Navigating Managerial Challenges: Solutions for Success and Happiness with Jim Barnett CEO and Co-founder at Marc Maloy, President GTM at Wisq

[00:00:00] Building kind of left out at work on Monday morning, check out the barf breaking news acquisitions, research and funding. It's a look back at the week that was so you can prepare for the week that is subscribe on your favorite podcast app. You know the analogy I like to use and I don't know marks by Tarter here in this way is going to kick me but you know it's sort of like if you take cocoa cocoa golf. And let's say you know you send her you send her to tennis camp for a week.

[00:00:29] And then we basically say you know good luck winning the U.S. Open. Alright. That's not how it works. I mean she works with a variety of coaches for decades.

[00:00:42] What's going on people? Ryan Leary here from Wert defined. You're listening to the You Should Know podcast. A series of conversations that cover the most significant challenges leaders face in the world of work.

[00:00:54] Hey, this is Wade Tenka and Ryan Leary. This is the You Should Know podcast. Mark and Jim are on with us today. We're going to be talking a little bit about engagement. A little bit about managers. Now we can make managers better.

[00:01:11] And so let's just jump right into it. Jim, would you do us a favor and introduce yourself. And then Mark. Same with you.

[00:01:18] Sure, I'm Jim Barnett and I am one of the founders and a CEO of a company called WISC, which we'll talk a little bit about. And before this, I was one of the founders and the CEO of Glenn for many years.

[00:01:34] Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark, Mark. I've worked with Jim for a number of years. I'm the president of WISC. And prior to WISC, I worked at better up. I was president of field operations for better up.

[00:01:50] And then prior to that worked with Jim at Glint. And then prior to that worked at a very large Ed Tech company called Instructure. And if you have kids, I'm sure you're familiar with the platform canvas.

[00:02:05] Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's a good or bad program. No, no, that's it. That's a COVID remark right there. It's every night is just more and more. Yes. Yes. Yeah.

[00:02:20] Too funny. All right. Thank you for that, Mark. Yes. Yeah.

[00:02:25] It's a big company, right? He didn't have anything. No, no. He's good.

[00:02:30] Let's go and do WISC. What's the, what's the vision of the country's going to launch somewhere in April, etc. So what are we, what are we trying to achieve with WISC?

[00:02:41] Well, what we're trying to achieve is we're trying to help people be more successful and happy at work.

[00:02:48] You know, that's, you know, that's our mission as a company to guide people to success and happiness at work.

[00:02:54] And what we found is that we can use generative AI to do that.

[00:03:01] And so what WISC is, is an AI guide and coach, initially for managers.

[00:03:08] And it provides coaching and guidance and expert advice.

[00:03:12] That's highly personalized and does it 24/7.

[00:03:18] What type of coach are we talking about? You know, end to end, you can ask WISC about anything.

[00:03:24] You know, what we're really focused on is those soft skills.

[00:03:28] So many managers get promoted because they're terrific individual contributors. Right.

[00:03:34] And they struggle in those early years with a lot of, lot of, lot of, lot of decisions that they have a man to make, a lot of skills they need to acquire.

[00:03:44] And so we're all about helping managers learn and grow and be better versions of themselves.

[00:03:50] It happens a lot in sales.

[00:03:52] And she's about just cracking it out of the park. And then all of a sudden, someone says, Oh, Sandy, you're doing a great job.

[00:04:00] You're killing quota. Now go be the regional manager of so and so is like,

[00:04:04] and then you lose the schools and resources people.

[00:04:07] Yeah.

[00:04:08] Sorry.

[00:04:13] And managers have such a disproportionate impact.

[00:04:17] Like think, you know, if we all close our eyes and think about it and think about the most fantastic, wonderful manager you've ever had.

[00:04:25] Like, what did he or she do?

[00:04:30] And then conversely think about, wow, the lousy managers that you've ever had.

[00:04:35] What did he or she do?

[00:04:37] The impact is so wildly different on your happiness, your effectiveness, your ability to thrive as a human being.

[00:04:46] And you know, when Jim and I were talking about this, there's great solutions within companies for this super super high performing individuals.

[00:04:57] And then with EAPs, you know, for folks that are unfortunately suffering, whether it's PTSD, depression, anxiety, EAPs, you get your spring health, modern Leeras.

[00:05:07] There's a great solution for them. There's nothing great for this massive middle of individuals.

[00:05:14] And we thought, how can we bring something to market that would have an incredible impact for them and help them reach their full potential.

[00:05:23] And that was really what the genesis of whisk is.

[00:05:26] Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:05:29] You first.

[00:05:30] I think the, you know, we talked about it in pre-show.

[00:05:33] It's really easy to talk about band managers. Like it's just, it's lazy. It's lazy, right?

[00:05:39] And I think again, it's one of the things like looking at the tools and resources that we've given managers to be successful.

[00:05:50] I don't think when, you know, when you ask me to close my eyes and do the good and the bad.

[00:05:57] The good came down to a specific person that was really, was taught vulnerability, but also taught kind of getting buy in.

[00:06:07] And the bad manager, if you will, when I close my eyes, it was, it was about, they didn't know me.

[00:06:13] I remember doing a performance review and this person just didn't know me at all.

[00:06:19] Like all the things that they went left on, I was right. All the things that went right on, I was left.

[00:06:23] I'm like, I got at the end of my, this person actually literally doesn't know who I am.

[00:06:28] And so, but again, now we look at that and I'm like, maybe, maybe they weren't a bad manager.

[00:06:35] Again, easy, lazy stuff to say. Maybe they just have the tools and resources to be successful.

[00:06:41] Totally. And your point about the tools or learning, you know, the analogy I like to use and I don't know, Mark's probably tired of hearing this, but he's going to kick me.

[00:06:51] But, you know, it's sort of like if you take Coco, Coco golf.

[00:06:55] And let's say, you know, you send her to tennis camp for a week.

[00:07:01] And then we basically say, you know, good luck winning the U.S. Open, right?

[00:07:05] That's not how it works. I mean, she works with a variety of coaches for decades, right, to be at the top of her game.

[00:07:15] Now, I'm not saying being a manager is the same as winning the U.S. Open, but what I'm saying is it's a very complex, challenging job that has a lot of dimensions to it.

[00:07:25] And sending managers through a one week training course or asking them to watch a video once a year is not giving them the tools that they need to be great.

[00:07:37] And so, like, we thought to ourselves like, like, what if we could embed a real time 24/7 coach and guide and mentor to help managers really be the best versions of themselves.

[00:07:52] And so you're right. It's all, you know, a lot of people could be much better managers.

[00:07:57] They just don't have the tools or the training or guidance to become that better manager.

[00:08:02] You know, it's as you told us to close our eyes.

[00:08:08] I'm still thinking of who is my good manager?

[00:08:12] Like, it's been a while since I've had a manager, right?

[00:08:16] I really, there's managers that I've liked.

[00:08:20] Yeah, that's different.

[00:08:22] But none that I would look back and say, you've really impacted my career.

[00:08:27] I just don't know that I have that. And I've always spoken, not nicely about them.

[00:08:33] I now feel guilty about that because of how you're, but it makes sense. It makes sense.

[00:08:40] So I think where, where my question, where I want to start with my question is, how do you embed this 24 hours a day and how does it.

[00:08:49] I think I have an idea of how it would feel from some other tools that I've used.

[00:08:54] But I'm curious, how does this feel to a manager and how do they engage with this? How do they interact with it?

[00:09:00] So that that's a really, really good question.

[00:09:04] One, because they can engage with it at any time, but that's not the same as something

[00:09:09] being there for you, 24/7 or 7, or available for you. So they can come in to, to, to whisk,

[00:09:17] you know, via their mobile, mobile app, their desktop, desktop app, browser, and they can

[00:09:24] talk to the coach about anything they want to talk to the coach about. But more than

[00:09:29] that, over time, the coach does a few things. First, it gets to know you, starts to understand

[00:09:36] your history, your patterns, understands your company's content. And if you've chosen to

[00:09:45] take some assessments, knows even more about you, if you've chosen to use whisk feedback

[00:09:50] features, then you've gotten feedback from your team. So the whisk platform takes all

[00:09:56] of this content and coaches the individual using that content. And so one of the ways

[00:10:03] that it's, it's guiding you all the time is with nudges and reminders. Right. It understands

[00:10:12] over time that you've got these either issues that you're dealing with right now. Let's use

[00:10:19] an example of you've got an underperforming person on your team, and you've been avoiding

[00:10:25] the hard conversation. So it now starts to understand that this is an issue for, for you

[00:10:31] and that you came to whisk to ask, you know, how do I have that conversation with this

[00:10:36] individual? And then it also starts to understand, ah, do you avoid challenging conversations

[00:10:43] in general? Do I need to coach this user on something bigger, coach the person as opposed

[00:10:50] to the problem? So those are, those are some of the ways that, ah, the coach becomes embedded

[00:10:58] in your life and helps you on a more continuous basis than sort of organizational decisions.

[00:11:04] Yeah. Mark, what do you, what do you think about, I mean, first of all, it gets smarter,

[00:11:10] right? Right. That's the beauty of it, ah, through time it gets smarter with an individual

[00:11:14] person that's coaching. So it gets smarter there. But what do you think about the metadata

[00:11:19] in terms of across all the coaching and seeing kind of some of the same things kind of pop

[00:11:25] up? You know, if we do personas or if we think of people with, you know, that's, that's a

[00:11:31] conflict orientation, right? You either have conflict orientation, or you don't, right?

[00:11:37] You can't necessarily change personality, but you can guide someone, step by it with

[00:11:42] to overcome those things. But I'm really interested in your take on kind of what y'all

[00:11:47] would see in all that anonymized data, ah, and looking at that and showing, okay, here's

[00:11:53] what we got going on with managers in general. Here the, you know, like I've seen a trends

[00:11:58] report in my mind, you know, the 2025 trends report of here's what's going on with managers.

[00:12:04] Here's the five things that, you know, they, they need the most upskilling in, and is these

[00:12:09] things, et cetera. Like, what are you excited about that when you're, when you're going

[00:12:13] to have access to that data? Exactly. I think, you know, I think that the

[00:12:17] overall arc starting at the beginning is have a guide that knows you and a guide that knows

[00:12:25] your team. How do you really do that? Well, you do it through assessments. We're not going

[00:12:31] to be overly dogmatic about the assessment type. We believe that we should support a

[00:12:36] whole bunch of different types of assessments ranging from big five, any gram, disk, predictive

[00:12:41] index, so forth. Which one? Buzzfeed, like, what type of piece are you assessment, and

[00:12:51] that begins to teach whisk about you as a human, your personality, so forth and so on.

[00:12:57] The second thing is, as Jim mentioned, because I think this is really important, all the

[00:13:02] CHROs I talk with think it's really important too, is the ingestion of their creative content

[00:13:09] and the ingestion of their licensed third party content. So now as you're interacting with the

[00:13:15] coach, if your company has a point of view on a performance improvement plan template,

[00:13:21] and you want to serve that up, or if your company has a point of view on here's our

[00:13:25] approved framework for career development conversation, and you serve that up. Now think

[00:13:30] about what actually happens in these companies is slack and teams become your de facto knowledge

[00:13:37] base. Right. People literally don't want to go look stuff up and they end up asking their HRPP,

[00:13:43] what do we do about this again? What's this again? And these HR poor HRPPs, they get these same

[00:13:48] questions over and over and over and over. So part of it is, is just literally know that user,

[00:13:54] make it really easy to access the company point of view materials, also make it really easy to

[00:14:03] access millions of scholarly articles on leadership, behavior, manager foundations,

[00:14:10] principles, soft skill building, so forth and so on. And then that results, William,

[00:14:17] in what you just talked about, a ton of exhaust data for customer insights. And when you anonymize

[00:14:24] that, and then you serve it back up, you can see a world where, wow, you've got a really

[00:14:28] killer benchmarking report here that you can share with other seizures. You can see a world

[00:14:32] where companies now have a new better diagnostic relative to a little bit of the autopsy oriented

[00:14:41] diagnostic that you get from the engagement industry. So there's this whole world of kind of,

[00:14:46] now that you've got the ability to build on the shoulders of giants, we've got large language

[00:14:54] models. We've got humanities knowledge at our fingertips. How are we going to leverage that

[00:15:00] to deliver an exceptional experience to these managers, whereas what we've done over all these

[00:15:07] years, we've literally just given them learning management systems, all XPs, learning starts at

[00:15:14] the beginning, it ends at the end, and right when it's over, the forgetting curve has a ton of gravity,

[00:15:18] and it's much more powerful than the learning curve. Yes, and we've given them

[00:15:23] extra nets and intranets, in case management software as well. Like, okay, great, you have

[00:15:30] a question, go over here to this other thing and ask the question, which, you know, it's much

[00:15:35] easier to email the CHRO and get that question answered. So too funny. Curious on your take,

[00:15:42] so I want to go back to the comment you made, Mark, about content. So content that the company's

[00:15:48] putting out, and then also third party content. How do you ensure, or how does this ensure that

[00:15:56] the content that's being put out by the company isn't just, I'll say bias, I don't have the right

[00:16:03] word here. The content is not biased based on the group of people that have created that content

[00:16:09] that truly represents the population of the company. I think the kind of crops of your

[00:16:17] question is, is how do we ensure that it's accurate, right? So it's not necessarily balls

[00:16:22] one way or another. The technology, and I know you guys are technologists, so I kind of explained

[00:16:28] this, it employs a rag engine. So if you're just a company, you actually have 10,000 employees,

[00:16:35] you've got petabytes of content on all things, HR, handbook, training, whatever, and you want us

[00:16:42] to adjust that, to serve that content up when you're using a question. That repository is yours,

[00:16:49] yours alone. We never use it for any other purpose other than your content. Our customers

[00:16:56] love that, because it's private, secure, they trust us obviously.

[00:17:00] Well, those are most of the basic questions that you get as a team member and as a manager.

[00:17:08] It's someone's like, we just moved to Indiana, I don't know what our vision, and I don't know

[00:17:13] what my vision insurance is. It's stuff like that. It's a little simple stuff like that that

[00:17:19] impacts their experience. If they go to their manager, a manager is like, "Ah, oh, you know,

[00:17:25] this is something they can easily ask. Whisk can go, 'Hey, employee just moved to Indiana.

[00:17:31] What's their vision insurance? Where is the documentation?' Done. I see that

[00:17:37] becoming easier, especially if they ingest all that, including their values. Anything that's

[00:17:44] around their values. Ultimately, you want that alignment of your manager's, your team, and the

[00:17:52] company's values. You got to know what those things are. It's got to be able to know those

[00:17:58] things so it doesn't give advice outside of the ethical or moral boundaries.

[00:18:04] That's a really important point, and one of the things we built is these really cool

[00:18:08] Cardrails, so if somebody asks about certain what we'll call sensitive topics, we don't coach on those topics, we refer them to HR, so things like sexual harassment, discrimination, privacy, safety, manufacturing facility or something. So those type, we have a series of algorithms that detect those topics, and then we don't coach on those refer those to HR or the HR.

[00:18:36] I mean, it's wayfinding at that point. If somebody's asking about sexual harassment, like what's our policy or how do I go about reporting at this set together, or how do I avoid it or how do I get away with it, whatever.

[00:18:50] So like if they're asking those questions, then again, the manager doesn't need to get involved there. The manager needs to be able to get that routed to HR. Jim, the question I had for you is,

[00:19:04] how do we know that we've done this well? Like what are we going to be looking at to know that we've made, again, all managers? Like we've we've topically talked about some types of managers, but really,

[00:19:16] we're trying to make all managers better. Doesn't matter where you are, where you start your journey. How do you make, how will we know that we reached the goal?

[00:19:25] Yeah, that's a really, really, really good question.

[00:19:31] If you like swiping, then head over to substack and search up work defined. WRK defined and subscribe to the weekly newsletter.

[00:19:40] Well, there's some ways we can measure our progress. So managers take assessments before they start coaching and they take assessments after they start coaching and we can measure the progress.

[00:19:51] But I think you're asking a bigger question like as humanity, how will we know what's the impact of generative AI coaching on humanity.

[00:19:59] Yeah. Well, is it, is it productivity? Is it yield in the sense of like farmers look at crops? Is it getting more out of less?

[00:20:09] Ultimately, that's right. I think that's how companies think about it. Ultimately, they're buying software to improve the results of their business.

[00:20:19] Right. As they should.

[00:20:21] But I think we can help managers be the best versions of themselves, help them be more successful, help them be more engaged, be happier at work.

[00:20:33] That will influence their teams. And that will lead to these really positive business outcomes. And there's tons of decades, decades of data to show that those things are true.

[00:20:44] So I think it shows up there. I think that company's interest is perfect. I think it shows up in regrettable turnover.

[00:20:52] For sure.

[00:20:53] So if we can keep that manager that is doing an exceptional job and now doing a more exceptional job and we can keep that team that's now more cohesive and doing a better job, et cetera.

[00:21:07] You know, turnover in and of itself isn't, isn't bad. Like, there's trees that die in a forest. That's actually a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It's a regrettable turnover.

[00:21:17] So people that you want to keep, but you couldn't keep. I think if we can move the needle on that and keep those people and keep them engaged to keep them productive and all that other stuff, keep them happy, whatever.

[00:21:31] Then I think that that would be an outcome that I'd want to measure.

[00:21:36] Yeah.

[00:21:37] And then very, really specifically you're asking this bigger, broader question, you know, but how do we, you know, how do we actually monitor the, like today's progress or, you know, the quality of our coaching.

[00:21:50] We actually employ a combination of both tech technology solutions to monitor the quality of coaching, as well as human solutions.

[00:21:58] So we have human coaches that'll go in and score coaching sessions. And then we also use a variety of algorithms and generative AI to also automatically score our coaching sessions to see how they're doing so we can see the progress that we're making in the quality of our coaching experiences.

[00:22:18] Let's get a continuous calibration, right, that people talk about. It's like, it is, you write the algorithm is done. It's like, you're always going to be tweaking and calibrating recalibrating that.

[00:22:30] And that's, I love the human part. And I love, I love the machine part as well. Like, it's going to learn, but also you're going to have that occasional human interaction and look at it and go, Okay, yeah, this is, this isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing.

[00:22:46] So the algorithm is it needs to be tweaked.

[00:22:49] I mean, the opportunity is so staggeringly incredible. I mean, when you think about the future where we're all going to have digital human companions that help make our lives better every day.

[00:23:04] He's going to be really thrilling. You know, it's going to take us, it's going to happen quickly. It's probably available today. You know, the voice interactions that you can have with products like this.

[00:23:15] But, you know, we're going to see progress over the next five years. It's going to blow people away.

[00:23:21] And the ability to help us lead more successful and happier lives is going to be truly outstanding.

[00:23:28] And just to build up the voice one I heard from one of our users.

[00:23:35] You can take a walk with your headphones.

[00:23:39] Have whisk open on your phone.

[00:23:42] And, and literally ask it.

[00:23:46] Any question you'd like related to leadership development, these critical soft skills.

[00:23:54] And, you know, we've all been through this a long time. So sometimes it's hard for us to kind of.

[00:24:00] Go back in our mental role of this and say, okay, remind me how hard was that again.

[00:24:05] Well, I tell you, we've got this cadre of users first line, second line, third line leaders that that are fewer than a decade into their leadership.

[00:24:13] Like these really simple things that are truly second nature to us because we've done this forever and ever and ever.

[00:24:21] It's anxiety producing like you wouldn't believe.

[00:24:26] Like when someone has to do a performance review with someone else and they haven't done a thousand of these yet, and they have to give someone feedback and they're afraid to snuff out their candle.

[00:24:37] They want to give them some, some positive feedback and the things are doing really well, but there's two to three things that they really need to improve at.

[00:24:45] They end up pulling punches with holding that information. They don't, you know, oftentimes feel comfortable really delivering that feedback and feedback is the one of the number one things that help actually improve performance where I made this example.

[00:25:03] Like trying to remember what did he or she do or didn't do.

[00:25:07] Well, you know, I can guarantee you on that list was person never made me better.

[00:25:12] Right. Yeah.

[00:25:14] I mean, yeah, I do want to grow.

[00:25:18] Yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting. I mean, I really, I really, I didn't close my eyes. I may have fallen asleep, but.

[00:25:26] So then did a day for me here, but it was, it was actually like I went through the exercise like I jog in my memory and it was really something I was kind of like, wow, that's, that's a shame.

[00:25:37] Like, that's a huge missed opportunity, which I know we're talking product, but I've had this in my head since earlier. I wanted to ask you guys.

[00:25:46] How do you, how do you, anyone can take it or both of you. How do you define workplace happiness.

[00:25:54] Jim, you first and then I'll do it.

[00:25:58] Just pass it over to Jim. Jim, we call them.

[00:26:07] So, Jim has actually studied happiness is a hobby.

[00:26:12] For the last.

[00:26:14] 20 something odd years. And so one of the reasons.

[00:26:18] Oh, wow.

[00:26:19] That I'm here is because, you know, he's a fantastic leader and manager, a fantastic human being. And I learned just so much so fast and working with him. I'm like, I'm going to go do that.

[00:26:36] So, let me, let me, let me, let me preface this with, with why it was curious for me. I have a curiosity here.

[00:26:45] So I'm based in the Pennsylvania area in Philadelphia area.

[00:26:49] And William, you get a kick out of this because this is totally not me. I don't do this stuff often, but I sat in on a talk. It was more of a lecture. This was, it was IBM day. So this is probably 2015 2014 time frame.

[00:27:04] I know actually was earlier that I was connected to time frame. So it was probably 2010, 2011 time frame.

[00:27:09] There's a psychologist that's at.

[00:27:12] University of Pennsylvania, Segment, Segment, this is name. Yes, yes, yes, yes, you're right. Obviously, you know this. But he gave a talk on emotional happiness and understanding what gets you there. And it was just one of those things that like I would never, I never listened to this stuff like it just it doesn't do it for me. And but that that one clicked and I sat there was about a force.

[00:27:42] It was a 35 minute thing. It was a takeoff. He did a TED talk back in early 2000s. And it was a takeoff of that. But it was this was down in University City right near you, Penn, where he's at. And it just is always stuck with me, but workplace happiness. And so when William and I started talking about work defined, it reminded me of that. And I never went back to it. I forgot. But you had said something earlier that made it click in my hand. I'm just curious to get your take on this.

[00:28:10] Jim, that's you. Yeah, Jim, I'm looking at. I'm still trying to answer your last question. Well, I put up a sleep. Sorry.

[00:28:23] Yeah, let me let me go back to the question of happiness first. I think there's a difference between personal happiness and sort of an operational definition of organizational happiness.

[00:28:42] If you spend time with reading a lot of the great leaders in happiness, fundamentally personal happiness is about loving what is being in the present moment, being awake.

[00:29:06] And, you know, if you try to sell that to companies, they're going to go, I don't want to love what is. I want to do 10% more.

[00:29:16] Yeah, I pay them. That's the love. I don't pay them a sit there and meditate all day long.

[00:29:23] So, I don't think that definition works really well in an HR organizational setting. Yeah, it creates a disconnect. It creates a disconnect because you got organizational.

[00:29:34] Like if you talk to a COO and say, you know, define happiness, happiness for them is stability. It's it's understanding that staffing is stable. The product is stable. Like their happiness is rooted in different things.

[00:29:49] When you talk to a line manager, you talk to an employee in the same environment, you say divine happiness, happiness is, you know, having breaks on time.

[00:29:58] Or, you know, the Coke machine is filled up or stuff like that like it's micro, it's macro, it's highly personalized. And I think that's also what creates a disconnect between if we say leadership and employees, because they have different ways of.

[00:30:16] It's almost like vistas. So I don't know if you've ever been sent to like a place where there's rice terraces, like when I'm in the middle outside of Manila, there's these wonderful.

[00:30:26] In Baguio, there's these wonderful rice terraces. When you when you stand on those things, it's like every step when you go up is a completely different outlook.

[00:30:35] And that's how I think about happiness.

[00:30:38] That person at that particular moment is looking off in a vista, and they're getting one way two steps later. It's a completely different view.

[00:30:48] I get it. The podcast just isn't enough. That's all right. Head over to your favorite social app. Search Up Work Defined, WRK Defined and Connect with us.

[00:30:59] So I don't know if there's ever going to be kind of universal agreement on what is happiness work happiness.

[00:31:08] Yeah, maybe to build slightly off of Ryan's comment. So, you know, some Marty Marty Seligman, the professor you're referring to is the godfather and the author of positive psychology, which is right, which is basically a book that talks about

[00:31:26] a whole person thriving, and it's got some happiness layers in it.

[00:31:30] When, you know, when I, and as Jim pointed out, like, he's studied this on a personal level for a very long time.

[00:31:38] And people have resting happiness levels, and it turns out that, you know, your resting happiness level might be a six out of 10. Someone else's who you know is constantly cranking, they might be a three out of 10.

[00:31:53] And what we've learned in, which is scientifically proven is that there's certain practices that can actually increase your baseline, happy happiness level, and it can do that permanently.

[00:32:04] So practices like meditation practices like doing things in service of others. We talked about oxytocin earlier, like petting a dog.

[00:32:13] Like these things literally make us feel better. And what Marty pointed out in his book, positive psychology, is the more that you can map or bridge someone's individual why to company why and make that incredibly non opaque, or make it incredibly transparent.

[00:32:32] Here's how your work is contributing to a broader vision, broader mission, broader plan.

[00:32:39] And you happen to really care about that plan. So the mapping of your individual why, like, if I'm a manager and Jim's my, my teammate, I'm going to really understand who Jim is what's important to him, both inside and outside of work.

[00:32:55] And then I'm going to try to build a bridge between his personal why and the company why, and that bridge.

[00:33:02] Brick by brick is laid with soft skills. And the tragic thing is, is most learning management platforms like peace, they train us in hard skills.

[00:33:12] You know, they don't really learn HTML active listening. And in that bridge is literally paved with these soft skills.

[00:33:22] And that's one of the kind of the number one things that great leaders do is they help you along your journey. They've walked in your shoes before some of it border lines on mentorship, some of its guiding and nurturing along that same path.

[00:33:38] But they're helping you reach your personal goals and building a direct bridge to company goals.

[00:33:44] So the opposite of happiness. I think most people if asked it would say sadness.

[00:33:51] But in the sense that we're talking about it, it seems to me that the opposite of happiness is anxiety.

[00:33:59] Or possibly ambiguity, but ambiguity also creates anxiety for some. So, so it isn't sadness. And in this, in this truest sense of I'm sad at work.

[00:34:11] It's maybe I'm not as fulfilled, or I don't get as much out of it as I could or should.

[00:34:18] Or maybe there's another driver driver. I have y'all given that a thought. What is the opposite of.

[00:34:24] Sure. I mean, there are certain core emotions, right? You've got happiness or joy that you've got fear. You've got anger and you've got sadness. Those are the.

[00:34:35] I'm comfortable with all those. Yeah. Those are the main competition against happiness. So when you're unhappy, not necessarily the opposite of happiness, but when you're unhappy, often you are in your thoughts.

[00:34:49] Right. And subject to an emotion that feels like anger, sadness or fear. Okay.

[00:34:56] That tracks. I got that. So, Ryan, what do you got? I don't know. You got something. I'm good. I've got my questions answered.

[00:35:07] I can't wait for y'all to come out and be alive. I just can't wait for the launch and all of that stuff. So, first of all, congratulations.

[00:35:15] I wasn't using it. Yeah, well, you can run actually people can people can go now to whisk.com and and join the waitlist and I did using the product.

[00:35:25] I joined it. Okay.

[00:35:27] I want to go and walks and ask questions. Like, I want to see this thing in action. This is this is interesting.

[00:35:33] Yours is going to be, how how do I deal with Tin Co? It's going to be more.

[00:35:39] I think that the hardest part for me today was not asking the details about the tech because we're not doing use case.

[00:35:47] I want to learn. Yeah. I'm going to start typing it in.

[00:35:52] My boss says the quiet part's out loud.

[00:35:58] Well, thank y'all so much. I know we've run up on time, but thank y'all so much for coming on the show. We appreciate you.

[00:36:05] Congratulations on your new journey. Yeah.

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