Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 232: How to Actually Get Work Done at Home | Rasmus Hougaard & Jacqueline Carter

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

We are in the middle of a giant, global experiment in remote work. Even in the best of times, working from home is tricky. You're surrounded by distractions: pets, laundry, Netflix. But in the midst of this pandemic, WFH (as the millennials call it) is even harder, given that many of us are cooped up with our children, cut off from our coworkers, and overwhelmed by anxiety. Our guests, Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, from Potential Project, are experts in bringing mindfulness into the workplace. In this episode, we explore solutions to four major problems: distraction, isolation, virtual collaboration, and balancing family life. Plugzone: Website: https://www.potentialproject.com/ Books: https://www.potentialproject.com/books/the-mind-of-the-leader/ Rasmus on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rasmushougaard/ Jacqueline on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelinecarter1/ Other Resources: Ten Percent Happier Live: We’ll be streaming live on YouTube at 3PM ET every weekday. If you miss us live, you can catch the episode here at www.tenpercent.com/live or on the Ten Percent Happier app. Full show notes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/rasmus-hougaard-jacqueline-carter-232 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What does it even mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, purpose, love, health, or wealth? What really matters in the pursuit of a life well lived? These are the questions award-winning author, founder, and interviewer Jonathan Fields asks his guests on the Top Ranked Good Life Project podcast. Every week, Jonathan sits down with world renowned thinkers and doers, people like Glenn and Doyle, Adam Grant,

Young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life Project on your favorite podcast app. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. On my new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad.

Where did memes come from. And where's Tom from MySpace? Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

Hey everybody, hope you're doing okay. This situation sucks. There's no two ways about it. And I know everybody's stressed and because of that stress and fear and anxiety that we're all feeling, myself included, as I mentioned on Wednesday, we're now making this podcast biweekly. So we're going to go twice a week. I've never known whether biweekly meant every other week or twice during a week. And in any event, I mean we're go twice a week. I've never known whether by week we met every other week or twice during a week.

And any event, I mean we're going twice a week. So keep it here for much more from us, including this episode today. Wednesdays and Fridays, we'll be posting. The other thing we're doing at the 10% happier company is live guided meditations on video, on YouTube every weekday at 3 o'clock. You can join us at 10% .com slash live. I'll put a link in the show notes, but we would love to have you tell everybody you know. The goal of these sessions is to give you both, to give you a sanity

break in the middle of long, difficult days for most of us, and also to create a sense of community when many of us are feeling cut off and isolated. And I think I think we're succeeding at both but we've also put a survey up on the YouTube page that you can fill in and let us know how you think we're doing. Okay, today's episode. We are in the middle of a giant global experiment in working from home, which is, and I can now say this with the personal experience, tricky at best, our guests today, just like our guest on Wednesday,

when we talked about parenting in a pandemic, our guests today offer a real mixture of practical advice and genuine wisdom. They have identified four areas that we should be focusing on when it comes to upping our working from home game. One is distractions, family is the second one, virtual collaboration, and managing feelings of isolation. Our guests are Rasmus Hogard.

He's the founder and managing director of something called Potential Project, which is a global leadership training organizational development and research firm Basically what they do they say is they help leaders and organizations enhance performance innovation and resilience through mindfulness and other practices grounded in neuroscience and research they work with big big companies like Cisco Lego Lego Accenture and Microsoft big companies like Cisco Lego, Accenture, and Microsoft. Also with us is Jacqueline Carter. She's a partner at Potential Project, and she also runs there in North American operations.

She has a master's in organizational behavior. She spent many years working and made your corporations, and she spent the past 10 years helping corporations embed mindfulness and other practices into their daily life. In other words, these are two people who know what they're talking about. I also happen to like them a great deal and you're about to hear why they're very cool. I should also say they've written a couple books together. One is called One Second ahead and the other is called The Mind of the Leader. Both of them are about the issue of mindfulness at work. So one last thing to say before we get started here, we're still working on our audio quality. I think it's going to be much better today than it was

on Wednesday, but bear with us if it isn't perfect. Here we go. Rasmus Hogueard, Jacqueline Carter. I think a great way to start perhaps would be, I'd be interested in hearing from the two of you about how you're doing in terms of staying on point in your professional lives in the midst of a really chaotic and confusing situation. That's a great question. And for us, it is not so strange. Our organization is digitally virtually native. So we are always working from home unless if we are out with clients which we of course do a lot. But all the work that we normally do has not changed in that. We're still working from home meeting with the same people on Zoom. So we're used to this, no new new business for us in that sense. I think Dan what I would say though is of course as everybody is so aware of the increasing

the stress and frustration that so many people in suffering that people are experiencing and I think for us, it's really a call to action. This is work that we've been helping organizations and individuals build resilience and create more clarity and calm in their mind as of course you have as well. And we just see the need now, it's now more important than ever. And I think for us, it's a, it's a real call to action for us. I understand, though, that you've been working virtually, you've been pioneers in this space, but there's now this overlay of what is going to happen to our

world. Am I going to get sick? Or my parents going to get sick? Are we entering a recession or worse? I would imagine that seems into your mind streams as well. I think we'll be lying if we said it didn't. Obviously, like any other business, we're hit by this crisis, obviously. But I do have to say the way that our teams have dealt with it, has been a very calm and very compassionate approach.

So we have basically a mission of bringing more peace and more compassion to the world through helping organizations to be more clear-minded and focused. And it seems, because we've been practicing this for many years, I mean, all of us, we're 300 people around the world, that really have paid off in this crisis. People seem very calm, very focused, and even more purpose-driven about getting our mission into the world. And I think maybe Dan also an aspect of that,

and it is because this is part of our culture, but it's the kind of thing where we have a culture where I can say, Dan, are you OK? Do you need to take a break? You seem to be struggling a little bit, and that's totally OK and permissible in our culture because We know that sometimes we need to take breaks sometimes we get overwhelmed or we can check in with each other in terms of things that we're dealing with outside of our work lives So I think because it's so part of our language around distractions around taking care of self

It's actually it's it's it's again. It's it's kind of business as as normal for us Let me stay with you Jackie for a second, because you're based in the States, right? Yes. Yes, but you are in Copenhagen right now because you got stuck there because they shut down, they locked everything down. Correct. You were over there for work and they locked everything down. So now you're stuck away from home having to also work in a different time zone with

as referenced before, this sort of overhang of uncertainty in the world. So as you're going about your work, yes, you have a culture that's well wired to deal with this, but still, that's a lot of extra added into the system. It is definitely challenging and at the same time, I think that from a practice perspective, Dan, as you know, all we can deal with is what's happening right now in this moment. And so for us, really, is about using the practice in this moment of crisis to be able to make sure that we're focusing on what we can control and doing our best to let go of those things that we can't and just especially, you know especially for us, just being of service. Rasmus, you now have an extra house guest because she's staying with you and this is all

going on. Again, I hear you loud and clear on how you've been helping organizations build resilience into their system, so therefore you have it in your system. And yet, a challenge is a challenge. So I'm just curious, do you find that you're trying to stay focused on your work at all and there are invasive thoughts that you have to have to have to deal with? Of course, our invasive thoughts and and and fortunately when the rubber hits the road, you get to experience. If the practice has ever worked, then I do feel that it has worked very well. I'm not so worried about the the actual disease. I mean, in the end, most of us are going to get it over the next few years anyway.

And more worried about all the honesty, all the like looking out over Copenhagen from where I'm seeing now, and seeing all the shops and the cafes and all the people that are going, you know, going, going bust over the next weeks. That is worrying a lot. And of course, also the impact has on our own

organization which is, was a worry for a few weeks but not so much because now the world is realizing that resilience is the most important thing and so we're actually pretty overwhelmed with the response from our clients and non-clients looking for resilience to support their people. So no, it's not, I'm not so worried that I personally. Okay, great. I'm glad to hear that you guys are doing okay given the circumstances. So let's dive into,

you very healthily came up with four subject areas that you wanna tackle as it pertains to virtual work. Distractions, virtual collaborations, family life, and the feeling of isolation. Let's start with distractions. And Jackie, why don't you go first? I see, I'm happy to go into that. But actually, Dan, before we do it,

it'd be okay if we just ask you the same question. How are you coping with being virtual and dealing with your family life and all the distractions that you're facing. Because of course, you're in the middle of it too. Right. So yeah, it's a struggle. I'm not I'm not going to lie. I've been in an unusual situation for a number of reasons. One, I do go into the studio on Saturday and Sunday morning to do good morning America. So I do get a lot of human interaction then. But the rest of the

week by myself, well, this week I've been really by myself because my wife and our son have been up at grandma's place in upstate New York. And so that has been, you know, I'm really on my own. So there, I have been dealing with less, you know, distractions in terms of my kid running around the house while I'm in meetings or trying to think, but there are feelings of being disconnected. I find it is useful that my company 10% happier, we do a ton of video chats, and so that's been useful. I've also been in the evenings getting together. I have an 85-year-old neighbor and She's interested in learning to meditate because she's got a lot of time on her hands right now

So we've been meditating about 20 feet apart in the hallway That's actually good for both of us. I think that's really been my only face-to-face interaction And also I will say that in terms of distractions I find myself struggling with And also, I will say that in terms of distractions, I find myself struggling with checking Twitter obsessively how many, one of the most painful thought patterns I can see in my own mind is, how many likes do I have on my most recent tweet? That is an incredibly painful mindset to be in. So, that's happening, checking the news happens or just being sucked away. If I'm trying to work on one thing, being sucked away by my emails, I notice because it's

all on the same machine right here in front of me on my desktop, my work and the inbox. The pets are distracting, we have three cats, and I, you know, just naturally not great at being focused. And then I would say, I don't know if this counts as a distraction, but just the anxiety. Yeah, exactly. What is your anxiety about? Oh, well, this could be, we could do an hour on that. Let's do that. We'll just turn the table here. I would say my anxiety is about a lot of his economic. You know, what's going to happen to my business, what's going to happen to, you know, I have two companies that I work for, 10% happier, and then also ABC News, what's going to happen to both of these places, what's going to happen to people

I care about, then there's anxiety about, you know, I have elderly parents, are they going to get sick, is my elderly neighbor going to get sick, is my kid going to get sick? So there's a lot to worry about. Well, maybe that's a good place to kind of get into the context around distractions and science. And I think that, and you know this, it's like we are naturally distracted beings. The science says that we're distracted

to almost half of our waking hours, which is actually a really good thing from a mind perspective because it enables us to be able to make sure that our mind can respond to threats in our environment. If we were so focused that we couldn't hear the fire alarm, that would be dangerous for us. So in some ways, it's very good that our mind can be distracted.

The problem actually in our current environment is that there are so many threats that are now in our environment that we're just overwhelmed with distraction and really experiencing, for many people, almost a state of mental paralysis, as we're just can be overcome by those fears. And for a lot of us in terms of those distractions, we have to ask ourselves, and it's great to hear you talk about, you know, maybe the news and maybe the Twitter feed, we're actually right now being sucked into things that we may think are important. Like, do I really need to know how many more cases are in my local area?

Maybe I do, maybe I really don't, and maybe checking that may or may not be helpful. So I think from a science perspective, what we're really seeing is an overload of our brain in terms of our brain's ability to cope with those fears and anxieties from a distraction perspective. So yes, I get that. There's an overload, and we maybe need to give ourselves a break because we should recognize that there's an overload. And yet we do have things to do. So any, let's get detailed about how we can actually do the things

we need to do given the unchangeable nature of the situation. Right, so there are three things that's in our work with clients over the past few weeks who are experiencing this big time. Three things that seem to be coming to the top. The first one, which we would recommend anybody is to adopt a mindfulness practice. And I know this sounds self-serving, Dan, you're serving mindfulness of the world, so are we. But mindfulness practice really the practice of learning to let go of distractions and stay focused on what we want, so that we are more intentional about how we work and can actually get stuff done. I think a mindfulness practice should not be seen

as just some esoteric soft world we think that we're doing in our private life. That's actually pretty important for performance, well-being, resilience and innovation in these times. So that I would say is the first thing, the second thing is really, really practical is to switch off all notifications. And I know it's an old trick, but most people still haven't done it. So turn off all notifications on your outlook, on your phone, on every digital device that can distract you. And now then you talked about the social media, whether it's Twitter or Instagram or whatever.

Shut it down while you're working because why you're just not going to get work done. And then the last thing that we say is avoiding multitasking. We know that multitasking is the mother of all evil when it comes to performance and well-being and everything. And still we all do it. And so try to stop or diminish the multitasking a little bit, especially because when we're at home, and as you said, there's a cat, oh, how nice to pet the cat instead of doing the email or the conversation, whatever.

So there are so many more things that will distract this when we're at home. So stop multitasking and be more mentally disciplined about staying on task. Frustratingly, I do a lot of pretty much everything you recommend and yet I still, I don't have notifications on and yet I still go check my email just because I don't want to do the thing I'm supposed to be doing right now. You are human. Just imagine if you check your notifications how bad it would be. Yeah, exactly. And I think that first of all, it is, I mean, that's totally natural.

I think that then it really, and especially now, I think that we know that people, I mean, that's, you know, habitual in terms of things that maybe you're used to doing that. I think that what we need right now, though, is to recognize the sense of urgency around that because before when you were checking your email, you know, it might be something good, it might be something positive, but right now what we're seeing is a lot of the times when we're checking, certainly, you know, Twitter or certainly checking the news, it's not positive. And so it's getting about that impact that it's having on the brain, which is actually creating more anxiety, more fear, and more worry

than we need to, or that is helpful for us to be able to actually perform and get the things that we need to get done. So it's just be even more diligent about not checking things that you don't need to right now. And again, that sounds easy, but it's just critical. In this day and age right now, in this crisis, we need to be even much more disciplined. So let me read you, this may be a little redundant, but some of these are just good. You'll be good for you to hear and fun fun to read. I went out on Twitter and said,

here we go talking about Twitter, but I went out on Twitter and said, hey, I'm interviewing some experts. Can you send me some questions? And I got a lot of questions. And I'll keep referencing them through the course of this, but on the subject of anxiety slash distraction, let me read some of these to you. So somebody with a handle, state of self-bend, wrote, how do you stay sane? But also, how do you focus when you're cuddly dog, who research has proven, will improve well-being, is begging for attention, and you know playing will feel better. It's hard to focus on work. It's the crazy and balanced self-care, self-suiting. Let me just read a few more

and then you can respond on mass. This is from CL. Finding hope and purpose amidst the turmoil and tumult and being other centric when engaged virtually. Any and all help is appreciated and then Laura coping with the inability to focus along with the unknowns of continuing to exhibit proposals and work on projects while worrying that there will be

no way to get the work done. And sorry, let me just give you one more. How can you focus on being productive when every fiber of your being is distracted by an intensified form of existentialism and the non-stop pouring of bad news from social media? Well, in the end, it comes down to the same thing, more or less, it's all about managing the mind, right? I mean, whether it's the cuddly dog or it's the fear and anxiety coming from all the media,

it's all about managing the mind. And that's again why the work that you do and the work that we do of helping people to manage their mind a little bit better is so important, especially an accentuating a crisis like this. We had a webinar this morning, just a few hours ago, with some 700 people from around the world. And we had this work cloud looking at what is it that people are experiencing right now. And of course, the biggest ones were anxiety and fear and worry, concerns, all of those of people are just very very very emotionally loaded right now Then when we ask the question what one thing should you stop doing that would help you to feel a little bit better

And I think 60% of them wrote stop watching the news and that's bad thing to say for an agency. Yes Sorry, sorry, sorry, but And that's a bad thing to say for an ABC. Sorry. So sorry for saying that then. But I'm sure your newscast, Danny, it was, yeah, you were good. No, that was disclaimer. Yes, sorry. Not ABC, but people are obsessively checking the news for the latest fatality numbers

and all of these things. And it's not helping us. So learning to manage ourselves to stop doing that and spend more time with the dog, less time on Twitter. That would be my advice. And maybe Dan, to make it also really practical, and again, you know this, and I'm sure most the people that are listening know this, but it really is now is the time where you really see how going to the mental gym actually sitting and practicing, whether you practice for

five minutes or ten minutes or whatever you do, but you sit there and, you know, before maybe you were distracted, but now you can sit there in the practice in the mental gym and you see worry you see fear you anxiety And of course is the practice depending on which practice you're doing in that moment But the best one is just come back to the breath let it go Release relax return let it go keep on coming back to the breath and as hard as that is in the mental gym That is the training that's gonna help you get through the rest of your day, because those thoughts are going to continue to come up as thought bubbles. And if you are going to stay focused on the work at hand and the people that you're with, you've got to be able to train the mind and have that mental

agility to be able to let go, relax, release, return to what you're doing. So let's drill down on that for a second, Jacqueline, because you've talked about, and I think this is going to be a useful bit of, sort of, I'm going to get a little legalistic, but I think this is going to be useful for people, because you've talked about how we need more discipline right now, and that applied, as I understood it, not only to taking yourself to the mental gym but also when you're trying to do work really shutting down all the other distractions. But when I hear the word discipline and I think when a lot of other type A people hear discipline we are inner drill sergeant comes to the fore and we start beating the crap out of ourselves.

And so what I hear from this, you haven't said it explicitly, but I think you've really said it implicitly in it's worth highlighting, that there's a gentleness here. There is self-compassion involved with both in the practice of meditation, trying to focus on one thing. Notice when you've gotten distracted and gently starting again.

And the same, what I imagine you would argue would apply to doing your work. So it's a mixture of discipline, but also some self-compassion. I think that's absolutely true. I once heard a great interview with the Dalai Lama who was asked, what is discipline? And he said, discipline is an advanced form of self-protection. It is protecting ourselves from our lacy habits so that we get done what we need to do, that we tend to the things we should attempt to in a very caring way, having, as you say, self-care and compassion for ourselves.

So discipline is definitely not that, as you say, that the drill sergeant that is telling you now, stand, right? But it is a strong sense of self-care and self-protection. Yeah, so essentially, I totally agree that I think that right now we need to take care of ourselves. It's like when you're ever you go on an airplane and not that anybody's flying on airplanes, but you still remember the mantra that says,

put your own oxygen mask on first. Right now, in terms of compassion, it really does need to start with self. And the reason I would say in tying that to this idea of discipline, a gentle discipline is also around going into the mental gym and allowing ourselves to really have moments of pause in our day where we can tune in, take stock with what's happening

in the field of our mind, so that we can really start to with what's happening in the field of our mind, so that we can really start to see what's helpful, what's unhelpful, and it's really about enhancing our awareness. And then that's why then the next thing is to realize that we can make choices. Is checking my newsfeed? Is checking Twitter? Is checking this? Is checking that? Are those things helpful to us? And the more that we can, I think, tune into our own mind, I think that then this idea of discipline it actually becomes quite natural. It's like, huh, wow, that's not helping me right now.

I don't feel good right now because I'm actually engaging in more activities that are helping me be more aware. And that's helping me take better care of myself. And now I'm actually better able to take care of others. So I think the strong aspect that I would say back to the practice is cultivating a greater sense of self, of self-care, and a greater sense of awareness of self, so you can take better care of yourself,

and take better care of others. Yeah, in terms of self-care, do you think it's worth noting that? I totally agree we have to put our own oxygen masks on first here and so I've been thinking a lot about that. I know that so not last night but the night before I told myself a story about how you know I deserve a break and I stayed up until midnight watching Netflix and then I didn't get enough sleep and I was a mess yesterday and so last night I put

myself to bed early and I resented it, but I feel much better today. And so that, and also I've been really disciplined about working out every day. And so actually I'll read you another tweet that came in from Brad Stullberg, who's an author, he's written a couple of books, one called Peak Performance, the other called Pat, the Passion Paradox.

And he's a coach for folks on similar issues that you guys are. He wrote here to me on Twitter, lots of gyms are making the decisions to close. I think that is a very hard but ultimately wise decision. The worst thing we can do is sit at home on CNN all day. Movement is key for physical health. I'm glad he said CNN, not ABC. Movement is key for physical health and mental health. So I mean, I would imagine, I think it's worth talking about this.

If we're trying to stay undistracted, productive, focused, that it's not just about going to the mental gym, but going to the physical gym, finding a way to work out, even though we're in sub-optimal circumstances. Absolutely. And I think whether it's just even, and I think one of the big things, and maybe we can look at that in terms of looking at, you know, how do we set ourselves up in terms of from a virtual environment?

One of the things would be, you know, do you have a space in your home where you can actually work? Do you have a separate space where you can actually exercise? You know, can you can you reconfigure your house so that you can actually exercise. You know, can you reconfigure your house so that you can actually have fit for purpose spaces? So that, ah, when I'm here, this is actually a place where everybody knows this is when I'm working. And not everybody has that luxury

depending on where you live and the size of your house. But to really, I think be creative about creating spaces that'll help you recognize, ah, here is where I can actually do some stretching. You know, this is actually my place for working out or for, you know, just be, or of course, a place for going to the mental gym as well. But I totally agree with you.

Physical activity is so important for all of us. Since you talked about space and I think not all, I mean, especially for those of us who live in New York City, a lot of us, we don't have space. And so what do we do about that? Because many of us, you in New York City, a lot of us, we don't have space. And so what do we do about that? Because many of us, if you're a parent, and you don't have that much space, this is a really hard moment.

I'll just read you another tweet from Jacob Lagerstet, how do I explain to my five year old boy that's streaking during a conference call with clients is not okay. What would you say to parents right now who are cooped up with kids and don't have necessarily have a place to go? Or even if you do have a place to go,

there's the guilt that you're dealing with. That's a great question. And as you said in the beginning, there are these four areas that we need to manage. One of them being family life. We can maybe move a little bit into that. We'll come and answer at least a few ideas of your question. But I think, first of all, the context

is that it is obviously incredibly confusing for everybody, especially the kids, to have parents at home, working from home. Does that mean they're available? No, it doesn't. But then what? So it is very confusing and research has shown that technology in the room where you have your family life is making people feel distant from each other and like if you're looking

at technology while your kid is trying to get your attention, it is the same pain as if you slap their face. So it's a pretty difficult thing and I think also for couples it is generally very confusing to some of you at home and who said get the kids from what 9 to 10 and so on. So a few things that we're advising anyway. The first one is the self-care that you have talked about already. If we want to show up as a good parent while we're an effective employee or leader, we need to get sleep, we need to get exercise, we need to have time for those things.

So back to the self-care, I have really, really important. The second thing is, and even if you live in New York, but to try to separate your workspace from family space, even as that means you're sitting and working in a closet or you're working in a separate corner of the living room or the kitchen or whatever, but that you have a boundary that is this is workspace. And then when I move even just two meters away, then I'm at home. So there is this that physical and mental separation between where you work and where you where you live. And then to make those expectations very clear for the whole family. So I think it's important to sit down and talk about what do we do where in this apartment

and when do we do what in the time that we have together as long as we're working anyway. So basically self-care, separate workspace and then boundaries and managing expectations. I wanted to add one more thing that may or may not work for all people, but I do think that, again, I'm always trying to be a silver lining kind of person. I do think there is also something

that we could really leverage in terms of our colleagues. Like the fact that, you know, we're on this call and we're, this is the first time you've invited us to your home, Dan. And, you know, if you're a kid, streak to cross the back, I mean, it would actually make me feel more connected to you. So I think that there's actually an opportunity for us to use the fact that, yes, we have kids. We're

all managing this. We're all in this together. And actually, to maybe, yeah, you know, you know, Dan, you know, maybe if my kids were here, I'd like to introduce you to them. And then I'll say to them, I'm talking to Dan. And now, you know, I need you guys to be over there so that I can finish this conversation. But I think that that would really help us to build some of the connection that opt in times, actually, in normal times, we don't necessarily have connecting as human beings in terms of our whole lives. I agree that is an upside. And I'm seeing that a lot in my work with folks

from 10% happier that the kids are coming through or the cats are coming through, and you meet the kid or the animal, the dog, or whatever. And it makes it nice. It does feel like you're getting to know people better in this odd way. But back to balancing family life while you're working, one thing that seems potentially really helpful here is to have a routine for everybody. Donna B on Twitter asks, how can we set up a productive routine? What are your thoughts on that? I think that it really depends on,

of course, every family is different, for people that have young kids, like the five-year-old that you were mentioning, it's very different than people that have teenagers. So I think that it does, and that's why what Rasmus was saying around, it has to be a schedule and it does have to be okay.

Here's when I'm available, here's when I'm not available and also working that out with the other adults in the family environment. And really again, it is back to this word that I keep on bringing up, but I do think it does have to be pretty disciplined and structured. And I think for us to just assume that we can manage without having a sense of boundaries and expectations, I think that that's actually what creates conflict intention for people.

So the more that we can set, you know, the more that we can set those expectations and boundaries up in advance and then learn from it and be very flexible because we're gonna all have to continue to flex as we go through this process. And getting back to not only self-care, but now maybe getting into being really kind to each other because I'm gonna mess up,

and we're gonna have to make sure that we can support each other through that. And I think that kindness that you're referencing there really does start with yourself. Correct. That it's the sine qua non in some ways that it's really hard to be, it's not impossible, but it's much harder

to be kind to other people when your inner weather is really, you know, there's torrential rain in there. And so I think getting into the habit of giving yourself a break can help you give other people a break. Yeah, absolutely. So this is a mixture of, we've moved, we're kind of jumping back and forth between two of your buckets, one being distractions, the other being family life, and those two overlap in many significant ways. But one of the things that I found about being home that is difficult is I'm not surrounded by my normal work cues. My boss is not here and the laundry is basket is overflowing,

so I feel like, okay, I should go do do that and also the TV that I normally watch on to relax is like right over my right shoulder as I speak to you and so it's it's a it's a target rich environment for for distractions in a way that my office isn't and I would say that's that sounds like a problem, right? Maybe you see this an opportunity at work. We work a lot, obviously. We work most of the time, unless we're getting distracted by things we shouldn't get distracted by at home, when we get distracted, it can actually be useful things,

like engaging with your kids, like petting your cat, or like giving laundry done. So you have a little bit more time in the afternoon or possibly your extended your working day with an hour, but it is basically more conducive for giving the brain, the breaks that the brain needs to be effective throughout a long day. If you do the laundry or if you take time to just cook a quick lunch, whereas in the office you'll just grab it and you'll just eat it and you're done and you're over. So also welcome some of the positive, unintended implications of working at home. It's not all bad and we shouldn't see it as that.

Yeah, at the same time. Oh, sorry. This is the you and I, Jacqueline just got into the classic conference call issue, which is we both started speaking at the same time. Can I just ask a question? Because I, and this may just, this may be where you were going with this, Jack, I don't

know. But to me, it strikes me that the key thing is, yes, cooking lunch as opposed to just grabbing it in the cafeteria and eating it at your desk can have saliitary impacts or stepping away to do something that gives your brain a break like folding laundry as I did yesterday. However, I wonder whether your advice would be to do it in an orderly fashion, because I was just stepping away at any moment. I got frustrated with my work and it just felt like I was frenzied. Absolutely. I would say, and that's what I was going was, I think that, yeah, and again, it's just to really watch, is this a good opportunity to be distracted? This is a good

opportunity to take a break, a good opportunity to shift your focus. Maybe it is because you're finding. And maybe actually in your case, if you were frustrated, then maybe it was actually a good time to go do the laundry because maybe the next email that you were going to write would not have been a necessarily kind one. So I think it gets back to, again, the ideal approach would be to pause in the moment and say, okay, I'm tempted to go fold the laundry. Am I tempted to do that because I just want to be distracted? Or am I tempted to do that because I really need a break right now, and this would be a really good thing to do. So back to that awareness piece so that we can make better choices about what to do next. And to make it even easier for

ourselves than you mentioned the structure. So download the Pomodoro app or just use a normal timer and put it at 45 minutes. This is when I work and then there's 15 minutes for folding laundry or doing other things. So just being structured about it so you're not wandering in and out all the time. That's very useful. Is there are there more things you want to say about family life in this current context? The only question is, I mean, you can set boundaries with kids and spouses, but I still haven't figured out how to do it with my cats. I don't know if that, and if you've got any experience with that. I have a lot of experience with cats.

I have no successful experience with getting them to not be distracting. I mean, the only thing that's crossed my mind is literally locking them in a different room, which I may have to do for cats. No, these cats are the most spoiled animals in the world. They were rescued from the streets and now live like incredibly plush lives. Yeah, I have one cat, Toby, who's very kind, very well-intentioned, but quite aggressive. So I stand at a standing desk. He will sometimes jump from the floor to my shoulders,

dig his claws in and hang, and this is an overweight cat. So that's a lot of body weight hanging off of those claws, and it's very surprising and painful when he does that. Or I know he's standing behind me, I know he's standing behind me, and it's gonna happen soon, and I can't work, because I know something bad's gonna happen. So I may actually, I know a lot standing behind me and it's going to happen soon and I can't work because I know something bad is going to happen. So I may actually, I know a lot of people are worrying about this. What do you do with the pets?

I guess maybe we have to consider locking them in the other room. I'm just sitting here and waiting for, I'm looking forward to the moment when you have to start anchoring. Good morning, America from home. And you have one of those situations with the cat on your back. I think the audience would love it. I think so, I mean. Well, sure. I mean, you should.

You remember that, I think it was CNN report, whose kids came in while he was doing some CNN report. You remember, I can't remember his name. But it's just fantastic. And everybody's got sympathy for him. And it's just a great start. I hope there'll be more of them coming out of this crisis. Maybe, and I would say that, and this again,

may not be easy for everybody, and I don't mean to belittle people's experience, but having a little bit of a sense of humor, if you can, when you can. And that's not always easy, but we do know that if we can laugh about it, I mean, we've seen some great examples in New York. I don't know if you know the jewelry store in downtown that's actually selling rolls of toilet paper wrapped in gold ribbon for $4,999.

And it comes with a free diamond ring. And I just think that we know that the brain actually like laughing. And I mean, we know that right now there isn't, there is a lot of suffering in the world. And if we can find opportunities to connect and maybe share even a small joke It can be really helpful for from a brain perspective to settle us down

So I think trying to keep a sense of humor is also important One other thing on family life that's and we're gonna dedicate a whole podcast to this soon But one of the part of family life that we haven't really talked about we've talked about setting up routines making sure there's clear communication about boundaries and a lot of that has to do with managing the kids in the house. But what about with your spouse? Because this is, or your partner.

This is a really challenging time. Whether you have kids or not, you're in close quarters together, you've got all the stresses of your work life that are probably, or if you don't have work, that's an even bigger stress. And on top of that, you've got a pandemic. So any thoughts on how maintaining harmony with your partner can help you stay focused at work? Jackson is sitting and pointing at me and I'm pointing at her and nobody wants to answer

that question because I guess that is the impossible question. I think again, it has to come down to structure and communication. I mean, you need to be much more deliberate about how you collaborate as a couple. Whereas normally, you know, that's easy because you only come home at five or six PM.

So then you're both tired, you're off work. So it's much easier. This is really where not only your relationship is tested, but it's also where you can really develop your relationship because suddenly, rubber hits the road and you need to work on being together in a constructive way. So again, I would try and see it as an opportunity, even though I totally accept it is a big challenge. And I would get back to the need now to be kind to each other. The need now to have more check-ins, the need now to say, at the end of each day,

all right, today may have not have been the best day, but let's not go to sleep mad at each other. Let's say, luckily we still have each other. And so to really make more rituals around, I know this is tough. I'm doing the best I can. I know you're doing the best you can, checking in, being kind, and really being much more explicit about it, because it's the only thing that's going to get us all through. Stay tuned, more of our conversation is on the way after this. Life is short, and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What is

happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast. Life is short with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions like what is the meaning of life? I can't really help you. But I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists,

scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times, but if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats

between friends about the important stuff. Like, if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App. Okay, so we're working our way through these four sort of buckets that you helpfully provided as a structure for this conversation. To remind people they

are distractions, virtual collaboration, family life, isolation. I want to dwell a little bit longer in distractions because I think just judging by my own mind and judging by what I'm hearing on Twitter, this seems to be issue number one, at least most salient in people's psychology right now. So let me read you, I have a bunch of questions. We'll start with a question that came in via Twitter from Amy Bryson, background music, slash noise, or no. Does it help or hinder the ability to focus?

We're used to noise in the workplace and a lot of people wear headphones, but it's quite better. Very simple answer. If you are starting to sing along to the music, then you are probably distracted, and it's probably not helping you. But if it's actually creating white noise and allowing you to be more present and more focused,

then it's probably helpful to you. It's our individual. For some people, it's a huge help. For others, it's a distraction. So go figure out yourself what works for you. Back to distractions and other questions. This is for me, we had some fun earlier with the issue of not watching the news.

But I might, and this is, you can judge for yourself whether you think this is self-serving or not, I might say, titrate your news consumption. I do think we need to know what's going on. We need to be active and engage citizens, but you don't want to be compulsive about how much news you're checking. You're not in your heads.

Absolutely, absolutely. You're answering yourself, yes. And if we were to be fair about being responsible citizens, how often would we need to check the news? What would your answer be then? And it's to be fair about being responsible citizens. How often would we need to check the news? What would your answer be then? For you to be a responsible citizen, how often do you need to check the news? Right, well, for me, it's a little different

because I'm in the news who I feel, and I'm also in a leadership position at a company, and I wanna be able to communicate clearly to our employees and to our millions of viewers on EBC and listeners, I want to really deeply understand what's going on. But I would say for the average person, I would say an hour a day of watching and reading makes about, I'm pulling that out of a hat, but that sounds about right. I think it's also to really, and this could be a whole another topic, which is not our

area of expertise, but I think it's also to be very careful about what news feeds you're getting, because of course, you know, some are, can be not helpful in terms of perhaps misinformation or how you're actually consuming news. So what are some trusted sources of news that you can rely on, that you can then actually just be able to tap into, feel like you're informed, and then be able to pull out. Yeah, I would say major established news organizations are better than your uncle on Twitter. Yeah, like ABC.

I just wanted to throw that back. Yeah, I think ABC is really incredible. I've heard ABC is great. Yeah, I think you just wanted to point about it. And Copenhagen. You're point about the one hour, but there's one hour, half an hour, two hours. I think that doesn't matter so much. What matters is, what are the doses?

Because if it is 100 times one minute, then your mind is poisons. You are never present with anything you're doing. So if you have to check the news, then do it and do it in a good chunk and take the time for it. But the problem is that we're checking all the time. And then our mind just becomes very anxious, very stressed. I agree. A quick comment that I want to move on to another question. But when it comes to news consumption, I suspect it's not unlike background music. Your advice there was you have to gauge for yourself how much you can, whether it's good or bad for your brain

slash mind and for news consumption, if you find that you easily get overwhelmed, then I would argue probably dial it down, and if you can handle it and feel like, actually, it feels better to know more than, then, then read more. Let me just go back. We have a couple of other buckets that we want to dive into, like virtual collaboration and managing the feelings of isolation. But on this issue of distractions, we talked a lot earlier about the balance between discipline and self-compassion. And I have a note up in front of myself that I wanted to come back to that a little bit,

because as you said, you know, we want to have a certain amount of discipline. But then when we notice, even after having listened to this whole conversation, tomorrow we may notice that, you know, I listened to Jacqueline and Rasmus and Dan talk, but, you know, I was trying to write a proposal and I then found myself 15 minutes deep into Instagram and now I'm beating myself up. To know that that's still gonna happen.

Correct. And that you need some sort of self-compassion. So that brings me to my question, which is how do we develop that? How do we take ourselves to the gym for self-compassion? I think one of the things that I always like to say is mindfulness is a practice. It's not mindfulness perfect. And I think that if we think that we're going to go out and always be perfect in terms of the way that we manage your mind, we're definitely in for some disappointment. So I think for for us, it's it's really about making sure that when we set ourselves in a good intention, ideally, you know, set and self intentions for the day, intentions for the meeting, always coming back to what are my intentions. What do I hope? What are my aspirations for how I want to show up

and how I want to support other people or be present in this meeting? And then really have a sense of kindness around, if I fail, at least my intentions were good. So if we always focus on having the right intentions, then the fact that the outcome may or may not be exactly what we wanted, at least we can hold ourselves high, our head high, in terms of saying, but my intentions were good.

I did have that intention. And I think that that's at least a way for people to be able to say, and then I can try again. I can take two. And that's the way the brain works from a neurological perspective is to be able to rewire, to change habits, takes time. And we've got to be kinder in ourself on that journey.

And is there a practice for setting intentions? Is there a something you think we should do during our day and in our mind in order to set those intentions? Well, I would say that, you know, simple things in terms of what works for you. My typical way of doing that is that I do set myself's intentions for the day. So as I start my practice, I always actually set myself an intention for the practice. Then when I finish the practice, I set myself myself intentions for the days. So as I start my practice, I always actually set myself in intentions for the practice. Then when I finish the practice,

I set myself in intentions for the day. And I think it's really about starting to really figure out what works well in terms of yourself. For me, when I start a meeting, it's about setting my intentions. And actually, this is actually maybe slipping into virtual collaboration. We actually, within potential project,

what we do when we work together is we actually set a collective intention. Okay, so what is our collective intention for how we want to show up in the meeting today? And it can be as simple as, I want to be very present, I want to be focused, I want to make sure that we're keeping the bigger picture in mind in terms of what we're trying to achieve. So it's really individual and it's also context specific. Does that make sense? It does, but just to stay on the individual level,

when you were describing, I intuit from what you were describing earlier that you meditate first thing in the morning, and both set an intention for your practice, like the typical Buddhist one has made this practice benefit all beings, but you may set intentions for the day at the end of your meditation practice. Not all of us meditate first thing in the morning, I don't actually, unless there's special circumstances. But it might be, I've heard the advice, my friend and former

podcast guest, Kelly McGonical has argued that maybe the thing is when you open your eyes in the morning and you're just lying there for a second, if you can remember to set your intention for the day right there. I absolutely agree with that. And I think another good practice is to close the day with a little bit of a gratitude exercise. So at the end of the day, reflect on one thing that I'm grateful for. And to have that as a way to be able to close the day in a way that you, you know, as despite the challenges that you face, that you are one thing that was good in your day to day, which could be about yourself, it could be about others,

but it's a nice way to be able to close the day as well. We're asking as any further thoughts on how we might develop the skill of self-compassion, which is so important when it comes to such an important balancing factor when it comes to discipline and distraction. A few thoughts about it, and also maybe a related specifically to the crisis that we are experiencing now, because of this crisis we are being asked to be in isolation and there is nothing more frightening for human beings than to be in isolation. That is like the prime driver for us is to connect socially with others. So it is creating out of anxiety and stress and depression for people

to have to be on their own. So having a strong sense of self-care in that is really important. And so maybe we're into the bucket of managing isolation, but a few things that we feel are here from a lot of our clients that are important is, first of all, to remind yourself that you're not alone. You know, right now it is literally an entire planet that is suffering both from the same virus

and from the same anxiety coming from the ripple effects of the virus. And another thing is because we are social animals, basically with social animals, it's hard for us not to be connected to others. And while the media is blasting a lot about creating a lot of distance, social distance, that distance has to be physical, but not

emotional. So what can we do to reach out to others? What can we do to connect with others? Really being much more intentional about when we call our mom that we do it on video rather than just a phone conversation, reaching out more to people as you talked about sitting and meditating with your elderly neighbor on a good distance, how can we create connections in a time that is completely disconnected? And then I think the most important thing for self-care and taking care of ourselves

in this is actually to take care of others because as research has shown again and again, if we want to be happy, we have to focus on making others happy. One of the studies found that if we buy ourselves a treat in this bar, that's going to enhance our happiness a little bit for up to eight hours. If we buy that spa treat and we give to someone we care for, it increases our happiness level for eight days. So there's literally 24 times stronger to do something good for others, tend to do something good for ourselves. So back to Jacqueline's intention,

the more we can set the intent and execute on bringing compassion to our actions and reaching out to others. So they're not feeling isolated. The happier we'll be. So I think the best way of self-compassion is also caring for others. Yeah, I mean, the Dalai Lama has referred to it as wise selfishness.

If you want to be happy, the best move in science supports this is to spend your time thinking about the well-being of other people, that will make you happier and therefore it is a wise form of selfishness. And I can even set the science aside. I can see it playing out in my own mind. As referenced earlier, I notice how painful a mine state it is to be obsessing over how many likes my latest tweet may have gotten as opposed to the actually really sort of placid mine state I noticed I'm in when I'm running an errand for my neighbor because it's not safe for her to go out Well, that's that actually I feel pretty good. I feel energized

It's an elevated state and just seeing that comparison doesn't mean I don't Regress to Twitter OCD, but but you know, it's useful because I can incline my mind more toward the latter And I actually think again I think that this is a fantastic opportunity for us to look for ways to connect with our neighbors more so than we ever have before. You know, even if it's just slipping notes under people's apartment buildings and saying, are you okay? Is there anything that you need?

I have some time or I have some extra toilet paper, whatever it might be, but it's actually a great opportunity for us to get really creative because I think socially we do need to connect, but we also, I think, fundamentally compassion is in our nature. It's what makes us uniquely human, and I think that now is an opportunity for us to really all come together in a really hopefully powerful way that we'll all be able to move through this crisis together. Anything else to say on this issue of will all be able to move through this crisis together. Anything else to say on this issue of social isolation before we move on to a related topic of virtual collaboration?

I would just say just a real warning label on this. I think we're very concerned about people feeling isolated. We've already had before this crisis an epidemic of loneliness around the world. And so I think now more than ever, people really need to get out there and help each other and make sure that they connect, that people aren't just sitting there watching Netflix all night alone in their room. It's okay to take a break sometimes, but I really think that we

really need to be even more strong and firm about social connection because we need it now more than ever. Yeah, it's easy to forget that it is a basic human need. Perfect. And while we're locked in, you may think, okay, I have all the provisions I need. I'm going to be able to ride this out. There's healthcare nearby if I need it, et cetera, et cetera. But a lonely human back on the savannah when we were evolving was likely a dead human. And so we have profound physiological responses to loneliness. And if this is a podcast about productivity, if your body is rebelling because you're socially

isolated, you're not going to be productive. So if that's what it takes you to get socially connected, then go for it. If not, then do it for the squishier reasons like the gooey center. Okay, so let's, I'm sensitive, Rasmus, to your time. I want to talk about virtual collaboration. Why don't we, I let you start talking about it, then we'll let you flee and we'll finish talking about it with Jacqueline. How does that sound? You are being so incredibly compassionate and kind. I hope you're feeling good in this moment. Thank you very much. You're welcome. So I think that the challenge that people face with virtual collaboration is that most

of our communication is actually happening through what we do with our bodies, how we look in our face, all the things that are not necessarily the words. And now suddenly we are all faced or forced to work virtually, which means more emails, more phone conversations, and in best case video conversations. And that just is the brewing platform for lots of misunderstandings, lots of conflicts, a lack of shared focus, and a lack of social cohesion. So basically teams are at the risk of deteriorating, underperforming, and just being unhappy together. So there's a massive case for really being intentional about how you operate as a a subversal team. And then Jacqueline can

share some of the tips of how to do that. And then I will lock off in the meantime. Thank you so much, Dan. OK, let's go to your next meeting. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. We'll continue with Jacqueline. Exactly.

As Rasmus said, virtual collaboration is not easy. It's not our natural orientation. So it really does take effort. And I think that a couple of tips, things that we've seen to work really well together, is number one to practice together. And again, although that may sound again squishy, but for us, what we've seen is there's real benefit in being silent with each other.

There's something that we, you know, can, can, because when we're talking, of course, we get distracted by the words, we get distracted by things that I, you know, I don't know what you're saying. When we're silent together, we can actually be truly present. And even in a virtual environment, there's still this sense of taking a collective breath to be able to support each other, to be able to have a sense of community. So practicing together is something that we've seen to be extremely powerful, and it can be just one minute.

So it's just a really nice way. And one of the things that we often recommend is starting each meeting. And it doesn't even have to, you don't say it's mindfulness, but just starting each meeting with a moment of silence to just let everybody collectively arrive. Tip number two would be to really look at how you're managing your meetings. So are you, again, back to this word discipline?

Do you have a clear owner? Do you have a clear structure in terms of how you're going to manage communication? Like we had earlier, who's going to talk at the same time, those kinds of things. And I think that in a virtual context, you need to be even more disciplined about that. One of the things that we strongly recommend is having no other devices on during meetings. And that can be really challenging because oftentimes, well, I will say, I will often have my device and the only,

the only, it'll be on silent, but if one of my kids calls, well, then I will take that distraction, but I set that expectation up front that that's okay. But for all other distractions, I have to be fully present. So really having some strong guidelines around meetings to be able to manage in a virtual environment because it's tough. The third tip is to really leverage the opportunity to be able to have open space, so have virtual copy breaks and to, you know, if you use whatever platform you use, maybe ping people and say, you know, I actually this is this is when I have open-off and open-off the

hours. So just come by and just drop in. So again, really using the technology as a way to be able to not only get things done, but also to be able to enhance connection. So we at Temperature Set Happier, we do virtual lunches together, we're doing a virtual happy hour of Friday night. We also, even before this started, we were setting up coffees, the rotating coffee time with colleagues who you don't get to, we found some app, I think it's called donut or something like that, that creates virtual dates for people. They were going to be in person dates, but now they're virtual dates. And we keep doing this during the crisis.

So it gives people FaceTime in an unstructured social way that I think is going to have a positive effect. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that again, it's really leveraging the technology, because the technology, although it can be a distraction for us, as we talked about earlier, but there is amazing things that we can do in terms of technology and being able to connect. So really leveraging, and one of the other things I would say just around the technology is that a lot of, for example, different platforms, whatever you use in your organization, but we really encourage making sure, you know, use the breakout group function. If you have it, use the whiteboard, use the different

features to be able to really encourage interaction. Don't just run it as if it was the same as an in-person meeting. There's actually really cool features that you can use from a technology platform and leverage them. What about, is there, do you have any thoughts on sort of conference call etiquette? How to treat others and how to behave? Yes, yes we do. We actually work in many of the organizations that we work with. We actually work to define those because of course they can be very unique for the organization. They can be very unique for different departments. But it really is around conference call etiquette.

One of them is rules around boundaries around whether devices are on or off. Additional devices, obviously, the not that you're one that you're connecting with. And also around things like, is it OK? If I need to step out, is it okay for me to do that? Can I actually call that out? Are there permissible distractions so that I can actually make sure that I can have that space to be able to say, I'm not sure if this particular content is relevant for me,

can I just step out and come back in? So again, really being able to have clear communication around how we're going to manage our time very effectively. Because I think what happens to a lot of people is that they just end up there, their reason why they're distracted is because they're bored. What people are talking about is not relevant to them. Or they don't have practices like, if I feel like you're talking too much or I'm talking too much, what's our agreement in terms of how we're going to share that? Because if I'm just talking and you're not enjoying what I'm saying anymore, then we're

both wasting our time. So again, how can we really have good communication and good conversations about how we support each other? Because that's really what virtual collaboration is all about. But how do you keep that in mind? I mean, it seems important to keep in mind that if you're on a conference call with just audio, then you really don't have a lot of data

about how what your saying is being received. And even with video, you have more data, but it's not like being in the same room. So should we conduct ourselves in a different way, given that work, we really can't know as well as we could in person about how what we're saying is landing? Yes, the key thing is to, first of all, we always encourage video if it's possible

because it is at least that better ability to be able to see people. The second thing is that you need to take more breaks and check in. So say something, pause, and then maybe do a quick poll, is this landing well? Am I speaking too quickly? Does anybody have any questions? And again, we don't need to do that when we're face to face because we can see if it's landing. We can tune in when the environment, you know, our brain actually knows whether or not this is resonating with people. When we can't see people and we're in a conference call environment, the tendency is, I'm just

going to keep talking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I can't see anybody, it's a monologue. And we need to keep all the caller cells on it, take more breaks and more check-ins. What if you're a junior employee? Because a lot of these, a lot of what we're discussing is sort of, I think, aimed at people who are running the call. But what if you're a junior employee and you're on a call and you just don't know how what you said landed or you don't know how you feel about something somebody just said 15 seconds ago?

Any thoughts on how one could go about getting clarification skillfully? Well, I would say one of the things when we're working with leaders, we often talk about the importance of psychological safety. One of the things we know in this is pre-crisis, but still definitely relevant to today is that if we as leaders think that we have all the answers, we are in trouble. No leader has all the answers today. So I think it's really important for leaders to actually give people permission, especially in this context, to actually say up front to their people, hey, if I'm talking about something

that isn't relevant for you or you have questions, I really want to encourage you to be able to raise that. And then of course, the first time that somebody does celebrate that immensely. Thank you so much, Dan, for raising that point. That was excellent. So it's really about creating a culture of psychological safety. I think for the junior employee, I think that that still depends on the culture of organization,

whether they feel safe doing that. But I would really encourage them to do that because nobody right now has time to waste. We need to be able to all support each other as a team. And I think at least what I've seen, people that have been willing to take that to all support each other as a team and I think at least what I've seen people that have been willing to take that risk and just ask it as a question. Be curious. If you come up with, I think this is a waste of time, that may or may not be received very well. But if you come up with curiosity, I'm not sure that this is relevant to everybody, would it make sense for us to at least check in? I think what we're seeing

anyway, those are the people that I get. I think that's a future leader in our organization. There's somebody that's actually helping us all to be more productive. This has been a great conversation from my standpoint. Is there something I should have asked, but didn't? Well, that is a great question. I mean, there's so many things that we could talk about. I can't think of anything specifically. I think that the, maybe the only thing that I would say is getting back to this idea of, let's really come together. We're all dealing with these challenges, regardless of where we are in the world, what organizations

we're with or what our personal situations are. And I think that the opportunity for us to have more opportunities to talk about it, to be able to share experiences and really learn from each other. I think the cool thing that we're saying is there's a lot of real innovative and creative ideas, creative ideas around how people are taking care of each other, which is really cool. I think how people are being creative about work.

And I think that just the more that we can share that and celebrate that, I hope that we'll look back at this and it'll be one of those things, we'll say, wow, that was such a challenging time and look at all the great things that came out of it in terms of how we took care of each other and supported continue to get work done. Well said, may it be so. Thank you very much, Jack. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Dan. And thank you for everything that you're doing. Great work. Big thanks to Rasmussen, Jack, and I really enjoyed that chat. I got a lot out of it. It's going to help make me or on the house as I work on a personal note, not personal to me, but to personal to Jacqueline. She is gonna try to get a flight home to her family. She, as was mentioned, she's been marooned and

Copenhagen, her family is back home in Canada. I erroneously said they were based in the states. That's where they used to be based. They're now based in Canada. She's supposed to fly home on Sunday, so please root for her. And a reminder that they've written a few books. You might want to check out one second ahead and the mind of the leader. Before we go, I want to remind you don't forget to check out our daily live meditations, three o'clock, Eastern, every workday, 10% dot com slash live. There's a link in the show notes. And the final thing to say is a big special thanks to Samuel Johns and also Ryan Kessler

and Josh Cohan who are doing a ton of extra work to get this podcast out to you twice a week in difficult times. So thank you to them, thank you to you for listening and hang in there. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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