Thriving in Chaos - with Adam Reiber

“What happened during the pandemic, some [organizations] were leaning on training resiliency in the time of chaos. That’s not the time to do it. Train resiliency when things are calm, cool, and collected…that’s how you build resiliency. Then, when things get cranked up, you focus on peoples’ strength because that’s what brings the best out of people.”

 On this episode of Practice Well(Being) we went on a journey with Adam Reiber, Director of Well-Being at Morgan Lewis – a multi-national law firm with over 2200 lawyers and legal professionals. Adam served 20 years in the US Army before moving into the corporate space and applying the theories of positive psychology he learned in the military at Microsoft and now at Morgan Lewis to fulfill his mission: so that others may thrive.

 This is an incredibly powerful conversation where we discuss with Adam the importance of building resilience individually and organizationally to thrive in work and in life – both when times are good, and especially when they’re chaotic. Adam’s study of human excellence really highlighted for us the power of not just self-care, but of understanding one’s self. We discuss growth and strengths, and why love is the supreme emotion, even in an organization.

 You can also find Adam on LinkedIn or at Morgan Lewis. You can connect with Nita on LinkedIn. You can connect with Becky on LinkedIn, Instagram or at her website – www.untanglehappiness.com  

Transcript

Hi, this is Becky in this week's episode of practice wellbeing. We talk with Adam Reiber, the director of employee wellbeing at Morgan Lewis. He shared with us his journey, which included 20 years in the military. A master's in applied positive psychology and a stint at Microsoft before he brought his skills to the legal industry.

Today, he uses his expertise in positive psychology and leadership to further his personal mission of helping others. You won't wanna miss what Adam has to say about resilience, excellence, and perhaps most importantly, the power of love let's get started.

Adam. It's so good to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining. Thanks for having me. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm so excited to talk to you. I've been waiting for this one, just to give a little bit of like background on how we got connected. I know we were connected through a mutual friend in the world of wellbeing, and I've kind of gotten to know one another over the last six months or so.

And I have to say I'm just truly. Truly fascinated by your journey and your background, particularly, you know, after what is it, 20 plus years having served in the army. So first thank you for your service. And I know that you have been in, you know, some pretty risky and life, life threatening situations, but I think what is so just.

Has been inspiring to me in talking to you, is this ability that you have to take what you've dealt with in the space of, you know, loss and maybe even forced resilience, I guess, for lack of a better way of putting it into truly thriving and into kind of a study of human excellence. Which, you know, really highlighted for me the power of not just self care, but of understanding one's self.

So that's something that I kind of wanted to kick off with today with you and just have you share your journey, Adam, over the last 20 years or so in the military and then going into working for a very large company like Microsoft now coming into the legal space, like tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey.

Yeah, I would like to, I would like to think I have a non-traditional path to wellbeing. Right. But I think, I think most people would say that about, uh, their journey, especially if they end up working in the wellbeing space. But so I was, I will get emotional, uh, during this talk two, because there's, I think.

I think there's just things that are, have, you know, greatly impacted my life and, and have given me my, why I'm gonna go all the way back to high school.  I was a 1.8 G I never told you this. I was a 1.8 GPA coming outta high school, like for all intents and purposes, like I was. I was like a lost, lost cause.

So I was working at blockbuster video. Um, good thing I got out of that cuz  um, you know, we know the history on it. Fair point. Yeah. I didn't see Netflix coming, but so I, I graduated high school and was still working at blockbuster. My buddy joined the army and gave the recruiter my name and I didn't have this like call to serve before that.

Right. But then once I got contacted by the recruiter, I was. You know what this is, it like, this is what I want to do. So I ended up joining and with the, the flash to bang was, uh, pretty quick from the time I talked to recruiters, by the time I, I shipped, uh, when they say shipped, it's like, that's like when you go to basic training and start your service.

So not a lot of reaction time, but what I found early on in my military career was I was pretty dang good at it. Right. Um, I think like me growing up one point in GPA, wasn't because. Wasn't cuz I was dumb. It was cause I had no positive affirmation in my life. Right. Mm-hmm  um, so then in the military, like I, I was, you know, a semi fast runner in, in military terms, uh, competitively, like not fast at all, but in the army I was, I was super fast.

Um, so those things like you get accolades for those and they, and they just bill. Right. So during my military career, I joined in 1997. So there was no, we didn't have 2000 or 2001, not 11 yet. Um, it was relatively peace time. So the first three, four years of my, my career, you know, was pretty chill. I was in the 82nd airborne jumping out of perfectly good airplanes for an extra 150 bucks a month.

Um, the things we do and then nine 11 happened. And then like, I knew that. Our world would, would change. My world would change specifically. Right? Like I think we did a really good job of fighting a, a two front war without any true interruption to the American way of life for everyone back home. But I remember watching it and thinking like, Okay.

Like things are gonna change for all of us. And I, and I know that and I feel it. My son, my oldest son who plays basketball at Rutgers now, Dean Reber was born September 10th at 1145 at night. Uh, so that's pretty wild. And then fast forward he had COVID his senior year. Not he, he like, but COVID happened his senior year.

Yep. Like that generation just  yeah, they got the double whammy. Yeah, absolutely. You know, they got, uh, they got the KDU when it comes to . So I deployed a lot. I transitioned from enlisted to become an officer. Uh, I went from infantry to information technology. That's kind of like how I bridged the gap ended up at Microsoft.

But when I was, when I was deployed, I, uh, I, I went through some situations, right. I, I I've been to 19 different funerals. Uh, in my life almost average, you know, if you were to average it out once a year, cause I did 20, 20 years, right. I had about five near death experiences. One I would say was more of a reminder, not so much of near death, but it was the Boston.

My, my last assignment was, uh, Boston university and it was 2013. I started 2012 August. Uh, and I was, you know, in and around the marathon box when that happened, but it wasn't. It wasn't like I wasn't close or anything, but it was more of a reminder that life's kind of precious. Like, don't forget that.

Right. And that was my cush assignment, um, exiting military. So mm-hmm  but what I would say about my journey specifically, what I would want people to know was there was a, my best friend in the military. We both. Went through similar experiences, but we both went to different directions. I would say, uh, he was never diagnosed with PTSD, but I would say probably had PTSD.

Most people I talked to in the military who have been to combat have some form of PTSD. Um, but they. For reasons they don't get evaluated. Right. Mm-hmm  so I just, I saw him doing addictive behaviors, right. Started with alcohol, and then it was, and then it was like hard drugs while in the military ended up getting kicked out on the military.

And then just February of 20, 21 committed suicide. Mm, but I, I saw our paths go two totally different directions. I would say, um, I had post traumatic growth. Mm-hmm  where I went through some really traumatic experience, but then I value life, right? Like I love to be in nature while I'm walking around like, oh, this is so beautiful.

This exist, I need this, you know? And like, I just had a different appreciation for life and I was always enamored with peak human performance, but I. When iwhenever I like studied psychology. It was always like super depressing. Right. It was that, that space that we learned later on that, that, like, I would look at that space between zero and negative tent.

And I would be like, man, like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and like disorders, PTSD. Like that stuff. Doesn't get me up in the morning. Doesn't excite me. It's that other space? It's the positive psychology. So I thought I discovered positive psychology.   like, I think like a. Like a lot of people who stumble in it.

Right. You stumble in it. Me too, Adam, I thought the same thing. So, you know, we can put, we can both put our names on it if you want. Totally. We, you know, we all stumble in it for whatever reasons, but then when we, we like get a little taste, we're like, oh, like what's this, and you start peeling that onion back.

And you're like, holy cow, like there's a freaking master's degree of, you know, positive psychology and. So like come to find out it's been around since Aristo, right? Like, you know, had hedonic and monic, like living the good life, things like that. So that was really, uh, at the end of my military career, I was deep into leadership development.

Um, when I got into Microsoft, I got there for my it qualifications, but then I implemented the leadership development plan. And then I implemented the wellbeing, uh, initiative on top of that. So I was the. Uh, business program manager, Microsoft wellbeing, business program manager. Um, because as I was doing leadership development, I was introducing things like the via character strengths.

Uh, we were talking about high quality connections. Microsoft has a leadership principle of, uh, generate energy. We were noticing during a pandemic energy levels were low. So it was like, how do we do it? Oh, by the way, Jane Dutton researcher. You know, has a theory on high quality connections. She has a book called energize a workplace, like dig into that.

So there was like just, we were bringing the theory, uh, and applying it. And it was just really fun to kind of be a part of that journey. It's funny because my, when I was in my skip level's office at Microsoft, convincing him to make me a wellbeing business program manager, it was the week of the pandemic that landed in Seattle.

Like I was there Tuesday. Um, oh my gosh, no, it was like Wednesday. It was like kind of sore to work from home. And then Thursday, it was, you know, don't come to the office. If you're here, get outta here. I remember driving to the sea TAC airport. Uh, and it was a ghost town like on Thursday. Yeah. In that, that March of 2020.

So I could probably keep going forever, but there, well, I mean, what, I'm just kind of hearing from you and we haven't even gotten to like how you came to legal, which I definitely want you to talk about too, but. It just seems to me through you sharing the story about, you know, your time, you know, serving in the army, jumping at airplanes, experiencing these like near death experiences, watching your good friend, you know, take a different path in you.

You've got these qualities about yourself. I don't know, like, I don't know that I could characterize all your via strengths, but I would venture to guess that like, you know, appreciation for beauty, something around gratitude learning. Like, I'm just agree with you nailed that too. Mm-hmm , I'm assuming that I'm assuming that that would be it, but it's this like ability to thrive in chaos.

Yeah. And. That's something that we, that you've shared with me in the past, like that, that actual language thriving in chaos. And it seems like it's a theme in your life. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about that, because I think that, you know, when we get into learning a little bit more about how you came into the, like the legal industry space.

Yeah. To me, this just positions you so well for the work that you're doing and building out. You know, wellbeing strategy for a legal environment. This is a chaotic environment. Maybe not wartime chaotic, but it's chaotic. And I'm, I'm just curious for you to, to share a little bit more around, you know, these themes, like what was it about you that enabled you to grow and thrive?

Yeah. It's um, my capstone was, uh, on chaos was implementing leadership if merging leadership development, wellbeing to thrive in chaos because during my military experience, like when chaos happens, you would not be able to guess how people would operate. Right. Um, stressful situations tend to bring the, you know, really good qualities and behaviors.

Out in people that you wouldn't necessarily like be able to predict and then others completely lock up and shut down. Right? Mm-hmm  when the bullets are flying where the S hits the fan, you know, I was always like in observation mode. I mean, not obviously not like standing there looking at everything, but like, It was just always, I was always intrigued by who would step up, why they would step up.

And then I would like have follow up conversations. Like, Hey, what were you thinking during, you know, this time when we just got hit with an RPG, like you were, um, the us military has a great, uh, they do battle drills, right? Battle drills. Uh, the reasons for battle drills is to operate almost automatically in, in times of chaos.

So it's like, you don't even have to think, you just do the thing, right. Some people just snap right in to these BA they will say like, I didn't even, I wasn't even thinking, like I didn't even, and then you can see what they were doing. Right. And that was just really cool to be able to experience so leaders in chaotic situations.

Uh, I, I think the Supreme emotion is love and I don't think we use the word love enough. Especially in organizations or even when's the last time like a bot, you told a boss that you love them or, or vice versa. Right? Like, but it's different, you know, types, flavors to love, right? It's not like it's, it's not all romantic.

Right. But what I saw was the leaders who experienced chaos and had love in their platoons. Like those leaders. Had more resiliency, you know, in their organization, they were able to bounce back quicker, uh, from tragedy, things like that. Uh, so I was always like, just enamored with that and. And it's funny because when we interview for positions, we interview in like this super calm setting, right?

Like, oh, let's put you at ease. Like, but I would love to like, turn the screws up and like do

around. Because even in, when I first joined Microsoft, I was in the data center environment. Right. And if there's an outage, that's a pretty event. And how do people respond? And you know, all these things. And it's like, that's when we want your best, you know, that's when customers rely on you to make good decisions.

So you don't have any downtime. Like, so my capstone again, was on like implementing leadership development, wellbeing. To help thrive in chaos. And I leaned heavily on resiliency. And that part of that was part of the, the massive resiliency trainer program that was implemented from Penn to the us army. Um, and we got trained and my ma I don't think I mentioned the master's program, masters of applied positive psychology from the university of Pennsylvania who crystal Larson did my interview.

And she was the previous director of wellbeing from Morgan Lewis. So that's the, uh, that's the, that's the connection to Morgan Lewis there. Um, and we'll get, probably get more into that. The pet resiliency program implemented resiliency training throughout. And I remember going through it while I was in the army.

I mean, I didn't know, positive psychology back then, but I did the global assessment tool. I did resiliency training and things like that. So fast forward when I was going to do my capstone, I was really keen on, on implementing resiliency, uh, to thrive and chaos. Right. And what happened? I believe during the pandemic was we were like, some were like leaning on resiliency and training resiliency in times of chaos.

And I'm like, that's not the time to do it. Train resiliency when things are calm, cool, and collective, that's how you build resiliency. Then when things get cranked up, then you focus on strengths because that's what brings the best out in people. But. You know, we were still shoring up deficits during the pandemic, you know?

And it's like, no, like that's demoralizing to, you know, the work on your 24th character strength. No, like focus on your top five live that that's what gets you through, you know, times of, of stress and chaos. But I just think there was a lot of retweaking we needed to. So Paul bloom also, uh, he was a guest lecturer in our master's program.

He was the author of against empathy and he just released the new book, I think April this year called the sweet spot. And it's the pleasure of suffering and the search of meeting. And I can't wait to read, I just download it, I think the other, the other day on audible, but like that is like, If I could write like a, you know, dissertation or something like that, it would be like, what is, what is suffering play in your hap?

Like, we tend to like go full tilt, you know, positive psychology gets this wrapped for being like this. Pollyanna-ish like, happy this, like, no, it's not what it's all about. Like, you need suffering, like. A law degree. Like it's not fun probably. Right. I don't have one, but I would imagine it's not fun, but like you a lot of suffering  and then it's a lot of suffering I can, I can attest for super fun.

I had a blast in law school. I actually would go to school forever if I could go to school forever. So I think it's all relative. And so that's not to take away from the very real suffering that I know Nita. Many of my peers experienced, but I think kind of depends on how you're wired, right? Yeah. But like, it, it, but it's, it's an achievement that you hang on your wall and you have this pride or your whole entire life and you talk about it.

Like, it feels good. Like that's like purposeful suffering. Right. Um, and there's also like mm-hmm suffering, you know, Paul William describes their suffering. Like if, if a relative dies, if you lose your job, like. That's different. Right. And we're talking about like, suffering, like implementing, uh, a good amount of it in your life, because if you kind of just go through life, uh, especially if you're on, you know, snap tweet or whatever, like you're distracted, you're never bored.

You're just kind of coasting through. And it's like that doesn't really spur that much action. And then, I don't know. I, I just, I'm interested to read that cause it's, it's kind of right up my. Well, it seems like it's like, what you're saying is that that's kind of like part of the training for resiliency, right.

Is to, is to go through that, to know how you, you can cope in various types of situations. And you kind of have to know that through the experience of whether it's suffering or just going through hard time to be able to. To build up that muscle around it. Yeah. I mean, practice challenge. Right. And that's, I mean, I think you, you said it in the context of, of sort of battle training, but it's true in life, right?

If we don't practice challenge, how do we face challenge when it comes? My last job in the army, um, was developing leadership development based on competency. So like what the army used to do was if you ran fast and did a lot of pushups, if you shot well, well, you then got promoted, right. And it was based on.

Skills not saying skills aren't, you know? Yeah. What I noticed was when I, when I entered the corporate world, we were doing kind of the same thing. It was like, you got promoted based on one competency. It was technical expertise. Now could you critical think, could you problem solve? Could you communicate like so, so part of my, my last job in the army was to put people through.

Facilitated like learning to draw behaviors and then have a discussion based on what you saw to develop the competencies that you want. So like, if you wanted to develop critical thinking, problem solving, cause what was happening was, you know, you were going deploy to our back in Afghanistan and the, the answer to the problem wasn't in the book, right?

So you got fake. So like, could you critically think through it? Right. And there's many like case studies on how people overcame, uh, you know, the chaos or stressful situations, like critically thinking. And like army was like, Hey, we need to develop critical thinking, problem, solving, communication, things like that.

So like, you know, how do we do it? And then, so it was a group called asymmetric warfare group that was created, uh, I think it has now disbanded, but like, that was my last kind of job. From the military was developing competency based leaders, transitioning more from a skills space to competency based. So I, I see that now in corporate and law firms, like we're where's room for that right.

There's room for competency, uh, development, leadership. So how do you take this now and transition from. The space of, you know, military and big technology company like Microsoft and take and apply that for where there is so much room to improve in legal. Like what are some of the things that you are doing now, or challenges that you feel that you're facing now that need to be overcome in order that we can start doing more of this competency based, um, training or learning here in the legal environ.

What's great about the law industry and I'm new to it. Right. So I just joined in January. I'm learning a lot still. And I, and they're so organized. No other industry I would argue has the data that the law industry has on wellbeing in general, the Patrick crill study, the ABA, like, so like we have the data and now it's time to act on that data.

Right. And to say like, Hey, if depression and anxiety and, uh, addiction rates are higher, like that's, it's good to know. But what are we doing about it? You know, uh, we are now Morgan Lewis has partnered with the Karen treatment center out of base, outta of Philadelphia. And we're traveling around doing these addiction in the workplace workshops, right.

Uh, we've been Philly, New York and, and we're going to, uh, DC in Boston. So there's in our CLA credits there. I think there's six, uh, six hour seat CLE credit. So it's like the double whammy, right? Mm-hmm . But when I sat through. The first one, I was like, oh man, there's so much, like I learned so much just about addiction and just about applying positive psychology on top of that.

Like, you know, because what will happen is like, oh, you know, you are addicted. If you drink, you know, six drinks and like, oh, you know, I drink five. Like I'm not, you know, it's like, no, that's not the point. The point is it's creep. Right? Like you're, you're gonna get there.  yep. Quickly. Right. So it's. Let's implement positive psychology strategies.

So you don't get to that point or just let it creep on you. Right. So that's just kind of like one thing that you, so we have that or about addiction now, we're, we're doing like workshops on addiction. We're also doing, uh, meaningful work series because what we're hearing is work can feel transactional at times.

Right. So then like, There's plenty of stories where partners have carved their own path to, um, you know, they're doing what they love every single day. When you talk to them, like you feel it, you feel that passion. I'm like, I'm like people need to hear, because what I did was when I first joined Morgan Lewis, I spoke to like 80 people in 60 days, you know, partners and socially as professional staff.

And I could just hear passion. Right. Mm-hmm  and I'm. People need to hear this, this passion and what's gonna happen is we're gonna, we're gonna do a fireside chat, much like a podcast would be, right? Yeah. You hear their story and then you resonate with them and reach out and say like, Hey, like how, why?

Like how would I do it? Like if you're struggling with motivation, you know, if you're a four year associate, like. There are people who've been there before you, right. So you can leverage them. Um, so I think like just getting people's stories out, you know, is understanding purpose and meaning. And, you know, I think you hit the nail right on the head there.

And like, that's something that we talked about a lot with a number of guests and that I think about so much is this connection to. Purpose and like this work that I think law firms almost need to take kind of take that fundamental step back and be doing a rethink of, of purpose that somehow I feel like in the last like 20, 30 years, maybe there was a little bit of a.

Drift there, the, the older sort of partners, maybe I'm, I'm sort of speaking in generalities here, but you're right. There is this sense of passion and purpose and, and feeling of alignment that they're making this like this contribution to a greater cause, but the younger generation needs to connect that and feel that same sort of sense of purpose to feel like they too.

You know, can get aligned and make this meaningful contribution to this important work that lawyers do. I don't know what you think about that, if you agree with that, but it, it just seems I have a sense that this is there. Shouldn't be skipping steps in this part of the process. I definitely agree with that.

I, I think there's also, there's, there's this transition in the, um, let's say the early two thousands. So part of my educational background was I, I have a master's in applied positive psychology, but I also have a master's of organizational leadership and I combined those two because I think. I think that doing wellbeing in the organization is where you can make the biggest impact.

Oh, by the way, we spend the majority of our life working. Right? So like that's, I believe the institution that we can rely on to build driving. And I think, uh, there was a transition, uh, from the Jack well tracked stack, right era from the eighties and nineties to now we have a talent shortage. If you look up any organization, they have tens of thousands of.

Positions, right. There's been a talent shortage since, since the early 2000. So it really shifted from, from racking and stacking and cutting your bottom to now, oh, wait, we have to retain people and develop them. And if, if they're not quite there, then we have to get them there, right. With development. So traditional wellness was part implemented in like the late in the nineties as well.

Right. Uh, right around the same time TNI initiatives were implemented in organizations. So whenever we had the conversation around wellbeing, I. 100% promise you, there will always be somebody who implements the term wellness, uh, and substitute it for wellbeing. I'm like, that's like my biggest pet pee.  I agree with you, but it's because it's because we understand the difference of, well, in the traditional wellness and wellbeing, like wellbeing is for, I believe all people all the time, we can all use it.

Right. Um, it's that space between zero and positive. 10, if you have an adversity, kind of you dip down like a stock, ticker symbol and you leverage positive psychology to bounce back even better than before. But what I hear is like traditional wellness a lot, right? Like let's remove salt off the, you know, cafeteria table or let's get a movement challenge.

Yes. Like movement, like biometrics movement, challenge, get your shots. Like that's all important, but that's, that's a component of wellbeing. It's not, it's not wellbeing. And I think the more that we educate on that, the better off we'll be. And I think getting directors of well beings, you know, roles open in law firms, like that's where you're gonna make the big change, because traditionally it's been like HR benefits that provide some wellness platform for you.

But now we have the operationalize it and operationalize. It is what the director of wellbeing law firm does. It's bringing the theory. Uh, into the strategy to affect both individual wellbeing and organiz or firm or organizational wellbeing, right? Like that's the tough part because wellbeing is very individual, you know?

So like how do you build a strategy for a law firm that affects every single individual? That's the challenge?  it is individual, but it's also w. Right. So it's, it's holistic in, in having an alignment of your physical, your emotional, your mental, your social states. And when that's the case. And particularly in the workplace environment or when you're building out a strategy for the workplace environment, it's when you can optimize that state or those states for people that you can develop their potential, where they, you can develop and optimize their ability to work very creatively and productively, where they're able to better build positive relationships and create more trusting teams and where they can also be better equipped to cope with the stresses of life.

That are inevitably going to arise, particularly in the environment that we're in, in the legal industry? Absolutely. Yeah, the, you know, I say the workplace is the best place to create a thriving environment, but it's not the only place we have dimensions in Morgan Lewis and part of it is community. Right.

We're. We're a firm that offers unlimited, uh, billable hours for pro bono work. Right. Uh, we do that because your sense of community, the top two, top two positive psychology interventions that have been known to improve your lasting wellbeing or random acts of kindness and, and practice and gratitude like, so we have.

Uh, you know, strategies in place to help people do that. It's not just the workplace. It's not implement these things just in the workplace. Like if we don't take that holistic view, then we're missing the boat and it's it's family, it's community, it's occupational, it's, you know, spiritual. So, you know, you gotta, I think you gotta practice in all domains, not just to occupational.

I agree. And I also think that this building the literacy around what wellbeing is and that it extends beyond wellness is so important because, you know, I've just recently gotten to a discussion with someone, um, two people actually today, two different people, two different conversations wherein there was a question posed to me.

Where they said, you know, there's murmurs right now that the great resignation is sort of trailing off and that the economy and the balance of power may be sort of shifting back to the employer. So like, what do you think that that actually means for, for where wellbeing falls in the strategy? Like, is it just gonna.

Fall off. And I kind of feel like that's where this confusion with maybe wellness comes in and where it's like, maybe we, we deprioritize taking this all off the tables or, or, you know, whatever that is, but really. In the place that we're in for me, wellbeing is, is about sustainability, right? It's about sustainability for the future.

It's about optimizing your people to do the very best work that they can do in the environment that they're in, where they feel purposeful in what they're doing, they're making a meaningful contribution and it has nothing to do with. The state of the economy as it exists today, or whether there's talent or in place that just helps to kind of make the ROI discussion, um, or, you know, argument, but it's, it's not in and of itself.

The reason. Yeah, the great resignation was enabled by lack of wellbeing inside organizations. So if you want the great resignation too, then go ahead by all means trail off your wellbeing programs because mm-hmm  once the. Once another, uh, chaotic event happens. That's exactly what we go get. So like, I think it's like, it's all about thriving through chaos and beyond.

So if you're not prepared in what 2020, the pandemic showed every organization that they were not prepared. That's why everybody left. Cause yeah, there was no chief wellbeing officers, directors of wellbeing and people had to scramble to put together wellbeing programs, uh, to try to retain some top talent.

And it was way late. So like if that trails off and you decide to get rid of your wellbeing program, well, just get ready for the great resignation too, because that's exactly what happened. If you're. Um, you know, Morgan Lewis was actually like the director of wellbeing. Crystal Larson was hired, you know, prior to the pandemic.

And they were like, really just situated well, uh, for the pandemic for many other reasons, too. But, um, you know, like if, if it's something you trail off, like that's not, I don't think that's gonna bode well in the future, like cuz and at the end of the day, wellbeing is more. About more than just surviving chaotic events or black swans or retaining people.

It's about actually enabling your workforce to perform at their highest level more often. So, I mean, to your point about sustainability, it's not just, it's not just about like, do I stay or do I go it's about how do I show up at work today and how well do I perform in the work that I'm doing? And so, I mean, you could argue that the pressure of resignation decreases, but the pressure to perform never goes away, especially in law firms.

Right.  so, I mean, I mean I'm biased, but I think it is the most important thing, right? Like mm-hmm, , you know, if you are driving yeah. Tail every day. Yeah. You're kicking, you know? Yep. Every and it's, and it feels good. And everyone, like, it's one of those things that, it's a, win-win like, I remember my interview with, with Jamie, uh, who's our chair firm.

I was like talking about metrics and saying like, why we should do wellbeing. And she goes, she goes, let me stop you. She goes, we're gonna do wellbeing. Cause it's the right thing to do. And I was. Sold sold. I was like sold because like you spend half of your, your time validating your wellbeing programs.

And you're like, well, the ROI is, you know, uh, you know this and, and it's like, no, we're, if we're doing it. And then we have that culture established, like that is just that to me, that was just like, it felt really good. And I knew that I was, I was home not to mention, like, as you think about. You know, everybody talks about our buzz phrase that's going around right now is future of work and planning for what does work look like two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now.

And I agree with you wholeheartedly Adam, that I actually believe that wellbeing is the future of work because as we think. What are the skills that we need to facilitate and to develop and to innovate and to solve complex problems. Many of which we don't even know exist yet, but that exist or will exist out there.

We need to develop those human skills. Of empathy, of connection, of courage, of all of those things that we sort of talked about at the beginning of thriving, in chaos of love, which I think is just so important that we're leading in that way to develop for the future. Absolutely. I think, yeah. It's uh, and then with every passing generation it's more and more needed, um, you know, to implement these types of programs.

So well, this conversation has been awesome and it's clear to me that we could keep going, but in the interest of keeping these short and sweet and consumable, we're gonna. Um, move on to some rapid fire questions and I will ask the first one. I am curious, what is one piece of advice you would go back and give your younger self, that young man who had the 1.8 GPA.

Uh, my Microsoft stock is probably like, I like it. Not that, but not that money. Uh, I remember Marty Salman had a really great quote in class one day and he said, not money. Doesn't buy you happiness, but I sure do smile when I get my Lexus. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. I love that. I remember a comedian saying like, try not to smile when you're riding the, the sea view or a jet ski  now, uh, Seriously, it would be focused on academics.

And I think if I could, could have got a glimpse of, uh, again, my love, my number one signature strength is love of learning, but I didn't know that back then. So like I dreaded school for different reasons. And, uh, I think, I think just like getting my head in the books earlier, I would've, you know, helped pave.

Kind of the way, cause I, I do love learning and it just was, you know, that environment just wasn't it, wasn't it. Yeah. In this theme. And I have one rapid fire question in this theme of, you know, leadership development and learning. If you had to share a piece of advice, not with your younger self, but with the future leaders of the legal industry, what would that advice.

But my, uh, my purpose statement is so that others may thrive and I think it's all about other people. So implement programs to help others, right. Help others thrive. You know, wellbeing is individual. To there's components of it, your own personal individual wellbeing, but like, just because you're doing well or thriving or have worked through adversity, and now you're in a leadership position.

It doesn't mean, you know, your, uh, millennial generation or gen Z generation person whose first job, uh, is during a pandemic and having to work remote. And so, like, I think there's. There's a difference between obviously you build resiliency throughout your life, by going through some issues, right? Like, you know, if you're in leadership, you've likely been through 2001 financial eight or 2008 financial prices, but like some people, this is their first taste of, of life and they're thrust into a pandemic and it's like, So keep them in mind, have that empathy for them, cuz um, just cuz you are resilient doesn't mean, you know, everybody else has it.

So keep voice in mind. I think when you're making your policies and procedures and things like that and maybe rethinking or not, you know, operating under the illusion that what worked for you will necessarily work for them. Yeah, because, because I want to be back in the office doesn't mean everybody wants to be back in the office and I would, I would argue.

Younger generations can thrive outside of human interaction environments. Like if I say I need human interaction environment, I need to be around people doesn't mean younger generations. You know, they kind of grew up a little different than us, you know, like they weren't, you know, running from the cops from drinking under, for example, For example, four times  for example, for example, speaking for a friend  I mean, I've heard that's what happens, right?

So  anyway, thank you, Adam. Thank you for this. Um, before we wrap up, how can people, if they're curious to connect with you or curious to, uh, learn more about what you're doing at Morgan Lewis, how can what's the best way for them to find you and we'll include the. I would say, um, definitely reach out. Um, especially if you are trying to operationalize wellbeing.

I think, I think what I, the biggest comment I've, uh, ever got was like, you know, you have a way to take the theory and apply it. Mm-hmm  I think a lot of people may be able, may struggle with that. So it's like, um, so if you, what do, yeah, how do. Exactly. What do I, what do I do with high quality connections or something like that?

So, um, LinkedIn, I, I think is the best way to get ahold of me. Awesome. We'll put that. We'll put your LinkedIn profile in the show note so people can find you easily and appreciate very much this conversation today. So thank you. Me too. And I can just attest that I have called you myself and said help me out as I'm thinking about this for my own organization.

So appreciate you so much. Like I love it. Love it. Oh, I could talk to you all day long. I appreciate you so much. And, um, You know, thank you for everything today. Thanks Becky too.

Hi, this is Becky. You can connect with both me and Nita on linked. Links are in the show notes. We would love to hear from you. If you've got a topic in the wellbeing space that you'd love for us to take on, let us know. We're always curious. We love to learn and we love to do the legwork for you. And finally, if you're enjoying the show, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform.