Anxiety at Work - with Chester Elton

How can you run a great team? How can you really be a servant leader, an empathetic leader, a grateful leader, whatever you know you're working on, and not address mental health? It's by far the number one issue in the workplace, you know, And the pandemic just accelerated everything on anxiety and mental health.

 The statistics are stark. Pre-pandemic 18% of workers had an anxiety disorder sufficient to interfere with their ability to do their job. By 2022 that number jumped to 32%. Moreover 42% of workers in their 20s had an anxiety disorder.  And 50% Millennials and 75% of Generation Z workers have quit a job for mental health reasons. 

 In this conversation, we talked about ways to address anxiety – and mental health more broadly - in the work place including:

• The importance of being an empathetic leader. 
• Four questions you can answer as a leader to reduce the anxiety of your team. 
• The role of gratitude and recognition.

 Chester made a compelling business case for making a cultural investment in mental health as a tool for engagement and success. This is a must listen conversation for every leader.

You can find Chester on LinkedIn or at https://thecultureworks.com/.  You can connect with Nita on LinkedIn. You can connect with Becky on LinkedIn, Instagram or at her website – www.untanglehappiness.com  

Transcript

Well, Chester, we're excited to have you here. When Nita told me that she had reached out to you, she introduced the concept of having you on our show as something like he's the like, The culture and leadership guru or guy. So no pressure, but we're expecting kind of great things from this conversation and I know you'll be able to deliver.

So I'm really excited to talk with you a little bit about your journey and what you know, your thoughts, excuse me, on culture and leadership. And maybe we can just sort of kick off by you telling us a little bit about how. How you landed. Where you landed. Yeah. Well, thank you for keeping the bar low and expectations I'd like to have.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, my journey is not unlike most, I think, you know, you, you, you work hard, you you're curious, you ask a lot of questions and things come your way and you try this and you try that. All of a sudden you wake up and it's that, uh, David Burn moment. Well, how did we get here? You know,

Um, so I, I grew up in sales. My family's a broadcast family. I grew up actually in Vancouver, British Columbia. So I'm Canadian, eh, so we, we got into sales and, and marketing and all that good stuff. And, and, uh, so I enjoyed, you know, solving customers problems and, and a very competitive family. Tennis family and I have four older brothers and oddly enough, in our family, tennis is a contact sport.

Um,  awesome. As is often the case with multiple brothers in the house. Right? Exactly. Exactly. You know, it'd be quicker get hit, so. You know, as, as, as I started to get into sales in broadcasting and so on, and I sold a TV spot time and ran sales organizations for, uh, TV stations and so on, I got involved in the recognition business and I loved selling recognition programs.

Uh, you know, it was a very positive impact on people. You've seen all the data. You know, very few people come home at the end of the day and say, I got recognized too much at work today, . I couldn't, couldn't get anything done. They kept giving me plaques and balloons and stuff, and I love the way that that ripple effect went into people's personal lives and, and their families and their communities.

So as, as I was selling these recognition, uh, programs, I. Had an epiphany. I was working on a program for a pharmaceutical company. I live in New Jersey and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a pharmaceutical company. And Nita, that's just an expression. You don't have to actually do that.  getting away from Dead Cat.

And we had this, uh, program where we were. Partnering with a consulting firm, and I wanted to know more about their firm. And they sent me a book by their senior VP called The Talent Equation. And I thought, this is genius, you know? So I called our CEO and said, You know, we need to publish and become the thought leaders.

And then because we're the thought leaders, people would call me as the salesman to say, Solve my problem, make my life easier. Right. Always looking for advantage. Chester, back to tennis, right? Yeah. And he said, Oh, that's a great idea. Well, well write the book. Like write, Write the definit. I'm like, just sure I can do that.

Um, and I said, His name's Kent Vernick. I said, Ken, I don't, I don't think you heard me. Like you should write the book. And then I would benefit , uh, from the book. And this was one of those moments, you know, how, how do you get here? He said, You know, you're a smart guy. Figure it out. Mm-hmm. Went, ah, geez. You know, it's like , like you, Becky.

The cultural guru, you know, it'd be brilliant. So anyway, I worked on it for about a year. You know, I had crushing quotas and you know, sales people keep pretty busy. And he called me back about a year later and said, Hey, I've been thinking about that book. I just hired a writer. His name's Adrian Gosick.

Introduce yourself and write the book. Well, Adrian also grew up in Canada, so you know, we had that hockey thing in common and really hit it off. And we, a year after that, which was the year 2000, oddly enough, we dropped a book on his desk called, um, Managing With Carrots. It was our first little book and it was basically, you know, our best clients and their best practices.

And we were very excited about that. And then Kent said, I have this vision of a carrot library. And it said, you know, can we, we were pretty excited that we got like one book out. Well, he was smarter than we were cuz Adrian and I now have been doing this just over 20 years. We're still best, in fact, we're best of friends.

I think one of the reasons is he lives in Utah and I live in New Jersey. That, you know, 2,500 miles separation I think is good for a lot of relationships. Mm-hmm. . And we just finished our 14th book, which was Anxiety at Work. And um, so, you know, I think it's, You know, curiosity and hard work meets opportunity and that you've got people that support you.

You know, Kent Murdoch was a tremendous support for us. We, we wrote seven books while we were at that company, and then we, he left. And then we left. And we've written seven more. So bit of a long answer. Where do you get your content from? Like, how do you decide what it is that you're gonna write on? Is this like through the interactions that you're having, through the work that you're doing, you know, outside of the writing work?

Or how are you deciding what it is that you wanna. Yeah, great question. You know, when we wrote our first couple of books, people would say, Love the book. Of course you speak on your books. And we went, Sure,  sounds like fun. So we, we, we started speaking and people say, Well, we love the speech, Do you have training?

And we said, Sure. You know, we knew a guy who knew a guy at like Franklin Covey. And so we developed training around our books and through that we built up this wonderful data. You know, and, and alliances. We have a database of over a million engagement surveys. We developed our own little, uh, motivators assessment, and so as we started to gather data and we started to get into executive coaching and, and talk to executives, what are the issues that you're solving for?

It was just an endless supply of ideas. I, I departure from what we do, You know, our overarching umbrella is culture, and so it's leadership and it's teams and it's culture with the common thread of gratitude, you know, which was fascinating to us that we never came across great cultures or great leaders that didn't cheer for their people and understand how to engage people and communicate through gratitude well.

A bit of a departure for us is anxiety at work and the origin of that book needed to your question was Anthony Gosick, Adrian's son, you know, he's a classic millennial, uh, super smart kid. Just got his masters in g known mapping and all this stuff from ucla. I mean, super smart kid. Uh, I've known him since he was six years old and been anxious his whole life.

And he said to us, um, do you guys ever talk about mental health? You know, as, as part of culture? Well, we're both boomers. We go, No, we don't. You don't talk. That wasn't taught to us. Yeah. We don't, we , we don't talk about Bruno. You know, that's, uh, Yeah. You know, and he said, You know, you gotta understand my generation.

That's how we start every conversation. Hey, how you holding up? And we found, so again, we really curious, Well, is that true? You know, I mean, I've got, you know, four kids and started quizzing them. I'll be darn, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So it fit nicely. While, while I say it was a bit of a departure, it actually fits nicely because how, how can you run a great team?

How can you really be a servant leader, an empathetic leader, a grateful leader, whatever you know you're working on, and not address mental health. It's by far the number one issue in the workplace, you know, And the pandemic just accelerated everything on anxiety and, and, and mental health. So, Again, sorry, a bit of a long answer to a short question, but that's, that's where we get our information in.

So I mean, when you talk about how you incorporate you. Not just like the content of the book Anxiety at Work, but just mental health generally into your speaking engagements on culture. You know, any type of organization that you work with. Like how are you, how are you folding that into, is it foundational, do you think, to the culture?

How are you speaking about that, um, with the people you work? Yeah. You know, really insightful question, Nita, because people say, Okay, I, I get it. We should be talking about why, like what's, what's the benefit? Say, look, what are your number one issues right now? Attraction and retention. Engagement and productivity said, Let me, let me give you some numbers, right?

And so this is where our, our database is just remarkable, right? Said pre pandemic, about 18% of employees said they had some kind of anxiety disorder. Now everybody gets anxious. A disorder means it keeps me from doing. Right. So say one in five, 20%, 18%, right? Um, by 2022, that jumped to 30%. That's a big jump right?

Now you take a look at workers in their twenties, right? These are your new hires. These are the future of your company. It's 42%. Mm-hmm. , you're approaching half the people that you hire are suffering from some kinde of anxiety disorder. Nobody wants to talk about it. . Right? If I always joke that if, uh, 42% of your 20 year olds in your company showed up with broken legs, I mean, you'd be all over that.

You know, the first thing you'd do is, you know, take away everybody's skateboard, right? And you'd say, Look, we got a, a real issue. Mental health is that invisible thing, right? And people don't wanna talk about it because of the, the heavy stigma. So I'm new in my job, I'm overwhelmed, I'm burned. And I can't talk about it because if I do, I'm gonna be perceived as, oh, those weak kids coming into the workplace.

You know, like my generation, you know, our solution was, Hey, just relax man. Take a deep breath. Turn that frown upside down, you know, rub some dirt on it, get back in the game. Uh, I always laugh that, you know, when I was a kid we, you know, played basketball and rugby and whatever, and somebody got knocked out.

We thought that was hilarious, you know, And oddly enough, I still think that's kind of funny, inappropriate, but you know, that's my generation. Right. Rubb some dirt on it. Get back in the game. Well, it's. That's simple anymore, right? So we say, look, if you look at turnover, so you're hiring these really bright and and engaging people.

And by the way, so they're at 42% overall, it's still 30%. That's still a big number. So I don't wanna just say, Hey, it's huge. It, it's just people in their twenties, you say, Um, 50% of millennials, 75% of gen. Have quit a job due to mental health. So in other words, rather than talk to their boss about it and get some help, they just quit.

Take some time off, regroup, and then go get another job. And so you say, what are the, what are the benefits? Say, are you kidding? , you know, attraction and retention, this should be your number one priority is to not just make a psychologically safe, you know, culture or team. And emotionally safe because here's your skill testing question, Becky.

And there are valuable take home prizes, so pay attention. Yep. What percent of workers do you think feel comfortable talking to their immediate supervisor or manager about mental health? Give me a percentage. Gotta be low. Let's say 19%. That's high. Guess again, I was gonna guess 12. 12 is high. Guess again?

Seven. Seven is low. Okay. So nine and a. Is almost there. It's 10 . Yeah, it's 10%. So flip it around. 90% of employees won't talk about it. Yeah. That's a big problem. Mm-hmm. . So, you know, back to Nita, you know, what's the benefit for me as a leader? If you'd asked me five years ago, you know, what are the attributes of great leaders, you know, with all our data and all our executive coaching and science said, Look, you gotta be a great communicator.

You, you gotta be a servant lead. You gotta paint the vision. You gotta, you know, get people to follow you right now. It's just one word that matters and it's empathy. Mm-hmm. , And I know there's a lot of different kinds of empathy. The empathy I'm talking about is do your people know that you care about 'em?

And if they don't feel that it's over, like they, they will leave you in a heartbeat. Uh, I was just speaking literally yesterday, uh, with my co-author, Adrian Gosick, wonderful company, a plasma company. Right. And as we talked to why they. They said, Oh, I came here for the culture. I came here because here people matter.

You know, one uh, attendee was telling me that at a previous company. She said, Listen, we were very successful. The thing is, it was all about the numbers and through the pandemic. I had a woman on my team who'd lost, listen to this, five members of her family to Covid five. She was completely devastated and all my boss could say to me and say, Yeah, that's really too bad.

Make sure she shows. Because we gotta hit this number. I mean, you know, tell her that we care  as long as she shows up. And she said, You know, I just, at that point I said, Look, I can't work here anymore. Yeah. So the business benefits, engagement, productivity, retention, attraction, I mean, it's all there.

There's an element of this that reminds me of, and I don't know if you're familiar with it or not, but there's a book called The Trusted Advisor. And in that book, they have an equation where they measure that they use to sort of measure back at the envelope how you create trust. Okay? And the equation is a fraction, and the top of the fraction is, um, credibility, reliability, and intimacy.

And by intimacy they simply mean like, do I feel like you care about me? The top of the fraction, the bottom of the fraction is self orientation. So what the, like if you're a math thinker, what that means, practically speaking is that self orientation actually has the biggest impact on trust, lower self orientation, more trust, higher self orientation, less trust.

So when I hear you say empathy, it's like empathy with a twist though that reminds people that what we're actually, that we actually care about them, not about us or about the company. , and that's, you know, not that we're not putting those things before or ahead of, or instead of focusing on them. So I just wanted to, I don't have a question in that, but I guess maybe just to get your thoughts on, you know, refining a little bit more.

When you say empathy, talk to me more about that. Yeah. You know, I, I would maybe adjust that a little bit, you know, as I reflect on what you just said, is that it's not that I care about you more than the company. Because we're in business to stay in business. Yep. I care about the company and because I care about the company, I care about you in the company.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, you don't have a company without you. Yep. So I'm not sure if there's a rank order necessarily. Right. That's fair. No, but it's still, I think there's a lack of self orientation there, even in the way you just described it. So I'll buy that. I'll buy what you're selling. Yeah. And yeah, , and it's on sale.

You know, it's interesting to me that. And by the way, we all get that if the company doesn't survive, we don't have jobs. Right? We get that and we understand that there's a a certain amount of, there's an expectation of productivity. So as leaders say, Look, how do we get to that productivity? How do we make sure that you know this, this works well?

It's to your point's. Gotta work for everybody. You know, we can't just completely focus on the employees to the detriment of, of the company. That doesn't make any sense. And we, and we can't focus on just the company, the detriment of all the employees. Cause then, then we don't have a company either, You know, that, that balance.

Listen, I, I just say, look, people wanna work for people that care. Mm-hmm. , because, you know, it's, it's really interesting. Like, you know, you talk to the maintenance guys, you talk to the CEOs, you talk to everybody in between. Do you know what everybody has in. Like everybody, they just wanna be happy. Mm-hmm.

I mean, they do, they just want, they just wanna find happiness. They wanna say, Look, I've got a job that I enjoy, that I care about. They care about me. I can pay my bills, I can take a vacation. I feel safe. And nothing does that better than the workplace cuz we spend so much time at work. So, you know, we're leaders that get that, that say look.

And in our book we have eight strategies on how to deal with that. Well the, the first one is deal with uncertainty. The number one driver of anxiety is uncertainty. Like, how's the company doing? How, where are we going? How am I doing, and do I have a future here? Well, if I'm your manager and I'm regularly answering those four questions, your anxiety levels come way down, right?

Hey, here's, here's how we're doing as a company. You know, we had, we were flat this month, but overall for the year, we're up 15%. Guess what? That's awesome. Mm-hmm. . Here's where we're going. We're opening new markets. We got some, some fun new products in, in, in r and d by the way. I want you to know we appreciate you.

You know, our eighth strategy, by the way, is gratitude. No shocker there from the apostles of appreciation, right? You, you show up, you do a great job. You know? And let me ask you, where do you wanna be two to three years from now? And let's work on that. You know, the annual reviews I, I think, are, are more detrimental than, than, than positive.

Regular check-ins are brilliant. Mm-hmm. , I'm checking in with you as often as needed. You know what, Nina Company's doing great. We're opening new markets. Really appreciate the work you're doing. Where do you wanna be in a couple of years? You know what? I think we can make that happen. What I think that that does though is you sort of hit on across, I.

The eight strategies that you probably are discussing there, the components of that, you're really hitting in on the themes of getting people to connect to, because you're being transparent about what is needed. You're, you're getting people to connect to the fact that how they contribute is meaningful and then also, You are in appreciation of that contribution, that it's an alignment with what you as an organization are trying to do.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, so funny. I was listening to a wonderful podcast. Arthur Brooks, I don't know if you ever listen to Oh, yes. Yeah. Just beyond. Brilliant. You know? Brilliant. And he says, You wanna have a great company, hire happy people. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . You know, I thought, I think he's right. You know, I think he's right.

I mean, you look at people's resume and you go, man, you know, incredible experience and qualifications thing is just a miserable set of, again. Well, who wants. Yeah. You know, but it's not enough. But it's, it's also like, to some extent, I, yes, I agree with that, but I also think that that places a lot of the onus upon, like that individual just to be happy.

Wherein, as you pointed out a couple of minutes ago, where do we spend the most time? Our waking hours are spent in the work environment predominantly, right? How are we also as organizations creating an environment in which that happy person continues to stay happy, That's it. That they continue to thrive, that they continue to grow beyond that which they exist today, or how they look today, and that they're able to, you know, really make contributions that make a differe.

I agree with you a hundred percent. I, I don't think you know, , you say, Look, we need a neurosurgeon on our team. Let's just find somebody who's happy. We can teach 'em how to, you know, slice open a brain. Yeah. The idea, like you say, facilitate that happiness. Make sure that, you know, we talk about our definition of an all in culture is where people believe what they do matters.

And they make a difference. And when they make a difference is noticed and celebrated. So that belief that my work is important, I can connect the dots. You know, like this wonderful, um, plasma company that we talked to yesterday. It was, uh, look, let's not forget that what we do saves lives. So, even though you're just checking people in and stuff, the fact that you're checking them in and they're donating their plasma, and this is going to a, an emergency, you know, the way you connect the knots is you're, you're gonna help save somebody's life today.

Well, if that's a motivator for you, and it should be for pretty much everybody, right? That's gonna drive great satisfaction in your job. Now have, have I enabled. To do that. In other words, you have the training, you know you've got the tools to get it done. Have I energized you around that cost? Well, that's gonna drive engagement and higher engagement and higher productivity and, you know, all the formulas.

Right. I, I do think that Arthur Brooks was onto something there though, and he said there are people that sort of have a predisposition for joy and happiness and, you know, all that other stuff. If, if you can. Bit of happiness. Now, back to your point, happy people get stressed and anxious just like everybody else.

Mm-hmm. . So that's when you gotta back up and say, Okay, how can we do that? Now, I know we're gonna run short on time here, so I, I, I wanna give your listeners like three things that they can do if they're leading a team. Right. First is around mental health. Normalize the conversation. I mean, it's the number one issue in the workplace.

If people had broken legs, you'd talk about it. So normalize the conversation, destigmatize it by saying, By the way, this is not gonna cost you a promotion or a raise. Everybody gets burned out. If you broke your ankle, we'd say, Take time off your overload. I want you to take time off. And then that third one is empathize.

Right. Empathize and I, and that's different than sympathy. Sympathy is, oh, you poor thing. Right? Empathy is, Look, I don't know exactly what you're going through. I have felt that way before. And then what you gotta do, and this is really hard for leaders, stop problem solving. Mm-hmm.  and just listen. People just want somebody to listen.

Even though you may have the answer right, there's a no brainer, right? I know that I've done seriously, just do this. You'll be fine. Just listen. And what that does is that builds trust. It builds emotional safety. And now you've got people that can inhale, take a deep breath and say, Oh, okay, I'm not gonna lose my job.

Not gonna lose my raise. This is a safe place to work and who doesn't wanna stay there, right? Mm-hmm. , And to your point about listening versus advising, I just read a quote this morning. Somebody said they had been in a training and the trainer said something along the lines of, unsolicited advice is always a criticism.

And I haven't decided yet whether I fully agree with that, but I think this is a great example of a time where that might be true, right? Yeah. Because offering that unsolicited advice in that moment when that person comes to you with their mental health challenge is like, Why haven't you thought of this already?

You know, why aren't you doing this? Like, the solution is so obvious to me. You've given me the, you know, 10 minute description of it, and I've already solved it for you. Right? That is how it might feel to receive that unsolicited advice. By contrast, to your point, when you sit and listen and invite them to brainstorm solutions, it feels totally different to them.

Yeah. You know, it is so interesting. I'll give you a personal experience. Just really quick. My daughter works at a library in Iowa City and you know, human dynamics and she calls me and she says, Hey dad, I wanna talk to you about work. I jump into my executive coaching mode and. What about this kinda suggests this.

It goes on for some time and finally there's a pause and she says to me, You know what, dad? I don't always need a coach. Mm-hmm . Sometimes I just need a dad. And I went, I said, Fair enough, Cassie. Just. I'll listen you talk. She goes, Thanks, . I like that. I wanna go back to one thing that you said though, cuz I really like those, Those sort of three tips around normalizing the conversation around mental health, destigmatizing and empathizing.

What I wanted to say though is I actually kind of wanna address the first two points around normalizing and destigmatizing. I think a part of this is also in reframing the whole conversation around mental health and wellbeing to the extent that. I think part of this normalization and destigmatization is helping people to reframe and understand that we all have mental health all of the time, and that the conversation isn't just a conversation around ill mental health.

And when there are problems to be solved or problems to address or issues that we need to face, if we can better understand that we all have mental health all the time, and it is the very thing that enables us to perform and thrive and do great work and innovate that in having that be a part of the conversation, it naturally, um, helps to turn some of the skeptics into believers.

That, Oh, I can actually leverage mental health and my wellbeing to perform better and to help my people perform better, which helps my company perform better and my teams perform better and I can do better work for, for my clients or, or whatever industry that I'm in. Um, so I just wanted to kind of make that point that I think that, that we tend societally to kind of fall into this.

Um, mental health is equated to ill mental health and Right, right, right. Yeah. And, and I'll tell you one, one of the, uh, easiest ways to make it safe to talk about mental health is when you have courageous leaders that share their story. Yes. Uh, and Nabile Dban is one of my favorite leaders. She's the Chief People Officer for Walmart, Canada, you know, hundreds of thousands of employees.

She starts the. Introduction to her meetings. I'm a recovering workaholic. Let me tell you how it devastated me. I didn't sleep, I didn't eat. I didn't have good mental health. I didn't have good physical health and it, and it cost me my marriage. Now here's what's really interesting, and she's very open about this.

I don't hesitate to share her story. We've become actually quite good friends. But in a town hall, somebody said, Well, easy for you to say. , you're the chief people officer. Would you have gotten where you are? Had you not made those sacrifices? And I love your answer. She said, Oh, absolutely. I had gotten here.

It would've taken me longer. And knowing what I know now, I would make that trade. Mm-hmm. . I thought it was just brilliant. Now, you know, sharing your story isn't always comfortable for people. But you know, I mean, Ryan Reynolds, you know, and a lot of athletes have come out and said, uh, hey, you know, um, this is a thing.

Mm-hmm. . And, um, we think that, you know, high achievers and, and famous people, they've got it all. And it's so funny, I remember talking to some, some leaders and saying, So how many of you have a somebody on your team that's just killing. I mean, you just, you're rock stars. Everybody's got one say, What do you do with those rock stars?

You go load 'em up, , you know, just, they'll never say no and they always get her done. They said, Yeah, over time. How do you think that? Cause you know your top, I guarantee your top performers are your most anxious in place. Because they don't ever wanna disappoint. So you gotta be careful cuz you'll burn those people out faster than, than, than you can imagine.

Mm-hmm.  quick, cute story, and you've maybe heard this story, Oprah is, you know, we talks about mental health. She says, You know, it's interesting, I've interviewed over 20,000 people, you know, leaders of countries and movie stars and rock stars. And as soon as the interview's over, she said almost to a person, they say the same thing.

Mike goes up, they go. Was that any good? Yeah. Did you get what you needed? Was I okay? And Oprah leans back. Your Lady Gaga. It was fabulous. , what do you, what do you, What do you mean? Was it good? It wasn't good. It was Unbeliev. I mean, seriously, like Lady Gaga. I just really, I just didn't wanna let you down.

You see what I'm saying? So if Lady Gaga is anxious mm-hmm. , trust me. Everybody's anxious, right? Yep. True. Well, this has been a spectacular conversation and I appreciate you taking your wisdom and making it practical and actionable. Before we head out, we wanna ask you a couple rapid fire questions, and I'm gonna take the opportunity to go first and in the vein a little bit of, you know, we've talked about.

Some generational differences in how people are experiencing, um, anxiety and mental health. But I'm curious to know if you could go back in time and talk to your 20 year old self, what would you tell? What advice, what one piece of advice would you give? Yeah, I would say enjoy the journey more. Mm. You know, slow down.

Uh, I, I mean, you know, it was, and, and I was the classic, you know, baby boomer, but I'm doing this for the family, you know? Mm-hmm. , that's why I'm missing all the lacrosse games and, you know, ballet recitals and, and on and on. Just slow down and enjoy the journey. You know? You're gonna live a long. I like it.

Yeah, I like that. Okay. I have one. Since you are such a wonderful writer and you've put out so, so much good content and thought leadership that so many of us had the opportunity to consume and leverage, what is the next book that you think needs to be written? Uh, you know, we're always working on the next book.

By the way, just as a qualifier, Adrian's the writer. . Okay. Yeah. I go to high school reunions and they go, You've written New York Times Best seven books. You go, Well, I'm the co-author. And they go, Oh, okay. That makes perfect sense. Um, , Yeah. You know, uh, Adrian doesn't let me talk about the next books. I, I, I will tell you though, that I think there's going to be a lot written about transit.

Um, you know, what's next? You've got a, a tremendous amount of baby boomers that are gonna start exiting the workplace, and yet they're gonna live another 20 years. Yeah. Uh, what are they gonna do? And I think not only do you put it in that context, and, and I'm struggling with that right now. You know, what's my next chapter?

And, um, um, you know, slow down, enjoy. How much longer am I gonna be healthy enough to do a lot of the things that I wanna do before you really have to slow down just cuz you can't do it anymore. Right? Right. So I, I think a lot is gonna be written about that. And in that context, I think helping people in transitions, You know, my, my dad worked for the same company for 45 years.

That'll probably never happen  again, right? So as I move jobs, as I move careers, as I move around, how do I handle those transitions and how do I do that in a way that keeps me engaged and productive and learning and growing and curious while not, you know, sacrificing my financial wellbeing long term?

You know, I've got a son. Not 30 yet. He's at four different jobs already. Yeah, yeah. You know, and my generation, if you have four different jobs before you turn to 30, it was like you were running from the FBI or something, , you know? It's true. Yeah. It's interesting that you say that, and I will just offer you a data point that supports the notion.

I wrote a book, it's called The Happiness Recipe, and it's really about how do you, how do you navigate those transition moments in life? And I have been really surprised with the traction that has happened in. Just about to, or just into retirement generation. That was not the audience that I had in mind when I wrote the book, but it is an audience I hear from a lot.

Yep. Because it's a real thing. Yep. That and you know, I don't remember where I read it, but I wanna say it was a McKenzie study, but we'll have to clarify that or fact check that. Um, where they were talking about by 2025, 70% of the workforce or more is going to be doing gig jobs. Which essentially means like sort of short term projects, right?

That they work on and then they go and they move on and they do something else, which really requires kind of skilling and upskilling, right? And to sort of speak, address your notion of transitioning, Being able to do those transitions quickly to be able to learn the things that you need to learn and just in time to be able to do that job, I think is important as well.

And I will tell you along that line, you know, having grown up in Canada, changing jobs in Canada is so much easier. Because of socialized medicine. Mm. You talk about 75% of the workforce is gonna be in gig jobs. If we don't figure out healthcare, it's gonna be ridiculous cuz the, your only option is to go to the er.

Yep. Yep. Because you don't have, he. You know, I mean, I'm self-employed. My, my healthcare is horrible. Yep, Same. Same. You know, it's basically catastrophic healthcare. Yep. You know, so I was laughing. I said, you know, next year I turned 65, I'll be Canadian again, cuz I get so soci, I get socialized medicine.

Right. I'll be back to my Canadian self. So, I mean, a whole different topic. You're right though those transitions, one of those decisions really is, Hey, are we gonna have a second child? We don't have healthcare, right? Mm-hmm. , right. Yeah, it influences your a lot of life choices and, and the way we care for ourselves, so absolutely.

Well as evidence by our continued conversation, we could do this all day , but in the interest of giving you back your day, before we go, can you tell people and we'll include links in the show notes, can you tell people where to find you? Yeah, the culture works.com. You know Adrian, I found out at Wonderful when your culture Works, everything else works.

Tune into our podcast, AIE at Work. Uh, we have some engaging guests. We're gonna record one later today in fact. And um, LinkedIn is a great place to find me in particular, you know, we publish our gratitude journal. Twice a month we've, I got 210,000 subscribers. People are looking for that kind of positivity.

So follow me in LinkedIn, listen to the podcast. Then for everything else, go to the culture works.com. Awesome. Thank you so much, Chester. Thank you so much. So much appreciate the work that you're doing and what you're spreading out into the world. Thank you so much. You bet. It's been a delight. And by the way, I'll just share with you in closing my little mantra, uh, that I start every day with, that keeps me sort of mentally healthy.

Yes. And that is be kind. Be grateful and be of service, and if I can do that during the day, I've had a good day. Love that. Thanks. Thank.