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Welcome to the show, where we expose new perspectives on our ever evolving world through the lenses of various industries, cultures and backgrounds.
Our guests are disruptors, united by a common goal to bring their purpose to life.
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Whether they’re from the commercial world or third sector, from the Global North or the Global South, expect an inspirational journey that will transform your perspective on just what is possible.
My name is Philippa White and welcome to TIE Unearthed.
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Hello and welcome to episode 99 of TIE Unearthed, the Work Joy Edition.
So let me ask you this.
Do you ever feel stuck in work gloom, perhaps trapped in a cycle where your job feels more draining than fulfilling?
1:04
What if work could be joyful, energizing, even fun?
This episode dives into exactly that.
Today I’m joined by the dynamic Beth Stallwood coach, facilitator, author, and founder of Create Work Joy.
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With two decades of experience, Beth is on a mission to transform how individuals and organisations approach work.
From navigating career paths to crafting meaningful company cultures, she’s mastered the art of infusing joy into even the toughest of challenges.
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In our conversation, Beth shares her own vibrant journey, from starring in a Heinz ketchup commercial as a child, yes really, to her bold decision to step out on her own and create a business rooted in passion and purpose.
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Together, we explore how to build joy into your work, how to shift out of negativity, and how intentionality can be the game changer we all need.
So whether you’re looking for practical tips to tackle a tough day or deep insights to reshape your career, this episode is packed with ideas to help you take action.
2:28
Because let’s face it, work doesn’t have to be miserable.
It can be work Joy.
Let’s dive in, Beth.
I have been looking forward to this.
I have actually been looking forward to this for a really long time and I’m so happy we finally made it happen.
2:47
Thank.
You so much for joining me.
Thank you so much for having me on the podcast.
I am so excited for our conversation.
I might squeeze a little bit.
Yeah, well, I love, I think, you know, our energy is, I think quite similar as we sort of explode on social media every once in a while.
3:06
And I, I was starting to say this.
I was like, no, no, I have to press record.
But you know, I read your book actually a little while ago and then I reread it now and I, I’d actually forgot.
Well, I hadn’t forgotten it, but I I was reminded of your the beautiful story at the beginning, which I just love your enthusiasm, even as a young child doing your ad for Heinz ketchup.
3:28
I know it’s funny, isn’t it, where these things start in life and then where we end up and what we end up doing with our lives and our work.
It’s so fascinating.
Isn’t it?
And you just see like even just when you see your just incredible energy and personality.
3:44
And then I just sort of see, ah, so that, that’s interesting that even as a child they saw that and needed to have you to sell Heinz ketchup.
Yeah, that’s exactly what it was.
They needed me and I am that person.
4:00
So for anyone who hasn’t read the book yet, when I was eight, I did a tomato ketchup behind advert.
So I like to think of myself as a ketchup ambassador still, you know, 30 something years later since then.
And it was my kind of first experience of work.
4:17
And it was a pretty special first experience of work.
It’s not your paper round that you have to do.
It’s a very special experience.
And I filmed at Pinewood Studios, which is where they filmed all the Bond films and all kinds of things.
So it was incredible.
4:32
And I think from that moment as an 8 year old, I just had this real love for doing the work.
And I’ve bought that into kind of all of the different careers I’ve had within my life from that moment in time.
Oh, well, that’s such a great segue to you telling us a little bit about you before Work Joy and the incredible success of your fantastic book, which we’re obviously going to be talking about it today.
4:54
But Work Joy, which is a tool kit for a better working life and obviously your coaching work.
But let’s just let’s just park that for a SEC.
We will get there.
But who is Beth stolen?
So she’s a multiple of things.
She doesn’t like just being consigned into one box.
5:10
So I am a dog mom.
That’s the most important thing.
She’s the best.
My dog Mabel, Love her.
I am a enthusiastic person about lots and lots of different things, so I love being outside in nature.
5:26
I love singing and dancing and doing anything that involves kind of the performance side.
I also love sitting down and reading and learning stuff.
I love interesting conversations with great people and I’ve spent 20 something years working in the world of making work better and I didn’t really define that for a number of years.
5:48
I spent a lot of time working in different organisations.
I worked a lot in the learning and development in the people space and culture and engagement, trying to help organisations do their people stuff better.
It took me a while to kind of bring all of the different parts of me together.
I don’t know if anyone else experiences this.
6:04
As you get older, it’s like you have separate parts.
I had like the drama back that did like drama school when I was younger and like wanted to be an actress and then I did a degree in music because I was really interested in that side.
And then I had to go and get a real job and I worked in investment.
I don’t know how I got the job.
6:19
I think probably because I was quite good at acting and could act my way through an interview, right?
That’s probably how I managed to convince them that I could work in finance with a music degree.
Who knows?
Who knew that that was in impossible in any shape or form.
And I suppose what’s happened over time is all these different elements have come together and created this idea that actually work takes up so much of our lives.
6:45
We spend a third of our entire lives working as a minimum.
We also spend a third of our lives sleeping.
So it doesn’t leave much life outside of that thing.
And I spent so much time with so many people who were not happy, were miserable, were kind of doing that work days again, having that Sunday night dread of, oh, do I have to go back?
7:08
And I was just like, it doesn’t actually have to be like that.
We can’t fix everything, but there’s so much that we can do to think about what can we do as individuals, what can we do as organisations and how can we bring it all together so that work doesn’t have to be miserable, so that work can be actually something that we like in our lives.
And actually, when you think about human beings, human beings have always worked.
7:26
We work in very different ways to how we used to.
But work is a big part of how we build success and achievement and lots of different things.
So it’s not that I’m saying we should get rid of work.
I actually really love work.
It’s about how do we build in a way that works for us within our lives and not just have it as something that we have to do to pay the bills or to be able to live or to be able to survive.
7:49
So I spent a lot of time doing things like I have a choir that I run with one of my friends I met on a dog walk.
Yeah, I have a choir.
Our little local village, We, I met a friend on a dog walk and we decided we wanted to sing.
So we just started a choir.
And I spent a lot of time with my friends and my family doing fun things, but I also spent a lot, a lot of time at work doing work things and trying to do more to help more people love what they do.
8:14
You know, it’s amazing.
And just to catch one of the things that you’re saying just about, you know, how it’s so interesting that you’ve sort of done all these different things and you kind of then end up wherever you end up.
But I’ve always, for a very long time, I’ve seen life as this unfinished puzzle.
8:30
Yes.
And you know, you had that investment job, but that is a really important piece of that puzzle.
And there’s time for you start to see that picture starting to evolve as you start to piece the picture.
But then you suddenly realize, Oh my God, there’s this whole other part that’s still totally unfinished.
And there’s all these things that we’re doing.
8:47
But interestingly, the pieces just slot in to one another in interesting ways and they help complete that puzzle, which isn’t yet completed and will never be completed until the end of our lives.
But it’s sort of this picture that’s ever evolving.
And I, I really have felt so strongly about that because all of these experiences that we have add to that puzzle.
9:10
And it’s like a puzzle that doesn’t have the picture.
It doesn’t have the picture to follow.
But so often we think there’s the picture to follow.
We think, here is the here is the thing I have to do to be able to be successful at XYZ.
So we think there’s a picture.
And then we go, oh, but maybe that picture is someone else’s picture.
9:25
It’s not my picture.
And I have to evolve my picture and create my picture in a way that works for me.
But we get stuck in these channels of you have to do this and you have to do that, and you have to, especially in the corporate world, they’re very much designed that way.
You get on a channel and you work through a career and you become a specialist in something and you become a leader in something.
9:45
And that’s where your pathway is, but your pathway can be way more creative than that.
It can be much more interesting than that.
And all parts of you can belong in all parts of where you go.
So for years I didn’t talk about, because when I worked in like serious businesses, like investment, I worked in the public sector for a while, I didn’t really talk about the fact that I’d spent my childhood training to be an actress and training to be like on stage and to do things because I didn’t think it was professional enough.
10:12
And then lo and behold, oh, all of that work now I’m a speaker is massively helpful because I learnt my stage witchcraft when I was 10.
So it’s there, it’s deeply in there, it’s ready to go and it’s a piece of the puzzle that wasn’t there for a while but was always there and then has come back in to link all the stuff that you do.
10:29
It’s all relevant.
It’s all relevant.
Exactly.
It’s having that self-awareness and that confidence to be able to embrace it and say actually this is me and this is where I want to go.
But it does obviously take work and reflection to be able to to get there.
10:47
So what was the catalyst to what you’re doing now?
So I did like five years in investment.
I did a couple years in public sex, I did seven years in sport after that.
So I very deliberately didn’t stay in the same industry.
I really wanted to have that breadth of experience, I think, and I was always really interested in finding out how does this work in other places.
11:07
So rather than becoming the person that gets stuck, I’ve made a lot of decisions that have gone why I’m going to go and try something different, Similar kinds of jobs, but in different industries, learning and understanding how different industries work.
And then I remember very clearly I was having some mentoring and I was sitting there and they were in the corporate world and it was brilliant as a mentor.
11:29
They were really interesting and they were like, well, it isn’t the obvious next thing you go and do is to be like an HR people director.
And I was like, yes, that is the obvious next thing that I go and do.
And then I was like, OK, so let’s explore the obvious.
I always think that’s a really interesting thing to do.
Like this is the most obvious next career step is I should go and do this.
11:45
And do you know what, I started looking at all all of those jobs and I just found that I was there about them.
There was nothing drawing me to them apart from the fact that I was skilled and qualified and ready for whatever was coming next.
But I wasn’t excited about those jobs.
And I think we should all more connect with what is exciting us about stuff.
12:03
Because if you’re just doing it for the filling the box thing, I’m never sure if that’s the right way to go.
And because I’m a person who’s always kind of got taken probably some of the more unusual routes like going and changing industry, going from investment to public sector, going from public sector for really interesting, not your standard pathway.
12:19
I just kept being drawn to, I really want to do a diverse range of things and I want to work with different types of organizations and different types of people.
And I was like, but if I go anywhere, I’m going to get stuck either in this kind of job or in this kind of industry.
And I’ve always wanted to work for myself.
12:37
You can totally work it back.
I come from a strong line of strong independent women who had their own jobs.
My mum ran her own business from home.
Well, she’s still doing it.
She’s like 75 and still going.
My grandma ran a business with my granddad.
You know, we come from a line of business owners.
So in my world, working for yourself is actually more normalized than working in an organization because I saw that I grew up with it.
13:00
I was part of that.
My mum had a little office at home and she was doing work and, you know, sometimes she’d be on the phone to late at night.
And it’s like the role modelling thing, right?
It’s an interesting thing.
I think I was about 35 at the time and I was like, I either do this now or I do it when I’m in my 50s.
I either go to the next stage of this kind of formal career path and go and do that, which I’ll probably do for 10-15 years or something like that, and then do it when I’m in my 50s.
13:24
Or I just go into it now and then when I’m in my fifteens, I’ll have 15 years worth of experience doing it and I’ll be hopefully better at it and set it up and know what I’m doing.
I’m a child free person.
I don’t have kids.
I’ve got a husband.
We don’t now have a dog.
We didn’t at the time, but I was in the zone of I am going to try it, I’m going to experiment with this and I am going to give it my basket.
13:45
And then I thought, OK, so is it risky?
Well, financially, yes.
So, but risk isn’t all just about the finance stuff.
I had a really great job.
I absolutely loved it.
I had a brilliant boss who I caught up with last week, like we’re still friends.
She still helps me with stuff.
And I was like, this is weird.
14:00
Leaving a really good job is a hard thing to do, but I feel the calling to and I really, really want to do it.
And I remember I hired a little office because we lived in a little tiny flat in London.
I had a little office and I was right.
I’m going to give this a go for a year and see how it works.
And I was sat there, I think 10 days into my kind of self-employment businessy, whatever.
14:18
I didn’t even know what it was at that point in time.
I think I’d had a couple of conversations with potential clients and I sat there one day.
This is exactly actually what I’m supposed to be doing.
I, it wasn’t at the point where I had earned any money or done anything particularly brilliant, but I was like, this is where I feel like I’m the right person.
14:34
This is where I feel like I can be the most genuine, honest version of myself, where I can add the most value.
And that was two weeks in with no clients.
And from that moment, this is it.
I’m just going to go for it however I want to.
And things evolve coming up to 8 years now, but things change and my focus has changed slightly.
14:50
But at the very core of it, I just love what I do.
And I can do that for lots of different types of organization.
I can do it for lots of different types of individuals.
And I’m a person who likes exciting new shiny things.
I’m not a person who likes business as usual.
15:07
If I get stuck in an organization too long, I’m going to start breaking things so that I can remake them.
So it’s finding, what do you not just your skills?
We’re so obsessed, I think with that kind of the where do your skills fit?
And it’s like, well, your skills will always fit into a something somewhere.
But also what about what you love doing?
What about what really excites you?
15:24
What about what doesn’t excite you, what you don’t want to spend your time doing?
And we spend less time thinking about that.
And actually, I think if we put more people into roles and organizations and things where it’s not just their skills, but it’s where their passionate lines, the stuff that we could get done would be amazing.
15:39
So this is beautiful.
Let’s follow this train of thought.
So for our listeners, what is it that you do?
And perhaps sort of where did it start?
But then what is it that you’re doing?
So I always think my work fits into probably 4 buckets and some of the these buckets are really obvious and you would know about them from kind of the stuff I do like on social media or what you know about me.
16:01
And some of them you’d never know about because they’re things I do in the background.
So like.
Where the choir comes in.
It requires like a whole bucket that is just 100% joy, 100% joy.
The buckets are for my kind of very work based stuff is I do people based consulting, work with organisations.
16:20
So I work on things like culture and engagement and leadership and helping organisations to do their people’s stuff better.
I do things like create career framework and help organisations to define and share what their values are from the inside out from the people who actually work there.
16:37
So I work, I work with organisations in a way that sometimes you’d never even know I was there.
So it’s very kind of in the background working on things, working on programmes and possibilities and projects that help people do that stuff better.
I then do speaking.
This is where I combine my love of what I do with my love of being on stage and pull those things together and I love it.
16:57
So it gives me a stage.
People always like it’s going to be a lot of people.
I’m like, I love lots of people.
Give me a massive stage on my look.
I’ve got a little vision board up here.
And on my vision board is the central stage at the Barbican.
And I want to speak on that stage as my little vision is to get a gig on the Barbican mainstage.
17:14
So anyone listening who has something you need that’s on my vision board, let’s make it happen.
You’ve got to talk about the stuff that’s on your vision board, right, or it won’t.
You do.
Yeah.
Good.
I love you speaking and I suppose aligned with that is facilitation work.
So my talks are often very entertaining but also engaging and we do a lot of interactive work.
17:33
So they can either be talks or they can be workshops where we go and get into the detail, go in a bit more people have that interaction, whether that’s on a talk subject or on a subject.
Sometimes I get teams coming together with we need to be better at doing XYZ and helping them to work through some of those challenges, some of those problems.
17:50
And I do coaching.
So 1 to one working with individuals, I tend to work with people, not surprisingly, who are at transition points in their lives.
So transition points in lives and careers where they’re like, OK, I know I need to change my genuine, what direction or things have changed in life and I now need something different to what I had before.
18:09
Times are changing and my industry’s changing.
So times have changed and disruption and transition tend to be where I help people on an individual 1 to one basis.
And what I love about those kind of four different things is I get to use lots of different types of energy.
So the calm 1 to one energy versus the being on stage energy versus the big old project that you have to sit and read like 10,000 documents to understand what’s really going on.
18:33
And you’ll often find me when I’m doing it at my office, the floor covered in all these things and me sat on the floor with a big thing of post it notes trying to find it.
And for me, that brings me loads of work joy because I don’t like doing the same thing all the time.
I love the variety.
The fifth thing if I wrote a book, so why did.
18:48
You write the book, Yeah.
And what?
So yes, I mean the book.
It wasn’t on my mind in the first few years of my business.
I was very much focused on kind of the facilitation work, the coaching work, the consulting work, spending a lot of time in that zone and work joy is actually, you know, a positive outcome.
19:04
I think for me to come out of the Kovid experience, which they weren’t all positive outcomes, but when we went into lockdown in the UK, the first thing that happened is that like, because I did a lot of work in person, a lot of things got cancelled.
And I was like, OK, always thought about writing a book.
19:19
Maybe I should think about actually doing that.
If I’m going to be SAT here, you know, when everyone’s going, it’s just going to be for three weeks.
I was like, oh, we could give that a go 2 1/2 years later.
So I had been playing around in my mind with this thing called Workjoy and I don’t know about you, but once I’ve named something, I’m usually in the zone of I have to do something with it.
19:39
So sometimes I name things before I actually know what it is.
So I started.
That’s that’s a great vision board advice.
I mean, just stick names of things up there and then if you just keep looking at it, then it’s going to happen.
Yeah, I mean, and you manifest it.
Yeah, you manifest it.
So there’s there’s kind of all kinds of things that fitted in.
19:55
I’m gonna play around with this.
And because I’m a nerd and I love learning stuff, I went on a course on basically how to write a book proposal.
So I wrote a book proposal.
I did.
I did the same course.
I know for your wonderful book as well.
So I did the course and then I put it in a drawer.
20:12
Oh, did you?
Yeah, I put it in a drawer for like 18 months.
Oh my God, you didn’t do the thing immediately.
Wow.
OK, so it was literally in a drawer and because I work in big picture stuff on loads of bit massive flip chart size post it notes, which I still have here.
20:28
I still have the original ones with all the post it notes on it and I put it in a drawer.
And then I think it was about just over a year later, the publisher came me and when are you ever actually going to write this book?
And I say, yes, I will.
So I decided to commit to it and write it.
And it’s a really interesting experience writing a book because I work so much off the individuals that I work with, the people I work with.
20:50
And writing is very much like you’re trying to write for all of these people, but none of the people at the same time trying to make it applicable.
But I decided to write what I call a toolkit for a better working life, which is basically 20 years worth of real life experience on how you can do this as an an individual, as somebody that you can take responsibility for it yourself.
21:09
I like to think of it as a bit of a picker mix.
You can read it front to back if you really want to, but you don’t have to.
No, you can go hang on a minute.
I have got a problem with my boss.
Let me read the boss’s chapter and see what I could do about this.
So the whole idea is that there’s ten different ways of looking at your work joy and to take some practical stuff and experiment with things because there is no magic formula that will work for everybody, right?
21:33
There is no what I enjoy, you’ll enjoy.
Like I know many people who would rather gouge their own eyeballs out than they would stand on a stage in front of 1000 people.
I would rather do that than probably pretty much anything else.
We all get our joy from different things.
Some people I’ve heard, love to look at spreadsheets.
21:48
I’ll do it if.
I like, that’s right.
Yeah, that’s not where I have to put on my happy music and, and, and basically do something really like, OK, it’s Thursday, the end of the month.
Now it’s time to look at the spreadsheets again.
So what I suggest through the book is like, here’s some ways of thinking about stuff and then here’s some ways that you can engage with that.
22:07
Here’s some ways you can experiment with that.
Here’s some ways you can put some energy towards some of the things that might make that stuff better.
And I always like to put a big caveat about this because whenever I talk about work joy, we could get into the zone of is this just plastering on a fake smile and kind of toxic positivity in over it?
22:23
And it’s not at all in that zone.
One of the things I’m really big in is I think it’s actually probably impossible and totally unrealistic to think you’re going to get 100% joy.
I work all the time.
I work for myself.
I kind of decide what I’m going to do.
I work with amazing people.
I’m so lucky.
But I do still actually have to sometimes stare at a spreadsheet and I do sometimes have to do some stuff that I don’t particularly enjoy.
22:44
So we’re not aiming for unrealistic.
What we’re aiming for is progress over perfection.
We’re thinking about what are some of the things that I can do today and tomorrow, but actually don’t take as much effort or energy as we think they might do.
That might change some of my perspective on work.
22:59
That might build more of the joyful things into my work, that might make my relationships better for all of these different things that we can do, but it’s totally got to be personalized to you as an individual.
As I was going through it again just before we spoke, it’s so funny because everybody is at a different stage of of life, how they’re feeling and whatever it is that they’re doing.
23:20
But everybody will have a challenge in some respects.
So for example, I love what I do as well.
I’m at a very exciting stage of things.
But what’s interesting is there’s a lot of people asking me to do things, speaking on stage, for example.
So I’ve had the last like month, I’ve had numerous people say, oh, we want to fly you to Curitiba, which is the South of Brazil.
23:39
So it’s, it’s like, it’s not even a direct flight.
So it’d be, it’d be two flights.
So it’s, it would literally take an entire day to get there.
So it’s, you know, want you to come and speak on the stage to these people.
We don’t have a budget to pay you, but we will pay for all your expenses.
And it’s so interesting because there’s this one part in your book where you’re talking about a fear of missing out and talking about really think about why you want to do things.
24:02
I mean, maybe there’s really good reasons to do something like that.
So is it your target?
Is it going to add value to what you’re doing?
Does it make sense because you need to speak to those people because they can be potential clients?
But it’s so interesting because one, even just getting someone to reflect on what are the reasons you’re doing things?
24:21
Are you doing it to be nice?
Are you doing it because you’re a people pleaser?
Are you doing it because you’re like, what reasons are you wanting to do that?
And does it make sense for you?
And if not, then here and then I couldn’t believe it.
Here are six ways that you can say no.
I know I feel like I feel like I wrote that for me.
24:41
I know like sticky note that’s going there because it’s like, it’s so great.
And so I think what’s really great with all of this is it’s how to consciously live your life with intention.
Yes, in all forms.
And it’s so relevant to literally everyone.
24:57
So even if you love what you do, I love what I do.
I also been working for myself for 20 years.
You know, I’m very intentional, but even still, there are so many things in your book where I was like, oh God, OK, sticky note.
Oh, that’s a really good point.
Sticky note.
OK, I actually think I need to come back to that and sort of have a look.
25:12
And I think it’s a constant evolution of our working life is to reflect on many things.
And is this still working for you?
Is that client still working for you?
Is this work where you saw yourself being, you know, and you you have your where you’re getting your energy from and and you know, it’s just really important to just a constant reminder of these elements of life.
25:32
And it’s so easy for us all to get stuck and get stuck without even noticing because we’re not really being intentional about it.
And often when we get stuck, there’s a couple of things that have happened, like you said, we haven’t reflected enough or we have found ourselves just on that pathway without really thinking about, is it where I want to be?
25:49
I was coaching someone previously that a very senior job, and one of the things they said to me is that I never wanted to do this.
That was what my mom and dad wanted for me.
And what I really wanted was to own a little coffee shop with a florist on the side.
And this person spent 30 years working their ass off to be at this level in this place, but it wasn’t their own dream.
26:08
It was someone else else’s dream for them.
And so often that’s what happens or we have a story in our head about who we are and what we’re capable of that is so far out of date that our capabilities are way beyond where we think they are.
I see this so many times when I’m coaching people, I’ll read their CV and I’ll be like, that’s nothing like what you told me you do.
26:27
You’ve they making themselves sound really junior when they’re actually, you know, really senior.
But their stories about themselves haven’t caught up.
Or you talk to the beginning about like the confidence to do this stuff, the self belief or the confidence has been eroded for some reason.
And even though they have all of the ingredients, the full cake isn’t coming together because they haven’t got the OR the confidence or the support that they need to make those things happen.
26:49
What’s work gloom?
And can you just talk about that equation that you created, which I just think is so interesting because I also think that again, life is is a continuum.
I mean, it could be you’re in one place now, but there’s always going to be parts of work that you don’t like.
27:05
But I’m a big believer in pros and cons and just constantly doing that math and sort of, and I just perhaps you can explain because I think that you could be in a great place and then maybe you’re not.
But what?
What do you have to look at?
Yeah.
So if you look at work joy, I think it’s fairly obvious.
It’s like the bits that bring you joy at work.
27:20
And whether you use joy or happiness or engagement or fulfilment, you can kind of replace that word with anything that makes you feel good that you associate with work.
Gloom would be the opposite of that.
And you can get like work gloom moments, which would be I have to go and do this thing or I have to get on a meeting with that person, all of those kind of things.
27:38
Or you can have what I would call chronic work gloom where everything just seems bad, like you don’t want to do any of the work, you don’t want to go to work.
So it can kind of spiral into that zone.
Now there’s a passive way of looking at.
So the passive formula is if I get more work joy moments in my life and less work gloom moments in my life, overall, the work joy will outweigh the work gloom, which does make the work gloom easier to handle, right?
28:01
It definitely does.
But actually, if we put more energy and enthusiasm and experimentation into the 1st thing, which is building more work joy.
So not passively waiting for it to happen to you, not hoping it’s gonna come to you, Not waiting for your boss to give you a promotion that you think will fix the world.
28:18
Not any of that stuff.
Actively doing stuff that brings you work joy, actively making it happen.
And if you times that by the energy and experimentation you have on what I call managing the work gloom, because you are not in control of all the work gloom that comes at you, you’re also not in charge of actually all the work joy.
28:35
But if you can do those two things at the same time, you are likely to exponentially improve your work joy.
But the interesting thing about it is people often say, so where should I start?
Should I start by managing all the gloom?
And I’m like, oh, that’s where your focus is going to be.
That is some negativity bias.
28:51
You’re already making it worse.
I always say start by doing something simple that builds you more joy.
Because if you can get to, even if you can get to neutral on your joy, you will actually see the work bloom for what it is.
And so often because of our negativity bias in our brains, we see so much more of the gloom than we do of the joy.
29:09
So one of the first things I recommend people do is just track for one week what brings you joy and what brings you gloom.
And even just noticing the joyful things, people are often in a better mood to be able to then manage some of the things that aren’t so good.
So it could be like, oh, I’ve had such a bad week and you get, OK, what was bad in your week?
Go track it.
And it’s like, oh, actually what I had, I had a couple of hard meetings with somebody.
29:28
OK, so were those hard meetings your entire week?
No, what was good about your week?
And they can go well actually, because I’ve tracked it, here are 12 different things that were good about my week.
It’s like, OK, So what we need to do then is to think about how do you manage that relationship, the one that’s currently not working for you?
Who’s that relationship with?
How do we make that better?
29:44
It’s how you problem solve anything in business and in life, but we don’t always do it in the work context.
I know people who in the outside of work life will manage kids and family and animals and a very big volunteering social life and doing all of these things, and they will manage it all.
30:01
And if someone steps out of line, they’ll put them back in their play.
Like they do all this stuff.
And then at work, they turn into like, passive, unable to have the conversation, do the hard thing, reflect on it.
They just kind of go with it, go with the flow of work rather than wanting to be intentional about it.
So I think that’s something like, we can problem solve all of our work stuff.
30:18
Like we can problem solve everything else.
Yeah.
It’s so interesting.
And again, it’s that intentionality, isn’t it?
And I, it really is.
And it’s how framing things make a difference.
It’s funny because my children are 14 and 10 and every night before they go to sleep, every night, we lie down on one of their beds.
30:37
My youngest actually has a bigger bed, so we tend to lie down on that one.
And the eldest gets really annoyed, but there’s not enough room for all of us to lie down.
So anyway, it’s always a bit of a thing.
But anyway, we lie down on the the bigger bed and we asked, OK, what did you like about today and what did you not like about today?
And they talk about it.
30:52
They’ll say, oh, well, I didn’t like this, but you know, whatever happened at school.
And then this person said this thing, I didn’t really like it.
And then this person and we reflect on it and it’s so powerful.
We couldn’t believe it when they told me that they don’t know anybody else of their friends whose parents do that.
Their parents just leave them with a phone in their room and they literally just scroll at 10 or 14 years old or watch TV and then just go to sleep.
31:14
And I think how depressing is that?
But it’s really interesting because I do this with children, but actually it’s so important that as adults we have that reflection time as well.
And that’s where you come in.
It’s intentionally having those conversations and reflecting because when you vocalize it and you talk through one, things don’t seem as bad.
31:35
Like when you vocalize, well, I had that really annoying conversation with this person and then you, you’re, you’re saying it out loud to you.
And I’m sure they’re reflecting me like that wasn’t actually that.
Was maybe or they go, oh, hang on a minute.
Portion.
Is this actually is the problem?
Me.
It’s often, yeah.
Right.
It’s the problem.
Me, yeah.
And then you go, OK, if the problem isn’t me, or it may be partly me, what is it about this person that’s annoying me or what is it about that meeting?
31:58
And it’s the same things that come up time and time again, especially in the corporate world.
It’s I’m at a meeting where there’s no agenda and I don’t know what my role in it is.
OK.
Have you asked the question, what is the agenda?
What is my role in this?
What are my what skills or value you have in?
Your brain.
What do you want me to do?
Yeah.
32:13
Because that’s one question you could ask.
And if they can’t give you that, you could say, actually, I’m going to not come to the meeting because you don’t have a purpose for me, right?
And then I can have some time.
That’s amazing.
Yeah.
Great.
Smart.
Great.
But why don’t you ask the question?
Yeah, why not ask the question?
But I think this whole thing about reflection is people think this stuff takes loads of time, and we are all time poor, right?
32:32
I haven’t met a person who’s not too busy for the amount of hours they have.
But actually, we overestimate the time it takes to find some joy.
We also overestimate the time it takes to do a little bit of reflection.
That reflection question that you do with your kids every night probably takes 10 minutes, right?
10 minutes. 10 minutes on your day.
Dying to go to bed, yes.
Yeah.
Like I want to be in bed.
32:49
Let’s finish this question off.
Let’s just do it.
Let’s do that reflection.
You could do it in 5 minutes.
You could do it on the tube on the way home from work.
You could do it as you’re in the shower.
It doesn’t require any extra time that you do not have.
It just requires you to use your time slightly differently and slightly more intentionally.
33:05
And the interesting thing you say about, you know, friend, you know, your kids friends who’s aren’t doing that, that’s probably because their parents are going to bed and scrolling rather than doing the stuff that they might need to do.
And we’ve all done it right.
We all get lost in a Netflix binge when we know we should be doing something else or scrolling rather than doing something intentional.
33:21
But just doing something small will make a difference to your day.
Going in with the right attitude will make a difference to your day.
Going in with the right questions will make a difference today.
Getting the right people in your support squad will make a difference to your day.
Even if that difference is only 1% a day.
Imagine at the end of the year what you will have done.
33:38
Totally.
And so that brings me to the other thing.
All of this is coming down to being intentional and not just passively going through life.
I loved the balloons.
I mean, such a simple illustration, but such an important, again, way to live your life intentionally and really reflect.
33:55
Do you want to just bring that to life?
So I already said you can read the book as a pick and mix, but I would recommend you read the first 4 chapters before you pick a mix because the first four are kind of like setting you up to understand what it is.
And in the 4th chapter, it’s life.
And this looks at how work fits into your life.
And I am opposed to the term work life balance.
34:13
I just don’t like it and I don’t like it #1 because work comes first in that sentence.
So the assumption is that work is the first thing, but actually work fits into your life.
It’s not the other way round.
And if it is the other way round, something isn’t working.
So I like to imagine a really big balloon, one of those fancy ones that you can have other balloons on the inside and your big balloon is.
34:36
And I never knew whether this would work coming across on the book, but I’m glad.
It came across, it came across, it came.
Across the big balloon is your life.
It’s the life, the time that you have available to live your life.
And inside it you might have a work balloon, a volunteering balloon, a kids balloon, a family balloon, a hobbies balloon, a sports balloon, a health, and well, whatever you like in your life.
34:53
But what happens so often is that we fill up our work balloon so much that the other ones get squished out of place or they get deflated completely because you haven’t created any room for any of those other ones or everything you do.
You’re trying to do everything.
35:09
And then you get balloons rubbing up against each other.
That causes that friction, which then makes you feel frustrated, because friction, I think, always leads to frustration.
So you’re doing all the things you’re supposed to be doing trying to.
Be or all the balloons.
Part and the balloons just part, and that’s burnout, right?
When all the balloons part, just burnout.
35:25
So we have all of these things happening and what we’re doing there is to think about.
We need some space in between some of our balloons and there isn’t the friction.
We need some time to do nothing, to be bored because that’s actually really good for our brains.
That’s where we get really creative.
We need some space where if somebody offers you this opportunity and say this thing in South Brazil, it’s like the place you’ve always wanted to go to and you’ve never been there before and they’re offering to pay your expenses and it’s your dream clients, right?
35:47
You’d be like, hook the fame.
Yeah.
If you’re so full with everything else, opportunities that come along, you’re going to be the person that says, oh, I can’t, I don’t have any time for that.
I can’t do that.
No, thank you.
And actually what you’re saying is you’re saying no to something you want to say yes to.
So rather than saying yes to something you say, you’re saying no.
36:04
And often the homework I give people when they’re thinking about how to start here is so often they’ve forgotten how to have fun or how to have any joy in any part of their life.
So we talk about chronic work group.
It’s like nothing is bringing them any joy, not one thing.
So sometimes the homework I give people is to go and try out something they did when they were a kid and see if they still enjoy it.
36:25
So I did it.
A couple years ago I went and started ballet again after 20 years of not doing ballet.
It was great.
They then changed the timing of the class to be finishing at 10:00 PM at night and I’m sorry, I’m in bed.
By then it was too late, but I really enjoyed it while I did it so other people were like, why do you go to bed too early?
It’s amazing.
36:41
Sleep is really, really brilliant.
Sleep is really good.
Sleep gets a whole balloon in, my inner balloon gets its own one because it’s so important.
So, but you know, things like that.
Go and connect with something and bring yourself some joy outside of work.
Because if we remember that we are not 2 separate human beings at work and in our lives, if we have joy outside of work, we will actually take that with us into work and vice versa.
37:05
So we often see it the other way around and we see coming home from work partners, you know, friends, being stressed out and bringing that stress home to work and impacting your relationships.
It works the other way too.
If you have great work joy, you can bring it into your home and vice versa.
We are not separate people.
37:21
We don’t change into work personality when we go to work and home personality when we’re at home.
We might apply a professional filter because sometimes in the work environment, the full version is not necessarily what you’re necessary.
But we are the same person.
So wherever we’re getting some joy from, it will lift the mood wherever you do it.
37:37
So sometimes it’s about remembering that there’s stuff outside and we might need some boundaries.
We might need to rethink our work.
We might need to rethink some of the things we’re doing outside of work.
So often what I see is people really, really stressed out and I find out what they’re doing and they have a big job, a family, they’ve got to look after parents.
37:52
They might be getting older and needing some help.
They’re doing 17 different volunteering jobs.
And you’re like, you’ve got to let go of something before everything bursts.
But again, the intent and people saying yes, the things they want to say no to because someone, someone’s asked them, will you do the chair of this or you be on the PTA or will you do that?
38:09
And they said yes.
But it’s always the people who say yes to everything then get stuck.
Exactly.
And I just think getting us to really reflect on why are you saying yes, are you aware of what it is that you’re saying is for?
Is it because you want to be that person who’s saying yes to everything because you sort of, well, that’s not good for anyone, right?
38:27
Yeah.
And if you’re in that zone, I suggest you do the three PS, which is the 1st.
So I wanted to ask if you have?
Which is you do not have to say yes or no immediately.
We live in a world where everyone believes you have to say yes or no immediately.
So pause, put a pause in it.
Say thank you very much for that offer.
Let me go and think about it.
38:43
Let me see if I can make that work.
Do a little pondering.
So is it actually what I want it?
Will it fit into my goals?
Am I intentional about this?
Do I have the time, space, energy, resources to make that happen?
And then pit intentionally the things that you are going to do that will be good for you as an individual.
39:00
It’s OK to be what I call healthy self about that stuff.
It’s OK to say no to stuff you don’t want to do.
It’s OK to say yes just because you want to, because you’re excited about it, all of those things.
But you don’t have to say yes to everything.
And equally.
You don’t have to say no to everything.
And I think if you’ve got into the world where you’re either saying yes to everything and you’re people pleasing, that’s no good, or you’re saying no to everything because you have no capacity, even if it’s the joyful things, that’s probably where you need to do some work on your boundaries.
39:25
Do.
You have maybe a story or something that you can share of someone that you’ve worked with perhaps that just kind of bring to life the power of this.
Oh gosh, I make sure you.
Have a million.
I’ve got loads.
I’ll give you a couple of examples of where I’ve been with a couple of people who I won’t obviously name.
39:42
I worked with somebody who had been working in an organization really successfully for probably about a decade and they were like, I know that something isn’t right, but I don’t know what it is.
I feel the ick, but not knowing where I want to go, I have this exercise, the Track Your Joy.
39:59
So it’s called Workjoy.
Where do you get yours?
It’s on my website.
You can go and download it totally free.
So the first thing I got this person to do was to go and do that activity.
And I thought it will give them some idea of where they might need to spend some time, some intention to think about where are they headed.
And at the end of one week, I got a message that said it is absolutely clear exactly what I need to do next.
40:20
I was like, what do you mean you’ve just done one week of tracking?
And they said what I have worked out is that I no longer feel any attachment to the people I work with in my squad.
I don’t have that anymore at work.
I have, I’ve outgrown the organization and I know now that I need to go and find something different.
40:37
And that was from one week of tracking their joy and gloom.
Now, I will say that is the quickest anyone’s ever done it, so I will.
That is not exactly null, but the, the tracking does make a difference in terms of what you know and how you can go and what you can do with it.
It does really, really help people.
40:53
Another example, and this is a really simple example, if I had somebody who’s every single one of their balloons was completely full, they actually worked three different jobs.
They work three different jobs, but officially work part time.
But I was like, you work part time in three jobs, so that’s full time.
That’s like full.
Time.
That’s more than full time.
41:08
That’s like more than full time.
That’s that’s a long.
Half.
And maybe some of your listeners will laugh at this.
We had a big conversation about all the things they were doing, and I literally got them to write down everything that they do on an average week and the action that we came up with.
This might make you smile was that their partner was totally capable of going to Tesco and buying a chicken and that actually the work wasn’t the problem, it was everything else that was taking up so much space and mental load and energy.
41:33
And that they had never asked or considered or tried to share any of the household type tasks because they worked part time in three jobs, which was way more than full time in total.
And do you know what?
41:49
Just that realisation that you cannot as an individual do everything.
And that there are people that you can get support and help from, but they’re not necessarily just going to step in and do it because you’ve always done it.
And if you’ve always been the person that’s done everything, people always expect you to be the person that does everything until you say no and until you put some boundaries up.
42:09
So we go from like big professional revelations to tiny, small but game changing ones about what happened in your life.
I.
Had this conversation with my 14 year old actually the other day.
We were just reflecting on again, I mean, every as a teenager, there’s different stresses that people go through, but we had that conversation just about, you know what, you are actually the only person that can properly, 100% truly care for you.
42:35
I mean, obviously I’m your mom, I’m going to love you and I’m always here for you, everything.
But at the end of the day, the only person that’s responsible for you and your happiness is actually you.
And even though you know that I literally would do anything to help you, but at the end of the day, only you know what makes you happy and what you are capable of doing or not capable or won’t do.
42:58
Only you know, and it’s so important to take that into the rest of your life because actually the only person that can really properly ensure that you are OK in every aspect of your life is you.
And, and it’s a crazy revelation because you sometimes think that people will come.
43:13
You know, your boss has the responsibility to ensure that you’re happy in your role.
He can help or she can help.
But at the end of the day, you are responsible for managing whatever it is that you’re, you know, And if you’re not happy, then you’re the one who needs to find that happiness.
43:29
And I just, it’s, it’s a game changer when you actually flip that because this victim mentality is, is a huge problem that many people face.
And I think you must face that a lot where the problem is always the boss or the problem is the company or the problem is my husband or wife, the problem are my kids or the problem is my whatever it is.
43:51
But at the end of the day, the only person that’s responsible for your happiness is.
And do you know what it sounds like that’s really hard work, but I think it’s the opposite.
I think it’s massively freeing once you realize.
Totally.
Because you’re in agility to do it.
Totally, because you can do exactly you have those conversations for the meeting.
44:10
I mean, suddenly Someone Like You need to do this thing and you say, well, hold on a second.
I’m actually just curious.
So, and, and it’s, it’s funny, I read this fantastic book called Never Split the Difference.
It’s this negotiation book.
Oh my God, it’s so good.
It’s written by a guy who, I mean, he was the head negotiator for the FBI for hostages.
44:30
I mean, incredible.
But he had this great example of mirroring.
And you know, it’s this great example of how or tool or whatever you call it, of how if someone’s asking you to do something that doesn’t make that much sense, rather than just going doing it sort of passively and just going through life, mirror it, say I’m sorry.
44:50
So, you know, you want me to print off 100 pieces of paper and send it for that’s what you want me to you to do.
And then the person.
And then you get the person to say it back to you.
And actually, many times you suddenly realize, hold on a second.
Yeah, this doesn’t make any sense.
Doesn’t make any sense.
45:06
And, and I just think it’s actively, intentionally living your life and your book has provided so many amazing tools in order to be able to do that, to just live your life with intention.
It’s game changing.
Do you have a quote that you can share with our listeners that perhaps inspires you or sums up what we’ve talked about?
45:27
Yeah, the one that I always find myself coming back to, and I say it to other people and I say it to myself because none of us are perfect human beings.
And I’m still working on this because it’s a thing you work on all the time, is progress over perfection.
I am aiming always for progress over perfection.
45:45
And the minute we can take out this idea that we have to be perfect and everything, the minute we can take out this idea that perfection is the thing that will get us promoted, it really is that will get us exactly what we want.
And that what I’m actually looking for is small pieces of progress.
We are so much more able to do the right things in the direction of progress rather than worrying and spending our precious mental energy trying to be perfect.
46:09
Oh my God, that is perfect, perfect advice.
Do you have anything that’s progress advice?
Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to tell our listeners?
I think I just like to say to the listeners that this stuff sounds like it’s going to take a lot of time and be really hard and be difficult to do because everything seems bad.
46:30
But what I can tell you is it has that really good thing.
If a little bit of effort goes a really, really long way in this, you can find exponential change from taking tiny little actions, from being more intentional, from doing something that will help you feel better, from being a person who kind of looks at some of the stuff that is already good.
46:50
And the other amazing thing I think about work joy that people don’t realize is that it’s really catching.
So if you come to work with some joy, other people will feel more joy.
We see it often on the opposite side where you have a mood who comes to work and they suck all the joy out of it.
But be the person that brings the joy and see what happens, because you’ll find that whole teams and whole organizations can be lifted by the intent and impact of an individual’s approach to work.
47:13
This has been such a great conversation, I cannot get over how quickly this has flown.
I know we can do another few hours.
We literally could because I’ve still got questions.
But listen, thank you so, so much for your time and for sharing your joy with the world and just being you.
47:29
You’re such a, you’re one of those infectious, happy, amazing people to be around.
So thank you.
Thank you so much for having me.
It’s been great to be here.
Until next time.
Hey everyone, this is Philippa again.
I hope you enjoyed listening.
Now this is your chance to get involved with Ty.
47:47
If you’re looking to create better leaders, better companies, and a better world, that’s just what we do by helping leaders tap into their greatest asset, their humanity.
We have a number of corporate programs that impact a range of people, from individuals at a company to 500 people around a business.
48:05
Or check out my book, Return on Humanity Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World.
You’ll find the answers to how business can truly become a positive force while remaining at the forefront of competition.
You can find all the information you need on all of this at tieleadership.com.
48:25
Get in touch and I can explain more.
A huge thanks to Beja Naviera for Co producing this with me and for creating the music.
I hope we’ll meet up again soon.
