, physically, but I always think about it as like, you know, if someone compliments you and your sort of head goes up and your shoulders go back and you sort of feel bigger because you're feeling confident. Whereas when someone criticizes you, you can tend to sort of hunch up and pull your shell in, you know, and protect yourself. And we're much better when we're expensive and shoulders back, and actually other people like working with us more like that as well. So there is so much to be gained from being positive, but of course you have to be realistic. You know, it does not mean to say you let people travel down into a sort of fantasy world where everyone is doing a good job. No, it was a point is, you know, really differentiating and really understanding and helping people build on their positives.   Steve Rush: So this part of the show, we are going to turn away from you being a statistician, but look at you through your leadership lens of running an organization. And at this part of the show, we like to ask our guests to share their top leadership hacks or ideas. So if you could share based on your experience as a leader, your top leadership hacks, what would they be? Nic.   Nic Marks: I think that the big thing is listening to people, you know, I don't employ people to tell them what to do. I employ people to work with them and, get the best out of them and actually learning to bring the best out of them. The main way is listening to them even when they disagree with you, so I think listening is probably the first one.   Second one is I think little and often, I think I've tried to where I've gone wrong previously would be when I've tried to do big interventions. And actually I think doing smaller ones, checking is a much better way. But consistently I definitely have had to learn that, you know, leadership is a, weekly process, maybe even a daily process, but a weekly one, you know, where you're asking questions every week and you're listening every week rather than just sort of going, right. These are our goals for the next quarter. Then checking in 2-3 months later, realizing people have gone down a different tangent or, something has emerged, maybe for good reasons, but you don't know about them so I think little and often is probably.   The next one for me, definitely, I think inspiring people, which is that I hold the vision for the company. I don't necessarily hold the solutions, but I hold the vision for where we're going and why we're doing it. And remembering to remind people about that, so reminding them of the why, but it's actually, you know, bringing that into, your weekly work. I mean, particularly with all the adjustments we have made just recently and COVID and everyone going remote, you know, I sort of had to remind myself to remind everybody why we're doing this. If that makes sense.   Steve Rush: It makes sense. One of those things that you set up a vision to start with and other things get in the way. And we, as leaders also need reminding that is our job to remind people and to make sure that, we continually talking about the journey and how are we going to get there and what's going to get in the way and remove barriers. It's part and parcel of that. Isn't it?   Nic Marks: Yeah, it definitely is and it is actually a bit of the job I really like. Some of the detail bits, I am less good at it. I mean, it is funny; I am very good at details and stats. But I can sometimes of like, you know, I probably like many people not got the longest attention span and I sometimes sort of get stopped and I have to beat myself up for it, but the inspiring bit and the listening to how they feel and what they're doing. I mean, I can do that for ages because I really liked people and I really believe in what we are doing. So those are the bits I find easier. It is keeping people on track and the detail that is always my learning edge.   Steve Rush: Thanks for being so honest and great hacks also. So when we start to think that this partnership we've really enjoyed getting into the heads of our leaders and our guests where they've maybe screwed up in the past or something's gone catastrophic wrong, and indeed they are now using that experience as a positive in their life. We call this Hack to Attack. What would yours be?   Nic Marks: Hack to Attack? Well, I mean, in some ways I've sort of pointed to it with a little bit of those last bits, but I think that I have definitely been guilty of letting things run for too long cause I wasn't confident enough to challenge people. And, and so, you know, previously had someone in the business and you know, she has some really strong qualities, but just sort of always going pear shapes. And, and I, kept on coming back to every three or four months, but really we should have partied companies at least a year before we eventually did. And that cost us a lot, and she wasn't happy. She was not doing quite what she wanted. I was trying to, I guess, force her, so there was a role that needed doing and I was wanting her to do that role and she was not quite wanting to do it and she was definitely capable of it. But it just sort of ran on far too long, and in the end it all became very messy and angry. If I dealt with it much earlier. We would have had a lot less problems and it's the same problem I had with my marriage actually, which was that, you know, I let things run too long and I should have been challenging about that earlier. I think that is my weaknesses tending to gloss over some of the negatives, my positivity overrides listening to negative feedback or negative signals. And I think that's actually really important leadership is to be able to one, hear the negative signal and two, deal with it because it doesn't go away.   Steve Rush: It is great learning, Nic and also think about the themes that you are now encouraging other leaders to talk about through Friday Pulse. There is a lot of synergies there in terms of what your learned behaviour. What you are encouraging others to learn from now, so that is super stuff. The last thing I wanted to talk to you about, and this is where we are going to ask you to do some time travel. I want you to think about if you were able to bump into Nic at 21; you are able to give him one bit of advice that would make the difference. What would it be?   Nic Marks: I quite like my life, even my mistakes. So, you know, that is not like something I would massively want to change. I mean, I think I was a little uptight as a 21. I was a little serious and I had the future weighed on me quite a lot. I sort of kind of had this feeling. I wanted to do something and I probably wanted to do it quicker than was possible. And you know, and I mean, I have actually done things which are interesting. I think I would just say, you know, relax. It will be okay. Follow what you are interested in, I mean, in some ways I have done that actually. So, but when I was 21, I was a little bit; I was a little bit still uptight, yeah.   Steve Rush: If only Nic would know the 21-year-old, Nic who might have been a little bit uptight. Still found is way to be where you are now, which is, you know, impacting the lives of many of the people, so that's great advice.   Nic Marks: It is nice to think that. The 21-year-old Nic would be horrified at the thought that that 55-year-old Nic got divorced. He would not like that at all, but apart from that, he pretty much take the rest.   Steve Rush: Good stuff. Okay, as people have been listening to you, Nic. We will make sure that we encourage him to get over to Ted and have a look at the Happy Planet Index talk, which I think is really inspiring and I love that, but where else can they find out about the work that you do with Friday Pulse and indeed some of the things that you do now?   Nic Marks: Yeah. Friday Pulse is the name of the company, so it is fridaypulse.com and it is actually, we are offering it free for organizations up to a thousand people at the moment. So they can try it for three months and see how they go with it and see how they like the data and how they can work with it. I create blog articles and posts on LinkedIn most week. Connect with me on LinkedIn; I always like meeting new people there and I have a personal website, which is more my sort of speaking musing, which is nicmark.org. Nic is no K a in that, so those are the main ways to find me.   Steve Rush: We will make sure there in the show notes to accompany this podcast as well Nic. So as people are finished listening, they can literally just click into those links and then hop over to find you.   Nic Marks: Fabulous, thank you.   Steve Rush: Nic, I just wanted to say I am incredibly happy that you have chosen to be with The Leadership Hacker Podcast. I have spoken to you a few times now and I have loved the conversations that we have had and as a result, I know we're going to get a lot of happy hackers listening to you too. So thanks for being on, The Leadership Hacker Podcast.   Nic Marks: Thank so much for having me.     Closing   Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.   Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler their @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.    

Nic Marks is a statistician with a slightly weird speciality - happiness. For the last three decades he has been creating measures of people's quality of life - with an increasing emphasis on their emotional experience and happiness. His strong proposition is that by measuring people's happiness, it kick-starts a process which builds happiness. The proposition really works well at scale and over the years he has learned this through his work with: The British Government designing national wellbeing indicators The kingdom of Bhutan measuring their Gross National Happiness And many businesses large and small Nic also gave a very popular TED talk. Nic is the Founder and CEO of Friday Pulse which tracks employee happiness helping businesses build a positive productive work culture. Thanks, Nic! Show notes here.