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How to Find Happiness at Work: Show Notes & Transcript

Post | Jul 26, 2022

Welcome back to Marketing Smarts! From brand-building and marketing veterans Anne Candido and April Martini (that’s us) comes a podcast committed to cutting through all the confusing marketing BS so you can actually understand how to take action and change your business today. We deep-dive into topics most would gloss-over, infusing real-world examples from our combined 35+ years of corporate and agency experience. We tell it how it is so whether you are just starting out or have been in business awhile, you have the Marketing Smarts to immediately impact your business.

This is Episode #100 and we’re talking finding happiness at work. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review if you’re exercising your Marketing Smarts!

  • Episode Summary & Player
  • Show Notes
  • Marketing Smarts Summary
  • Transcript

Marketing Smarts Episode #100: How to Find Happiness at Work

Happiness at work – is it really possible? You bet! And it can improve lots of other areas of your life, as well. The hard part is making the changes needed to find that happiness. In this episode, you’ll learn the top ways to be happier at work, based on our collective perspective and different experiences across the industry. Hear how to surround yourself with the right people, make it about more than the actual day-to-day work, find outlets and interests outside of work, and strive to always learn and grow. This episode covers everything from building the right team to work-life balance. Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:

  • How do you find happiness at work?
  • What should you do if it feels like something is still missing?
  • How do you get yourself to leave your job when it’s so stable?
  • What if you’re happy in your current job?
  • As a boss or manager, how do you keep your team happy?
  • How do you start a side hustle?
  • What can you do about burnout?
  • How do you develop a growth mindset?

And as always, if you need help in building your Marketing Smarts, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.

Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:

Show Notes

What is Marketing Smarts?

From brand-building and marketing veterans Anne Candido and April Martini comes a podcast committed to cutting through all the confusing marketing BS so you can actually understand how to take action and change your business today. They deep-dive into topics most would gloss-over, infusing real-world examples from their combined 35+ years of corporate and agency experience. They tell it how it is so whether you are just starting out or have been in business awhile, you have the Marketing Smarts to immediately impact your business.

How do I exercise my Marketing Smarts?

Thanks for listening to Marketing Smarts. Get in touch here to become a savvier marketer. 

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

Anne Candido 0:02
This is Marketing Smarts, a podcast committed to helping you become a savvy or marketing leader, no matter your level. In each episode, we will dive into a relevant topic or challenge that marketing leaders are currently facing. We will also give you practical tools and applications that will help you put what you learn into practice today. And if you missed anything, don’t worry, we put worksheets on our website that summarize the key points. Now, let’s get to it. Welcome to

April Martini 0:30
Marketing Smarts.

Anne Candido 0:31
I am Anne Candido.

April Martini 0:32
And I am April Martini. And today we’re going to talk about a topic that we actually grapple with. And that is how do you find happiness at work? First thing we will say is it’s definitely a journey, not a sprint, but one that’s well worth it, especially given how much time we spend at our jobs. Even if yours is mostly remote at this point in time. What we’ll share today is our collective perspective on this topic, having lived it during our combined 40 years of experience to kind of contextualize and give you a sense of both our advice from where we’ve been and what we’ve learned, and what we feel like is most important to us today.

Anne Candido 1:07
Right? And you’re gonna hear from us that happiness is kind of a journey, right? And, and there’s ups and there’s downs. And some of it has to do with things that are happening around us. Some of it has to do with things that are happening, or we feel it’s happening to us. So these are all these things we want and want to consider when we really think about how we find happiness at work. That’s exactly right.

April Martini 1:27
And with that, we’ll get into how do I find happiness at work? Number one, surround yourself with people you want to spend time with. All right, can we always choose the people we work with? No, we can’t. And do we always like everyone we work with? No, we don’t. But the more you can find like minded people you respect to surround yourself with the better off you are just in total. Remember that comment about how much time we spent at work, which we said, you know, in the very beginning, it is a ton of time and therefore the more you can find people you want to be around the better experience you have, which will contribute more to your overall happiness. For three people, we’ve made it our mission to work with people we like, and you’ve heard us say it no more a couple of letters. This includes teammates as well as clients. But even if you don’t have this level of control or influence, you still have the ability to seek out those like minded folks that we talked about before. And those that you can really learn from gain experience from and ultimately just like to be around. This is especially true, if you’re looking for a new opportunity, we always talk about how you should be interviewing the other side as much as they’re interviewing you. And this is inclusive of the people that work there and the overall culture of the organization. But it’s also important to make the point that you don’t always have to like everyone, like we said in the setup, but you should be able to respect them, and their unique point of view. And then it’s even better if you like them. But again, the more concentration of these types of people are power and numbers, the more of them you can surround yourself with, the more it will lead to your overall happiness.

Anne Candido 3:01
Yeah, and I think this is like a really nuanced piece too. Because, like you said, it’s not necessarily people that you have to like, or they’re gonna be your best friend, or you’re gonna want to go out and you want to have drinks with and, you know, you’re sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with, but it is people that you can really get kind of jazzed by whether they like are like stimulating intellectually, or maybe they’re stimulating you like, from a growth standpoint, or you’re learning something new. And that usually means and that’s something or that sometimes can mean that it’s not like your direct team. And sometimes people get really stuck on that, right? They feel like, okay, I need to like the people that I work with, because I’m spending the most time with them. Yeah, that would be absolutely very, very nice. That may not always be the case, as you pointed out. And so sometimes you have to look beyond your team and kind of think about where you’re gonna get that energy from. And that might be in participating in a organization with your work, it may be promoting some level of culture within your work and might be having to find that in other places. So don’t think it’s an all or nothing thing, that it’s like, Oh, if it’s not within my team, then you know, I’m kind of

April Martini 4:08
screwed. Yeah. And I think what you heard both of us say is you have to proactively seek these people out, right? So whether it’s in the interview process, and we’re whether it’s in the broader organization, or whether you feel like someone’s missing from your inner circle at work, it’s something that you have to proactively manage because like we like we said, You’re not going to like everyone, so you’re gonna have to go and find the people that you really do want to be a part of your day to day life at your job. All right, number two here, make it about more than the day to day work. And

Anne Candido 4:39
yeah, I think this is a really big one because a lot of times what we hear is, it’s my job, right? And I go and I’m doing my job in what you’ve pointed out was that we spend a lot of time doing this quote, unquote, job. So we feel like it’s just gonna be a transactional thing of okay, I show up I do my work. I get my paycheck. I go A home, what a waste of like most of your life 100% I mean, seriously. So you have to find a purpose that really kind of compels you to be there. And that’s usually within the impact you’re going to deliver. So sometimes we think about the things and you kind of say, this is like, we’re not saving lives here, people Yeah. But in some aspect, you’re making lives, the lives of people better, you’re, you’re making their, how they enjoy life in general better. And that’s how we always thought about it at p&g is like, we’re about improving the lives of our consumers with the products that we make, right. And so that’s a really important thing to consider. And that’s where a lot of people would find their purpose is in creating these products that just make people happy, that makes people feel differently about their day makes people feel differently about other people. And that can create a really big sense of purpose. Now also within that is the culture and the brand of your business in your organization, frankly, too, which is creating a place where it’s actually fun or enjoyable to actually go to work and be Yeah, and a lot of times, that’s the job of the manager and the leader, which is okay, establishing this place that people actually want to work. And, and again, managers and leaders will get to the place where they’re like, I’m so busy, I don’t have time i just, i My schedule is jam packed, where are we going to fit in all this, this time to have us human interactions, it is so critically important to make sure that you build that time in, whether it’s like having the first few minutes of a meeting just to kind of see what everybody’s up to, or actually having a meeting that just has that connection, people can share kind of what’s going on or having a lunch or having like, Whatever it looks like to you is so essential to be able to kind of create that space for human connection that allows people to have a sense of belonging when they actually come to work, so that you get out of a transactional environment, because transactional environments lead to a very mediocre performance, like nobody excels at having, you know, a transaction, you can be good at the skill, but nobody excels at growing the business or seeing beyond what they’re doing and seeing how it interacts other with other people or other groups, or how do I connect the dots and make this even bigger? Nobody’s doing that if they’re in a transactional job,

April Martini 7:15
ya know, I mean, I think it’s, it’s so important. And I think, you know, we talk a lot to our clients about the importance of everything from the brand’s position to the brand’s purpose to the brand’s character, and how all of that comes to life through culture. And then the supplemental tools like the mission, vision and values, right? Because to your point, you have to have a reason to want to get up in the morning. Right, right. And bonus points if it can be somewhat enjoyable, but always important that you feel tied to a bigger purpose or overall goal and objective than just what you do day to day. And I always saying, you know, works called work for a reason, right? We have to put this within the context of it is still work. But I do think the things we’re talking about here today are ways to find much more than even fulfillment and enjoyment, but just ultimate happiness, which I think is what the Holy Grail, if you will is.

Anne Candido 8:18
Yeah, and I think another important part about that is not to take yourself so seriously. Oh, yeah, I was a big culprit of this a lot where it was like, Okay, I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done. I gotta get this done. Right. And if like, things didn’t go quite the way I wanted them to go, or you know, somebody didn’t quite like it, then I tend to take it very personally. Yeah, right. And so that definitely inhibits the happiness of my overall experience at work. And I think we kind of get wrapped up in those things of like, having to deliver certain objective beings, so narrowly focused on delivering certain objectives that we kind of forget a little bit of the forest through the trees in the forest is actually the people around us. Yeah. And the impact are creating beyond just delivering the thing that we said, we were gonna go deliver. And I’m not saying that, you know, you shouldn’t take your work seriously. I mean, everybody should be taking their work seriously, we all want to do or we should all want to do a really good job. But it’s about like, you know, just kind of chilling a little bit. Right in Yeah. And not like feeling that you have to be on all the time or that work at eight hours is just like, I’m at my desk, and I am just grinding away. Right? Yeah. So you knew where I was going with that? Because you finished my sentence. So I think I’ve made my point.

April Martini 9:32
Yeah. Yeah. Which I mean, our third point here really complements all the things we just talked about, which is have outlets and interests other than work, we talked about spending a lot of time at work. We talked about ways to make that time happier for you. But the truth of the matter is work can’t do it all. And I think that that’s another misconception. But it is really unfair to expect your personal happiness and fulfillment to be The result of whatever you’re doing at work, I mean, people just aren’t built that way. I tend to think that some of the most interesting people are interesting because they’re happy, right. But they’re interesting because they’re well rounded. And they have other aspects of their personality. And they have things that drive them beyond just what they do from nine to five, or whatever those hours look like. You know, I had had some recent conversations with different folks about kind of the boomer generation, right, which is where my parents generation is, right. And the fact that a lot of these folks were so head down working for so many years that they had into retirement, and they’re not sure how to find happiness, or what to do with themselves. And that’s the opposite, right purpose of this episode is to try to combat that or prevent that maybe for future generations. But I think it’s because when you get that tunnel vision, and you’re working really hard, and again and set it, we’re not saying you shouldn’t work hard, we’re saying absolutely, you should work hard, but it can only be one facet of your life. And so you owe it to yourself, and your company, and the people that have to deal with you every day, frankly, to have other things that you love doing. And that make you interesting, and this is one of the biggest things that I feel like when we get younger coaching clients or as I was, you know, managing and mentoring younger folks was, there was this position that if I’m not super serious, and I don’t spend all my time on my job in the beginning, then I’m not totally sure that I’m going to be successful, right? Yeah, but you got to have other stuff, because you’re only going to be so good at that job. If you have those other things you can’t, you know, hit a nail on the head until you’re, you know, you have no energy left and just keep hammering home at it, right? You gotta have other places where you can say, Okay, I’m gonna go do something where I blow off some steam, or I’m gonna go do something I truly enjoy, or I’m gonna go do something I’ve never done before, you have to have those other things. And it can be really hard. You know, when you’re earlier in your career, or when you’re just maybe burnt out, because you’re not super fulfilled or happy in the role that you’re in. It’s, it becomes another thing, but what we would say is, it’s just, it’s so important, even when you feel like you don’t have it in you to do it, that those are the times when you have to do it more than any other.

Anne Candido 12:12
Right. And I think that’s a really good point in there. But other people again, will say, Well, I just don’t have enough time, right? Yeah. And so here’s what I tell everybody. And you know, you’ve heard me say this a gazillion times, April, but it still holds true. It’s everybody asked me what’s the biggest thing I learned after leaving P&G. And I will tell you 1,000%, that I could have put in 70% of the effort and still got 100% or more of the reward. And I know that sounds very sacrilegious to say, and I’m not saying that I would have been sub optimizing my work. But I would tell you that you know, people’s effort. And the actual impact of the deliverable is kind of like a reverse hockey stick, right? So the first like 70% you put in, you are getting significant returns on your investment. But then we were over invest our effort in order to put in that last 10%. And really, you know, or last 30%, but we only going to get like another like 10% or 5% of the work that you reward, right? So it just doesn’t make sense that ROI is just not there. If that was your business, you wouldn’t even say that that is like superfluous, we don’t need it, we should be like driving more efficiency there. Do that for yourself, right? Take that 30% And go find something to go do with it. You now have the energy, you should have some more time you have the space to think about like, hey, what would I like to do? What kind of impact would I like to have? And it could be anything from philanthropy to a side hustle to, you know, helping somebody do something, it could be just playing video games, if that’s what you enjoy your braid, whatever, yeah, whatever you need, in order to kind of really just replenish your soul in order to have that energy than to go back the next day and give it 100%. Right, because burnout is a real really big problem. And it’s becoming a huge pandemic, especially when now with COVID. And some of the working from home, it’s like people just do not have to like manage their day, like what is my day start, when is my day stop my day can go 24/7 Now, so you have to be more disciplined in it, but it does exist. And for high performance, especially and you know who you are, we’re talking those people are listening to this podcast, you know that this is true. But it takes discipline to be able to teach people that this is how you’re going to operate, which means you’re not available on the weekends, when people call you’re not responding to an email as soon as they send it. You’re not like picking up the phone, even when you said I’m going to be on vacation, you know, and responding. So you have to have discipline in order for it to work. I always

April Martini 14:34
first to take your vacation. And it always gets a chuckle and I’m like I know like, and especially it’s always coming on the heels of like, what’s your final advice, and we’ve had this whole big discussion, right? And that’s what I come out with this super, quote unquote, seemingly non insightful thing. But I think that’s the point of what we’re saying with this point, is that you have to make sure that you find ways to rebuild Well, your energy, but also it’s the stepping away part too.

Anne Candido 15:03
Yeah, yeah. When

April Martini 15:05
you said the thing about, you know, responding to the email as soon as it comes in, like, for many, many early years of my career, I 100% believe that was the way to get ahead. Right was like be by my phone be the first answer, have all the answers be the one that’s there. And what I realized was that, over time, I was managing only all the things which I actually hate to do. And so I’d like self fulfilling prophecy, right, I put myself in the exact position that I never wanted to be in for my job as the holder of all the things. And once I realized that it was like, Oh, I have to stop doing that I have to dig myself back out, right. But I think that’s the point we’re trying to make here is like, it’s actually not going to do you or anyone else any good if that’s the way you operate. All right. Number four point here is strive to always learn and grow in

Anne Candido 15:56
having a growth mindset is so incredibly important. Because it is going to be the foundation of having a little bit of perspective, when it comes to your work or your job or your career, especially with regards to career progression. And career advancement, like career progression and career advancement are very limited things right, you get them at very discrete and very, usually far between points in your career. And they’re not always in within your control. So putting your whole success around these career advancement or career opportunities, really limits your ability to be happy in a more systemic way. And so when you can actually enjoy the idea of just growing and learning something new, and really feeling like you are expanding your ability to be a better person, either within your job or better human overall, it really helps to accentuate the fact of having that happiness or having that career enjoyment without having to be so contingent on specific milestones. And so Tom Bilyeu, he’s another podcaster says a lot that the when you’re on this journey of life or journey towards these objectives, that the actual pain is guaranteed, but the success is not, right. So if you can find a way to really relish the pain to some extent, and I know that sounds a little bit sacrilegious, but it’s really about like, finding out like, if something doesn’t go wrong, like being curious, it’s like, Oh, why did I go wrong? Well, that’s kind of interesting. That’s how people rise. That’s how like the big like, huge, like, really well respected performers and industry experts. That’s how these people rise is they’re constantly curious. And they do this by things like questioning when things go wrong. They do this by consuming books and podcasts in like, whatever they can get their hands on. They’re avid learners, avid readers. And as it comes with, also an element of humility of like, there’s always something to learn, not that humility from the standpoint of like, I’m not good at what I’m doing, or humbleness to the point of like, it’s feels a little like debilitating, but more of like, I can always learn something, there’s something to be learned from here. And sometimes that takes a little bit of a strength of character, but it does help you find new ways of finding some joy on a day to day

April Martini 18:24
basis. Yeah, and I look at this too, as somewhat self guided discipline, right? Because I think when you think about your career, and you know, the next promotion or the next job, you’re out for whatever, a lot of that is out of your control. You know, and and I talk about this fairly often, but you know, we are definitely very active learners. And we’re still continuing to learn, right? We own this company, there’s no one other than each other telling each other to do this. So we believe that if we don’t do this, we’re doing ourselves a disservice. Personally, like, we really believe that at our core, right, and I can tell you right now, for me that I am at my worst April’s at her worst, I’ll be doing the third person thing. When I reach points of stagnation, like I literally cannot live in that space. It’s really unhealthy for me. And so the good news is I’ve learned the tools to combat that over the years. And finding my way back to happiness means I am in need of something new to learn something to sink my teeth into a new conversation with someone and and I recommend more an to me than me to and quite frankly, but books and podcasts and things we almost like assign them to each other, you know, and all of that stuff is so important. But what I will say is that I do get the question a lot from people where I feel like they’re scratching their heads at me like why would you do you have enough stuff on your plate? Why would you go and do that? And what I always come back with is actually I look at it the other way if I don’t do that, I’m going to be less good for All these other reasons, and my happiness will suffer as a result of that. And so I think the point of this point is, you know, it says strive to always learn and grow. But it’s it’s really like a self guided, or self discipline approach to always wanting to learn and grow. Yeah,

Anne Candido 20:18
I think that’s right on. And I feel the same way like I get a craving and, and you will, too, what if those of you who are not quite practicing the growth mindset, the growth mentality of like, you just crave something new to learn and give us like, sometimes I’m like, I just want to be really hard that I don’t know how to do and I want to just like sink my teeth into it, like you said, and I want to just find out all about it. I mean, you can do this in small scale, too. It doesn’t have to be anything really big, like, you could do some small scale in your job. I was like, at a point when I was in communications, I was like, I really want to know how to sales piece works more, right? And so I just asked him, like, Can I send him a couple sales calls? I won’t say anything. I’ll be a final lob. I just like to know how you do your job better. Because I think it’s one it’s interesting. And to to help me do my job better. Yep. Right. So become a student of other people’s work that will also help you be able to appreciate that from one but do a better job, I think yourself within your work. So you can I have that understanding of how everything comes together, you can then see where people are coming from what motivates them. That’s really a critical critical, a quality that a lot of people look for in order to get to those career progression. So it all kind of works together,

April Martini 21:27
I think. All right. So just to recap, how do I find happiness at work? Number one, surround yourself by people you want to spend time with, seek them out, you do spend a lot of time at work that is true. Number two, make it about more than the day to day work purpose is imperative to it and at a much higher level than just the day to day of what you’re doing. Number three, have outlets an interest other than work work cannot be your single reason for being or your single source of happiness. And number four, strive to always learn and grow stagnation is not a place to find happiness. In our next segment, in the trenches where all of you know by now we give real world examples specific to industries and situations but with broad application so that anyone listening can digest and put them into action. All right, number one, I feel like I’m on top of what you talk about here. But it still feels like something is missing. What do you suggest. And I’ll start with this one. And I’m sure you’ll have some things to add here, of course, as you always do, but what we would say is, honestly, you might need to take a deeper look at whether you really are in the right role, the right job, or with the right company, there are times where something is right for you right now. And then all of a sudden, it’s not right for you anymore right now. And the way this typically works is you’re kind of coasting along and you’re thinking, this is great, this is great. This is great. But what at least in my experience happens is that this is great gets quieter and quieter and quieter. And you’re you’re kind of at the point of diminishing returns. And then all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, wait, I woke up today, and it’s not so great anymore. And all you’re asking, is it really as great as I thought it was right? And we believe this can be the product of a few things. Number one, you’ve outgrown your current role, team or company. So to that question about right role, right job, right company, you might have just it was you were super happy in that for a period of time, because it was really fulfilling, and then all of a sudden, you kind of kept growing beyond that point. And that’s a great thing. But you’ve outgrown it, or you have an undiscovered passion that you may want to do alongside or instead of what you’re doing right now ultimately, right. So like we said, in the four key points, you know, you really want to make sure that you are finding things outside of what you do at your work that bring you energy and fulfillment beyond just your work. And this is what we’re talking about here. And there may be things that you’ve been, you know, trying out and that you think are maybe there are perking your interests more than other things. Or maybe it’s really a matter of I need to go out and really seek these things out or find something else. And ultimately just looking for other things to help you feel like you’re more fulfilled or happy. It also might be that you’re ready for a bigger challenge or a bigger opportunity or a bigger problem to solve. You know, you we always kind of look at it, like you saw this big problem. And then everything that came before is much easier if you have to do it again, right. But then you keep needing those bigger challenges in order for that to continue to be true. So what do you do when you reach these points? So our recommendation is always to break it down into small pieces. So what does this look like okay, for a week or two, jot down three areas of your day where you’re happy and fulfilled and three, or maybe you’re bored and not so fulfilled. Note how you’re feeling when you wake up in the morning for a week and then look at what’s ahead of you on your calendar for that day and kind of make note of what those feelings you know, how they relate to what you have to do that day. Step outside of your day to day and try something new. That’s been kind of a resounding theme with this episode, right? Network. Reach out to someone you don’t know someone you’ve always wanted to talk to You a different department, like Ann said before that you can learn from, or sometimes it’s as simple as just changing your perspective in ways like driving to work a different way, going out to eat a new place, shaking up your workout routine, sometimes it’s where the routine can become your worst enemy. So if you do these, and a lot of times, it’s in combination, right? You might try one or all of these things. But with this point, really specifically, I think sometimes it might not even be that you’re necessarily unhappy. It’s just that you’ve let routine take over. And so you’re almost sort of numb to the day to day and so you need to find something that’s going to help you get out of that and become reinvigorated. I do have to say, it’s amazing the different perspectives you can get and how they can make you feel less like you’re at a loss. Sometimes they open up an answer that you didn’t even know you were looking for. They bring you to people like Anna and me that you didn’t expect to me, I think it’s just a really good way to be actively seeking to understand because through those perspectives, oftentimes you can figure out why am I feeling this way? And maybe there’s more than one contributing factor? And then what do I need to do about it or about those things?

Anne Candido 26:15
Yeah, I think that is all really good advice. And I mean, I exemplified the very first thing you said, which is, you know, you get to the point sometimes when you outgrow where you’re at, right, and that can be a really hard thing to wrap your mind around, especially depending on where you are in your career. So I’ve talked a lot about the fact that after 20 years, I felt like I outgrew p&g A bit. And when people I say that, and people look at me, they’re like, You gotta be kidding, right? And I’m like, and I’m like, Yeah, and I remember even thinking about the fact that I wanted to leave. And it was one of the scariest things that I even considered, because, you know, I did have a good, right, and I got to do what I wanted. I love what I do. But I just didn’t feel like I was growing, or am that my next level of career progression or time that was gonna spend and I wasn’t creating the impact that I could. Right. And those are really, really hard things to wrap your mind around in to consider walking away from because there’s not actually anything bad. Yeah, right. Right. It’s just not exactly what you want. And so sometimes I think we discount and we judge that maybe we should be happy. It’s like, we just kind of tell ourselves, like, why am I why am I not happy? I should be happy with this. There’s nothing wrong with this. I’m a very lucky person that, you know, everybody would love to work at p&g. I have the, you know, the role and the actual, like, opportunity to do that, like, what is wrong with me. And I would just say, don’t judge it. And don’t let other people judge it either. Trust your own, like soul in your own like mind and heart and like, really honor what is trying to tell you because you are probably made to go do something else. Right. And I kind of call png my first career, you know, I spent 20 years as my first career. And now I’m in my second career, I probably have another 20 years of this too. But a lot of people will get stuck and staying in a place for you know, years and years and years. Because it feels comfortable. It’s completely get kind of complacent. And there’s nothing really wrong with that. And that’s totally fine, too. But if your soul in your mind in your heart is calling for something else, give it a second, like let it like percolate, see where it takes you there’s nothing wrong with considering it. And if you have trouble doing it on your own, do what I did and get a coach Yep. Um, have somebody who’s been through it, done it, like talk you through it, everything you need to consider, because that can also help you put it in perspective,

April Martini 28:31
what popped into my head is Don’t settle. Yeah, because I think that’s where a lot of the happiness fades away, is, you know, if you reach a point, and you really are happy in what you’re doing, and you can sustain that happiness, that’s awesome. But I think a lot of times what happens, what happens is, we judge it, we let other people judge it, we’re not sure what to do. And so we just settle. We talked earlier in this episode about commitment to the journey, right, and making sure that you’re checking in with yourself to the points you just made. And, and so I think that’s really with this answer to this question in this recommendation, you’d likely require a reset of some kind. And so what you need to do is seek out what is that reset? And why is it there? And what does it look like and actively engage in it? Are they just right on? Alright, number two, in the trenches, I know, I am not happy in my work. But I’m fearful of making a change because I’m super stable and making a good salary. It feels too safe to leave. What do you suggest so and just preempted this. And first of all, we would say, Okay, it’s important to feel some level of stability. I always think about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right? Like, if we don’t feel some stability, some safety, then we really can’t feel happy, right? That’s not what we’re encouraging you to do here. But what we will say is you have to decide how much your happiness is actually worth to you. And so to the previous points we’ve made, we’re not telling you to make a wholesale change overnight. Actually, we don’t switch Is that because if you’re not in a good spot, you’re probably not going to make the right wholesale change, right. And to our four points, we also say work doesn’t have to be everything, you know, you might be able to shake something else up in your life, or you may be more comfortable with making a change, once you feel more happy in those other parts of your life where you might get a new perspective, whatever all that looks like. But our overall perspective is that life is too short to be unhappy, we definitely recognize it’s hard to make a change. And we talked to lots of people really, as part of one aspect of our coaching, I will say that want to go out on their own. And they’re usually people from my size offense on the agency side, quite frankly. But usually the barrier is somewhat fear based. It’s and what happens when you have that is that it builds up into your mind as really a paralysis where the fear is so insurmountable that you can’t get past it right. And so what we always say is, what’s the worst that can happen? And then we break it down again, from there to the previous question, and and how to handle that. And that usually helps people see it’s not as insurmountable as they would originally have thought. And, really, to the stability point, in the money point of this question, if money could solve everything, that would be so awesome. But that’s just not the reality that we live in. If you make that good salary, that’s awesome. It’s great that you’ve reached this point of success. And I’m sure some of that mentality is tied to that. But how much of that money do you actually need? Right? What are you doing with it? Right? And and I’ve talked about this on previous episodes, too, of like downgrading a shelf of wine, right? Like, if you go if you’re going to be exponentially happier, and you’re going to take a minimal salary cut in doing so that might be something to consider, right? So really taking a hard look at, okay, yes, you need some level of stability. It’s different for every single person. So figure out what that is my brother, the financial advisors, always a big fan of saying, How much do you need in your checking and savings so that you can live day to day and feel secure about yourself? And then for me, it’s always breaking down why those amounts? Right? So it’s things like that it’s like, okay, so that is amazing that you make that salary. But if you think about it from the opposite side of Could you be happier and still have less money? Would that be okay with you, and kind of deciding from that factor? Because, again, if all your life becomes about being safe, that doesn’t translate into happiness?

Anne Candido 32:32
Yeah, I think the really good point, and I’m gonna, two of them, I really want to hone in on. So one is like, and what we’re saying here is that’s implied of like leaving a corporate world and going into like, do your own thing, or, you know, in those sorts of things. I’m going to hit on that in a second. But I mean, we know that it’s scary, even if you’re gonna go change jobs. Oh, yeah. All that stuff. So we know that this sits here, for a lot of you in no matter what kind of change you’re talking about, because there’s always uncertainty. And yeah, we talked about the grass being greener on the other side is a really or is it just, you know, different grass, right? So there’s a lot to consider. And in doing that in there is risk associated with doing that, and especially if you’re going to take a pay cut in doing that, right. And I think so to the point that you were making whether or not you’re going to someplace and you’re going to take a pay cut, or whether or not you’re gonna go out on your own, you’re gonna go do something new. A lot of people have kind of built up, it sounds like so romantic, almost, or romanticize the whole going on your own of like, you have to suffer first, right? You have to hit rock bottom, you have to suffer, you have to be able to not to pay the bills, and you can’t, you know, the water has been turned off, and all this kind of stuff in order to feel like you’ve made it like in some other form of life. And I’m like me and April here to tell you, it doesn’t necessarily have to be like that. You know, and especially, I don’t take our like our stories, any less romantic, because we didn’t have to suffer now. Did we have to make different choices? Absolutely. But as we talked about, this is our second career, our first career, we built a nice stability and a nice cushion that allows us to go do a second career, right? And in that case, it’s just about like, having kind of like the guts to say, All right, I’m going to make this transition. But it does require a mindset shift of having to think about money differently, having to think about the way that you operate your life differently. The way that you think about how you’re gonna go do things differently. Like, you know, sometimes you downgrade your vacations a little bit. Sometimes you don’t go out and eat as much fine, but you find your happiness starts to percolate to a place of like, those things are fine. Those things are fine trade off, but it elevates above it. Yeah, but you can’t see it initially when you’re in it. Right. You know, and I think the other thing that we hear a lot is like well, I don’t want my kids to suffer me and that was a big thing for me. I’m like, I was like, if I do this, you know what are my kids? What am I could still be able to like let them live a life with They want to live out because I didn’t want them to suffer as a result of me kind of going and doing this. But then what I realized is that they were suffering anyway, because I wasn’t home as much. I was working like, nonstop. It was like, omnipresent on my brain all the time. So my attention that I had wasn’t as what it could be my emotional health wasn’t what it could be. So they were already suffering, right? Yes, I had the money, but the money wasn’t, didn’t pay for emotional health. Yeah, that I could then give to my kids. Like, you can’t go to the store and buy a bottle of emotional health and say, Okay, I’m making up for the fact that I don’t have any to give you right. So think about it. In that standpoint, it’s like, how would you be a better parent? In what capacity would you be a better parent, money is not the end is, even the means is a way to be able to help you survive. But think about what is really, truly important. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t think about money at all. And money’s not important button. Big vacations aren’t fun at all. But I’m saying if you’re thinking about it in the context of suffering for yourself and your kids, you have to relook at it in a different way need to rethink about what really the suffering is.

April Martini 36:16
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that that is such an important point. Because as you were talking, what I feel like happened is you distract yourself with the shiny stuff, when you aren’t super fulfilled or happy.

Anne Candido 36:27
What also seems like some checkmark first I shouldn’t do that. I should go do that. I should do. Yeah, right. Go. So um, so I was going on these vacations. Yeah, I’m gonna go on these big vacations. I’m successful, like so and so right. It becomes like keeping up with the Joneses. Yes, yes. Yeah, exactly. Where the houses I mean, yes, yes.

April Martini 36:43
But where are the actual fulfillment? Like, I remember when we bought we Hi, well, this is a little bit maybe opposite of this. But we got a bigger condo, because we were going to have kids, right. So we’re going to be stretched for a little bit there. And then ultimately, when I went on my own, and the whole idea of not being able to go out to eat as much was like, I can’t do I loved it’s like part of my identity. And then we stopped going out to eat as much. And I learned to cook. And I was like, oh, kind of actually not that I’m good. But like, this is a different outlet. Like, I feel like I succeeded in a new area that was scary to me that I didn’t think I could do. I’m a little more relaxed, and I’ll just spend so much time getting ready, which I always hate that amount of time that you’ve spent getting ready. Like it was like to the point of perspective and things, it kind of opened up a whole new thing where I was like, Oh, that thing that I thought was so important to me, actually, isn’t that important to me? Yeah,

Anne Candido 37:32
some new opportunities arose like like what you said, when you give yourself a chance to see things differently? Or take a different perspective, new things open up? Yeah.

April Martini 37:39
All right. Number three, in the trenches, I’m happy where I am now and don’t think I want to move from my current job or role is that, okay? Look, if you are one of the lucky ones, that’s happy, good, good on you. Because for this episode, and why we did this episode, there’s too many people out there who are not. So our suggestion would just be to make sure that you stay active and engaged in your happiness. And you still do strive to learn and grow in new ways. So that doesn’t necessarily have to be in your career, it doesn’t mean that you have to go chase the next level. And the next job, whatever. It just is more to say that you don’t have that moment where you wake up one morning to the previous point, and you’re like, oh, all of a sudden, so on my happiness sustaining, right. And so we always say we always talk about working on yourself. We are all working progress, we talk about personal brand, a ton on the show for that very reason. And to the points of complacency or stagnation in this episode, we would say, Fine, if you keep chugging along, and that works for you just make sure that you’re engaged and aware enough of your happiness to make sure that you’re maintaining the levels.

Anne Candido 38:44
Yeah, I agree with that. And I think some people choose to kind of stay where they are, to give themselves that freedom, that mind space, that energy to go do something else. So it is sometimes it’s a choice, sometimes it is like, Well, I’m gonna stay here, because this is like, maybe easier for me to do. Or maybe I can do it a little bit more on autopilot. And I’m fine doing that, because I’m getting happiness and someplace else. So happiness is kind of like a pie, right? And so you can have different slices of it. And that and that pie slices can change and evolve as you go. So right now being okay, in your work might be fine, because it allows you to get out at three o’clock in the afternoon. Okay, so you could go home and you could spend time with your kids. Even though you might not be like, I’m all like totally psyched to go to work today. And I can’t wait to get to work and I can’t wait. Well, that might be fine for right now. Right? So think about happiness in totality to have like, Okay, not that you can’t be happy at work and happy at home. But sometimes one can trump the other and allow you to have an overall sense of happiness. And sometimes you have to kind of strategically think about how you want to manage your life so that you can basically unleash the most amount of Happiness you can get

April Martini 40:00
Yeah, no, I mean, yes, I think those are really good, good bills and good points, because it’s why I love the idea of being active in your happiness because then you’re kind of aware of where your energy is, or needs to change or focus or what you can and can’t give at any given moment in

Anne Candido 40:16
time. Yeah, and just being okay with that. Yeah, like you said, yeah. All right,

April Martini 40:19
fourth, and final in the trenches, I’m going to hand this one to an as a boss, or manager, how do I keep the people who work for me happy?

Anne Candido 40:28
Yeah. And this seems to be a big, because we’ve talked about it a lot that, you know, people leave their bosses Yeah, not their company. Money generally. And so keeping your employees happy seems to be sometimes a thankless job. And because it is so very individual, and it can be hard to have like something that works for everybody. So I say that. And I still think you should try. But also you need to understand that you’re not solely responsible for other people’s happiness, right? But you are responsible for creating the culture that should cultivate happiness. And if it’s, this is where, you know, it gets kind of tough, because sometimes we can build a culture after we have the people. Yeah, right. And so then we like, we have this culture, and we try to, well, we have to deal with Well, yeah. And then like, you’re the culture is kind of all over the place at some focus. So here’s what I would suggest is like, create a culture that you want to have, then you need to address if the people you have are the right people in order to fit your culture 1,000%, right. And that can be really, really hard. Because if they’re really skilled at what they do, but they don’t fit the culture, we’ve talked about it time and time again, we talk about this all the time, that that is going to set your whole functionality your team off, you can’t have a highly functional team, if people aren’t buying in inconsistently buying into the culture, and then also meant not making it difficult for you to have to constantly manage the culture around different personalities that may or may not be taking to the culture, like you’d like it to so so make sure that you really consider that that’s a big one. But then also make sure that people feel heard. So they have to feel like they are a person first and then in a place. Second. And I think that’s a really important one. Because that human interaction, like we’ve talked about a lot on this episode is really critically important to people’s happiness, they just want to feel like somebody gets me somebody understands me. And then that always, always drives more of an affinity and more of a connection that people then want to do right by you. They want to make you happy, they don’t want to disappoint you. It’s so take that time to really develop those connections and make sure that you understand who these people are that work for you as people. Now that doesn’t mean that you have to be their therapist, it doesn’t mean you have to like dive into every single, deep dark place in their life or solve their problems for them. But it is a manner of understanding and a how they tick. How’s it you know, what’s the personal brand, all about? How do they activate? How do they feel rewarded, like all these important things that can be basically customized within the culture without having to blow up the culture for everybody.

April Martini 43:16
But I think also from a success standpoint, part of what we’ve talked about on this episode is chasing the next thing. And we’re not suggesting that you impart that to your team here, right. But my next point here is about helping your team members understand what success looks like, and then how to get there. Because I think that a lot of times when we’re in those situations, and we’re trying to tackle the next big thing, or do something we’ve never done before, or impress our boss, or be good at our new job, or whatever those things look like, there is a lot of trial by fire, and there certainly was on the agency side. And I can tell you, the dips in my happiness are and use the reference before about it weighing on our brain. I lived in that space a lot really unnecessarily. And part of it is how I’m built. And I was defining a lot of my life by my job and my success there. And a lot of the things we talked about not to do on this episode, but part of that was the responsibility of my boss and what they didn’t deliver. And that was helping me understand what my path was, and then what I needed to go do so that I felt like I was always growing, achieving more, tackling bigger things. And so doing I wasn’t doing it alone. So I think that’s a huge one. And then the one that I think is super tricky, and we talk about this a lot with our coaching clients specifically is leading by example. And also with transparency about where you are in your own happiness. I am a firm believer that it is more than okay to not check your email on vacation so your team doesn’t do it and not take phone calls on the weekend or not send out a million emails and all those things but also with that. I think when you’re in a moment where you’re too Trying to figure something out, or your happiness has taken a dip, or you need something new to try. It’s okay to express that vulnerability with your team. And not in a way that you’re asking them to fix it or give you you know, the silver bullet or anything like that, or putting pressure on them to solve it for you. But just so that they understand that you hit those times too. And it’s normal. And then I think you can help with your transparency, help them build tools in their own way to be able to deal with these situations when they happen. And I think it’s really your responsibility, quite frankly, as leader.

Anne Candido 45:32
Yeah, I agree with that, too. I think though, the the one watch out is making sure you’re not unloading on your team. Yeah,

April Martini 45:38
that’s what I mean about not asking them to solve it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So

Anne Candido 45:41
big, being very careful that you’re not because there is some element of decorum that a boss and a manager needs to maintain. But I think showing the vulnerability is really, really important, or in at least sharing, you know, even if you’re not in that moment, that hey, I wasn’t my mama to here’s what I did. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think that’s that it’s very helpful for people to kind of see that they’re not alone, or that other people have been in the journey at some point, and that you can overcome it. And there’s multiple different ways of looking at it. So I think that’s super important. I definitely think that helps. And I think just listening overall, and really listening with an ear of like, not just what’s happening on the surface, but kind of asking, like, geez, I wonder why they like snap like that, or I wonder why they said what they said, and, you know, they seem to say that they like it here, but like their actions aren’t really speaking to it. So like dig a little deeper in and do a little bit of investigative work and really show that you understand you care what the person is actually going through? Yes,

April Martini 46:42
I think all of that’s right. And I mean, one thing that just to bring this all home, I think it’s hard to be happy if you’re lonely. Yeah, I

Anne Candido 46:49
think that’s and so 1,000%

April Martini 46:51
I think that that is maybe the final statement on this part of the episode. But really, when you think about being a boss or manager, if your team feels lonely, they’re probably not going to be happy. All right, and our third and final segment is a brand or business that may or may not be using their marketing smarts. And so this one may throw some of you for a loop I don’t even not Well, I know how I came up with it. But mine is going to be one that is definitely living their marketing smarts. And that is Papyrus, which is a paper slash card brand. And the way that this came up is because I feel like I’ve been buying so many freaking cards lately between birthdays graduations, Father’s Day, you know, Mother’s Day, all these different things that just kind of happened at this Graduate Day graduations. Anyway, all the things that happened this time of year, right. And so if you know anything about me, and maybe this then won’t be surprising, I love cards. And I love beautifully crafted cards, I love to receive a handwritten note. And I spend in exorbitant amount of time picking out cards for other people. And so I had a stack of ones that I had recently picked out and a couple of them were papyrus and so I had the like focus group right there right of like, what had I purchased versus other brands and and so I was thinking about their brand and one thing that I’d never noticed about them is that they have a little blip on every single card like the plastic wrap that you you take off the card that describes why the hummingbird is there, their their spirit right there brand spirit. Well, I’ll just read it. Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration, the hummingbirds delicate Grace reminds us that life is rich beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning. And that laughter is life’s sweetest creation. And I you know, I’ve bought these cards, how many times but that really caught me this time. And so I started thinking about just how considered the brand is. And I think in a space that could very easily stagnate become old, whatever, they have lived their heritage from the very beginning where they were, you know, getting paper from Europe to curate the collection of what they were doing all the way through to now where like I said, you buy their cards are typically in a sleeve. There’s always it’s super high quality paper, yes. Usually like the envelopes on the inside or some kind of print or foil or something and every single card comes with one of their little hummingbird stickers to steal the seal the envelope with. And so I started thinking about one just like I said, the quality, but also the consistency paired with the fact that their brand has evolved. So I went to their website after I started thinking about them. And I was like, you know, they’ve definitely expanded their collections which a lot of cardan brands and such do, but they’ve done it in a way that still considers and respects their brand and moves it forward. And so we talk a lot about well, we talk a lot about really loud bad examples. We talk about a lot about examples that are super timely or today or whatever. And so this is one that I just thought of like it’s just one of those things like I probably love shopping for this cards more than the people that get them if I’m totally frank, but it is just a moment of joy. Every time I experienced that brand, and it’s been that way for years and years and years for me, so,

Anne Candido 50:10
yes to them that yeah, that’s a really good one. I mean, each car is like a work of art, and each car could cost almost as much as the present. That’s the other thing. That’s my price is like, please don’t buy cars. Very, very special. But you know, it’s kind of funny, you bring that up, because my first exposure to them was in New York City’s Fashion Week, they had a booth at New York City’s Fashion Week. And they’re probably the only car company that could actually pull that off. Right. And I thought that that was very unique, the caliber or the quality, caliber and quality of the card. And it because it appeals to that level of head just design and style and sophistication and kind of high level and you know, just the quality of it all the quality in a way that’s not just like, quality with regards to the materials use even in the materials are high quality, but quality with regards to the thought put into it and the emotion that the card evokes and how somebody feels when they receive one. And so all of that together made a very easy connection to Fashion Week, because the cards themselves are kind of like, again, they’re Yeah, they’re like fashion themselves, right. So I find it interesting that you use that one because yeah, I do. I actually got a stack of cards in my little swag bag. And I’ve gosh, I was it’s gotta been more than 10 years ago that I was at Fashion Week for this. And I think I finally just gave away my last one because I only had maybe maybe five and so I strategically have given them away based on treasured. Yes, yeah. So I thought that’s a really interesting one. I like it.

April Martini 51:48
Alright, so just to recap, how do I find happiness at work? Number one, surround yourself by people you want to spend time with, seek them out, you do spend a lot of time at work. Number two, make it about more than the day to day work. Purpose is imperative to your job, your role, and it really helps you live at a much higher place in your happiness than in just the day to day. Number three have outlets and interests other than work work cannot be your single reason for being or your single point of happiness. And number four strive to always learn and grow stagnation is not a place to find happiness, you must always be moving forward. And with that, we will say go and exercise your marketing smarts. Still need help in growing your marketing smarts? Contact us through our website: ForthRight-People.com. We can help you become a savvy marketer through coaching or training you and your team or doing the work on your behalf. Please also help us grow the podcast by rating and reviewing on your player of choice and sharing with at least one person. Now go show off your marketing smarts.