23 Aug, 2022

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Happy, beautiful, amazing day. It's Pete Cohen, welcome to the Future Self podcast. today's podcast is called the Feel Good Factor at Work. I'll see you after the theme tune.

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Hey, happy beautiful days. It’s Pete Cohen Welcome to the Future Self podcast. We're doing some podcasts around the Feel Good factor. What is the feelgood factor we're gonna be talking specifically around around work, I think there's three life domains that most people are interested in improving. In fact, I'm sure everybody I know is improved is interested in improving these three areas. But most people wouldn't do it because well, that's one of the things we're going to be talking about. And that's about our mindset. It's about how we perceive taking action, how we perceive improving things, how we think who we are is who we are always going to be. So I think most people are interested in improving their health and well being especially if they didn't have to do anything if all they had to do is say yes, I want better health. I want more energy. I want to be able to move my body better. Most people would say Yeah, absolutely give it to me. And the same with their relationships. I'm sure most people would like to have better relationships with their colleagues with their friends, their family, especially again, if they didn't necessarily have to change them to do anything. It was coming to them, as opposed to him actually having to do something about it. And it's the same with work and what we do, most people would like to be more productive and better at what they do. Now in terms of who I am. Well, I'm known as the people's coach, and I believe everybody needs coaching especially actually people in work probably more than anywhere else, because people who are working are working hard, but they're people and our personal development and our professional development. I don't think they should be seen as separate things personally because if one thing is out of balance, then everything becomes out of balance. And we know right now that people are suffering. There are more mental health issues than there's probably ever been, you know, COVID has definitely changed the way that people are working. When people were first asked to work from home. I think there was huge amount of novelty for people and a lot of people enjoy that it made life easier for people but for a lot the novelty wore off because of what people actually need. What do people need? Well, we we've talked already a little bit about people might want to make improvement in certain areas of their life, but when it comes to what people do professionally, what people need, what we've observed over working in the corporate world for over 25 years is people want autonomy. They want to they want to be themselves. They want to come into work and put on an act and try to pretend to be someone who they're not this is how I see it. People want mastery people want to get better at what they do. And they want purpose. They want to feel that there is a meaning behind what it is they actually do. Now as a people's coach, you know, I'm a coach. I mean, look, I've studied psychology, I studied psychology at university, but I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a counselor, even though I've studied counseling. I am the people's coach, and what is a people's coach? Well, it's someone who's interested in people and fascinated with how do you help people close the gap between where they aren't where they want to be? The word coach actually comes from a Hungarian word which means a coach on horse. So why would anybody go on a coach and horse as well? Because they are somewhere they want to go somewhere. So in life, where do we want to go? In work? Where do we want to go?

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Well, from my experience where most people want to go is I want to go to a place where things are better than where they currently are. That is what is called hope. And I've spent 30 years working in the field of personal and professional development. And I can tell you again, from my experience, personal development has done more than what psychology has done for people the understanding of psychology. The application of personal development, has changed the game for so many people. But as a people's coach, my calling is to help people find their own calling. The calling of wanting to get better and when we look at we are the product of our environments. In the workplace, not too many cultures exist from my experience that really support people in just getting better. So that's my calling to help people find their calling to want to get better. I know from old I love research, I love science, and I've been looking for years at this right and what is wrong in terms of what actually works to help people work better. But it's fascinating because even the word work where does it come from? Well work was invented by the Romans. It was invented to get people to do the things that they actually didn't want to do. And I'm not saying that people don't want to do the work that they do. Obviously some people do. Do people do work because they want money. Well of course, but is that the single biggest motivator? Research shows that it's not. It's definitely not it shows that what people are looking for is they want to be a part of something. Motivation does it equal? What am I motivated because you're paying me or what we see is people are more motivated. When they feel there's a meaning to what they're doing. There's some they're creating something that there's challenge around it where they can take some sort of ownership they can take pride, but they also identify with where the organization is actually going what is the organization exists for is so fascinating. In all the years of working in the corporate world, you know, speaking and training and coaching and doing workshops on performance and helping people feel better about who they are, but ultimately being inspired. Being inspired means you're breathing life into something that is in front of you. But organizations who have vision statements and mission statements. Most people don't know what they are, they might remember some of the words. But what we've seen is where there's real engagement, high engagement was one study that showed that with like 69% more engagement when the employees could see the future of the business. They could identify themselves there in a year, three years, five years time, and that the leader had given them the vision where there's no envision where there's where that vision doesn't exist. There's very low engagement, and then we start to see what is known as discretionary effort, where people just too, they just put the very, very bare minimum into what they were doing. Now I'm gonna give you an amazing example of this. So a number of years ago work for one of the biggest companies in the world. That's what came with some of their factory workers. I was there for three days and I was kind of bought in and I think there was something going on behind the scenes here in terms of why they actually asked me to do this work because on the day I was going in, they were being told something.

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Again, I didn't know this, they were being told something that was massively going to affect their future. They were basically being told, and I was told that they were going to be told something when I arrived, I said well, can you tell me what it is? I said, well you don't really need to know, no actually would like to know if I'm gonna be working with these people for a number of days. And I was there to motivate them to help them kind of perform better and deal with stress better. That was part of what I was there to do doing a whole series of workshops. I was looking forward to it until this happen. And basically what I was told was that these people were being told that day that there were going to be some significant changes. And ultimately, a lot of people were not going to be able to retire when they thought they were some of these people were going to have to end up working for the organization. For another year, three years, five years. And when I was told this, I thought, Okay, this is going to be interesting. And I didn't hear what was said I was kept apart but then the people came into ruin. They put that kind of push me in and here you are. Can you imagine the looks on these people's faces when I'm up there in front of them? They don't know who I am. They don't really know well, they kind of knew why it was there. There was so many arms folded and kind of head looking down. These people's worlds had been shattered. You see what's really interesting in the work that I do is about our relationship to the future. I'm fascinated by how people think about the future. I think it's one of the most interesting conversations you will ever have with anyone to talk about what people are excited about to talk about what's in front of them. But we know our relationship to the future is very unclear. Most people know who they're going to be today or tomorrow, or next week or next month maybe. But beyond that people's relationship to the future is unclear. So if you want people to be engaged in something that is beyond a week in a month, then surely we should be asking, Well, how do you see that? How do you see that? Do you see yourself as a part of what it is that we're doing? And we know this and the research around? This is fascinating. One study where people were put in fMRI machines and literally they were asked three questions the first question was a Think of yourself and they'd see a part of the brain light up. And then we asked to think of them of a stranger we'd see a different part of the brain light up. Then people were asked to think of themselves a year three years, five years down the line. What part of the brain do you think lit up for most people? Well, it's not surprising. It's the stranger. So if people are just turning up to work, and they don't see themselves in your company, in your business in the future, where they have autonomy where they are better at what they do, they see the growth of the company, the growth of themselves. What do you think is gonna happen? They just go through the motion. Can you change that culture? Yeah, you can, but you're gonna need a people's coach. You're gonna need someone who's going to help your people have a different perspective, because that's what I excel at. Giving people a different perspective of something because we know that people don't change real change when we tell them what to do. People change when their perspective changes. And now we have an opportunity to invest in people like never before, because if we always do what we've always done, things are always going to be the same and I believe organizations right now have an opportunity to make a real statement around our people. My calling is people is to help people find their calling, so they're inspired about what's in front of them, and who they can actually become. And I genuinely care for people because when you care for people, do you think happens? People feel connected? And I am without doubt one of the most consistent people you'll ever meet? because consistency is what holds something together. And we don't just want people to be held together. We want them to be held together by a future they want to go out and create. Because if we can help people have a different relationship to their future. What do you think they're gonna go after? Of course, it takes courage to do that. And I'm also a very courageous person, and I love to help people find that courage in themselves to do things perhaps differently or to do things that maybe they haven't done before. Because ultimately, courage, the definition of courage is doing something that's a bit scary, and then being able to manage the fear in moving forwards.

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We have an incredible opportunity to live intentionally with the power of intention. Because when we do this, we see a side of people that is just unbelievable. When people get their mind set right? There are many different definitions of mindset, and some of the work of people like Carol Dweck, who's written the book, all about the growth mindset. But the for me the ultimate growth mindset is when you're growing into someone, you're growing into something that is better and want to go to school and take on new biological on you. But the man who won the Nobel Prize in 1937, he won it for his theory on something called Sintra P. And to me, this isn't, this isn't a theory. Just look outside and see that everything that exists for one reason and one reason only. What is that reason? To grow, to advance to get better, every now it might not happen. You know the acorn that falls from the tree. It lives it is something that it can grow into something truly amazing. It could grow into an incredible oak tree well it while the odds are probably pretty much stacked up against it. It's not when we get sick, our body is looking to repair itself it wants to grow. But the thing about us and human beings is just one thing is choice for most people. For most people involved around choice and the most common choices that people are making other choices they've made before. And if we don't help people make different choices, we might encourage them and give them the carrot and the stick mentality which is just old school, you know, the industrial, if you do this, you get that if you don't get this, if you don't do this, you don't get that. That's not the way we get the best out of people. How do you think if you have a team of people, you lead a company, how do you think you're going to get the best out of the people there? Because what I have seen when people make a shift in this and they start really investing in their people, people then have a level of pride and a level of identification with a company that helps those people just get better. We know now all over the world. There are people unhealthier than ever there's more of an appetite for health in America 97 And Kelly McGonigal 's book, The Joy of movement she cites study around that same 97 97.5% of 97.3 I'm sorry, 97.3% of Americans are unhealthy by for basic measures, you know? 97.3 That's a lot. How many of those people would like to be healthier? I don't know. I don't know all of them, but I reckon a large amount of them. What's it going to take in order for that to happen? It's going to take for them to have a different perspective of what's going on. Because people don't change when we tell them what to do people change when their perspective changes. It's amazing what people will do. When they see their growth when they start to live intentionally mind set in our company, Mi365 it is about helping people get their mind right my intentions now delivered. Now is the time like never before just to give people what they need to really help them and support them go above and beyond anything they've ever done before in their life. So what motivates people? Well, some people they may be all motivated by money. But that shows, studies have shown that when people get more money, it doesn't necessarily make them do more than they did before. Money is great. And I'm sure people enjoy it and it helps of course, I think there's something going on much deeper that people want. They want meaning. They want to create they want challenge. They want ownership. They want to take pride in what they're doing. They want to identify things like going back to that story of the company that I was working with.

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What was really fascinating is those people they knew their retirement. Many of those people were working for retirement Discretionary Effort turning up every day, not really enjoying what they were doing, but they could see where it was going. And many of them had incredible visions of retiring playing golf, you know, sitting in the garden reading the newspaper, and they were told before I came into that basically that wasn't going to happen. Can you imagine how so many I know how they work. Can you imagine how so many of these people felt their world had been turned upside down? And there's me coming in to try and help them think differently? Well, I'll tell you it was three of the hardest days of my life to help people have a different view of the future. Then know for many years, I personally was very guilty of this. It took my wife to be diagnosed with a very aggressive brain tumor 11 years ago, and through my coach. When I called him up and asked him what I should do. He said find people that are still alive. Ask them what did they do? That was the first thing he said. And the second thing is he said Oscar, what will she do when she gets better? And I said Did you not hear what I said I just told you she has been given 18 months to live. And he went so what people defy the odds all the time. And if we help people get their mindset right. I was just listening to something this morning about the placebos. I've always been fascinated by the placebo effect that you could give someone some medicine which isn't medicine, but they think it's medicine. And they take it and their headache goes away the way we think about how we use our minds. There's so much potential there. And of course for these, we're working and ladies that were working for this company I got through to some of them. I got through to some of them to think about to change the way they thought about the future. So they saw something beyond the challenge because people don't change when we tell them what to do. And many people in organizations for years have been told what to do to the point where they don't believe often what they're being told. But it's our view of the future. That's where the magic is for people to identify the person that they want to be in your business, vision and in their life. autonomy, mastery and purpose. This is the biggest single difference that will make the difference and we know in organizations over the last however many years 10 years, there have been medical First Aiders these these people who work in organizations to help people who are struggling, which is fantastic. But what about all the other people who might be struggling but they're just kind of caught in the middle. They want to improve but they need help. They don't necessarily need performance coaching. They need people coaching that would then encourage them and support them into improving them you know in Japan and I'll land on this there's a word called iki guy and I came across this word many years ago because you know, my my love of what I do. You know my habits of getting up every morning at four o'clock in the morning and being very, very consistent with my rituals, because I know what it takes in order for me to be better. And of course I'm not saying everyone needs to get up at four o'clock in the morning. But what I'm saying what does it actually take to put your best foot forwards to get better at what you do personally professionally? Well for me, I know what that is. I've dialed in and I'm up early in the morning. I'm downstairs I am reading I'm reading and then I'm you know, I'm meditating. I'm exercising, I'm doing what I need to do, because I know what it takes. And I know what it takes for most people most of the time. I've written 20 books on personal development, habit busting fear busting life DIY sort your life. Out. I've been coaching people for 30 years. I know what it takes for people to get onto their A game to get people from where they are not to just to a better place but to becoming so they identify with the person who they want to be. I think we are at a very pivotal point in time COVID has

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changed the game for so many people. But now we have an opportunity especially in August to bring people together because when people come together with shared goals, shared visions shared ideas of who they actually want to be, you can create a culture that is um, stoppable. I've seen it having worked in professional sport for years when you see a team where everyone's playing for each other. You just see people behave in a way that you wouldn't normally. But we don't have to wait for disasters. We don't have to wait for horrible things to happen for people to change because that's often when we see a side of people that we don't normally see. But once that's gone, people return back to what they know. But what we want to help people do is to be excited to be inspired to be motivated, do things to be autonomous. I made this is me. I love who I am. I'm proud of who I am. I'm confident I do what I say I'm going to do I live with intention. I'm getting better and I'm part of an organization the values me and I value them and I value my self is the best yet to come. I do. I firmly firmly believe that. Thank you so much for listening. Take care, and we'll see you for another episode on futures self podcast. Great things that have stuck inside my head verbal spectrum from bye hey