April 28, 2025 • 25 mins
Marcus Mossberger shares his passion for cultivating hope in the workplace based on research showing that hope is critical for employee motivation and satisfaction. He defines workplace hope as "the active belief in a better future," differentiating it from passive optimism by emphasizing personal agency and responsibility for positive change.
• Hope in the workplace requires active belief and responsibility, not just passive optimism
• The top reason people leave organizations is not seeing anything to look forward to
• Next generation employees prioritize purposeful work and flexibility over compensation
• Agency and control over one's work significantly impacts psychological wellbeing
• Your relationship with your manager affects mental health more than many personal relationships
• Four-day workweeks can increase productivity while providing better work-life balance
• Cross-training naturally occurs when employees cover for each other's flexible schedules
• Traditional retirement may be outdated as we move toward longer lifespans
• Gradual reduction in work hours rather than abrupt retirement supports better mental health
• Technology, including AI, will transform work—our attitude toward these changes matters
Take the workplace hope assessment at workplacehope.com to understand what makes you hopeful at work and embrace the exciting changes coming to the world of work in the next decade.
To stay connected and continue the conversation, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn.
And don't forget to check out our previous episodes for more tips and strategies to boost your workplace happiness. You can find them on your favorite podcast platform or on our website.
If you have any questions, comments, or topic suggestions for future episodes, please reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you!
Stay inspired, stay motivated, and stay happy at work!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome back for another episode of the Happy at
Work podcast with Laura Tessaand Michael.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Each week we have thoughtful conversations with
leaders, founders and authorsabout happiness at work.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Tune in each Thursday for a new conversation.
Enjoy the show.
Welcome to the Happy at Workpodcast.
Hi, my name is Michael McCarthy.
(00:42):
Our guest today is MarcusMossberger, future of work
strategist and an expert at hope.
Marcus, welcome to the show.
Thanks, michael, appreciate youhaving me, so I'm curious.
I see that you're focusing aton on hope in the workplace.
It's a really interestingintersection.
Why?
Why does hope at work matter?
(01:04):
And initially, tell us a littlebit about your background, how
you got to seeing that hope isreally important, and then we'll
dig into those details.
So tell us about you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
It's all really related, actually, and I
wouldn't know.
I don't know if I would saythat I'm an expert at hope.
What I am is extremelypassionate about it, and that
came from a class that I took atthe University of Kansas back
in the 90s, the 1990s I'm datingmyself already, michael Last
century.
Me too.
I was there, all right good.
So I went to the University ofKansas and one of the classes
(01:36):
that I took while I was therewas the psychology of hope, and
it was taught by Rick Snyder,who I didn't know at the time,
was like the guru of hope.
He literally wrote the book thePsychology of Hope and I
absolutely fell in love with it.
And for me, I realized that hopefor a lot of people, if you
think about it in Maslow'shierarchy of needs the base of
(01:58):
that pyramid, the basics thatyou need, like air and water and
food I think hope is moreimportant than those things,
because if you don't have it,nothing else matters.
So I realized how important itwas, and then I started getting
an interest in the world of work.
So I decided to study humanresources, I went into the field
(02:18):
, I got into HR technology and Ikind of forgot about it
honestly for a while, michael,and a few years ago I decided to
dust it off, and I kind offorgot about it honestly for a
while, michael, and a few yearsago I decided to dust it off,
and the reason for that is and Ithink you'll relate to this, I
think most people will relate tothis, michael we spend the
majority of our lives as humansworking, and most people don't
(02:39):
have an incredibly positiveassociation with the world of
work, and I don't like that.
I don't think that's the way itshould be.
I think we should enjoy ourwork, I think we should find
meaning in it, I think we shouldbe good at it, I think we
should be able to establishauthentic relationships, I think
we should have control over ourlives at work, and so I decided
(03:00):
to resurface this interest inhope.
So I started a newsletter and apodcast and I created a
workplace hope assessment.
No idea what I'm going to dowith any of this stuff other
than make it a topic ofdiscussion, because I think we
should talk about it.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
You know what I love about this?
It reminds me when I wasstudying positive psychology at
Penn, I had the opportunity tolearn under Dr Martin Seligman,
the father of positivepsychology, one of his first
experiments he ever did, whichnow, by the way, is unethical
and you could never do it again.
It was using dogs and it wasbasically showing them.
(03:37):
They were shocking dogs.
That's why you can't do itagain.
But basically they wereshocking them where they would
stop trying to do things, andeven when they could, like, get
out of their box or, you know,go for the food or jump over the
wall, they wouldn't do it.
And when it comes to work, itjust gave me the idea.
Do you think that if peopledon't have hope, they won't try?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Absolutely.
I think it's just like thatexperiment that you mentioned,
where they're like what's thepoint?
And the reason that I thinkthat's important.
And let me maybe start, michael, by giving you kind of my
definition of hope in thecontext of the workplace.
It's the active belief in abetter future, and that's pretty
nebulous.
(04:19):
Admittedly, that was purposeful.
But I want to point out twothings.
Number one it's an activebelief.
There's a difference betweenhope and optimism.
Optimism is like, hey, thingsare going to get better, but I'm
not going to do anything aboutit, I'm just maybe things will
get better.
Hope is actually taking someresponsibility, some agency,
some control, and saying, hey,I'm going to make it better.
(04:39):
So it's active.
And then the better futurepiece is really important.
It's funny when you ask peoplewhy they leave organizations.
Yes, they talk about money, yes, they talk about their manager,
but I think, for the most part,if you look at the data,
especially over the last decade,the number one reason is I
don't have anything to lookforward to here, and it's not
just like a career advancementor a huge raise.
(05:01):
It's like I want to do more.
I want to do somethinginteresting.
The next generation inparticular, I think, is really
looking for purposeful,meaningful work.
They're willing to forego bigtitles and compensation.
They also want flexibility,right.
So I think when people don'tsee something to look forward to
, they're just like those dogsin the experiment they just stop
(05:21):
trying.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's funny, you say that I was a professor at two
different schools and so I lovethe Harvard job because it just
makes me work harder and harder.
The other school was near myhouse and they paid well and
they were nice to me, I had alot of autonomy, but then I got
a micromanager and my autonomywent away and I didn't see a
(05:46):
future.
I was like I literally I didn'thave hope.
I was like there is no tomorrowis going to be a better day,
because I just felt like I wasjust being so micromanaged and
controlled and so I guess Ireally left because I didn't
feel like I had a hopeful futureand I didn't.
Everything was prescribed.
It was almost like reading offa script.
They were giving me slides toteach in class.
(06:06):
I was like are you kidding?
So yeah, I agree with that.
That was my biggest reason,that I just didn't see that
tomorrow would be better thantoday with the way that the
workplace had changed.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, it's interesting to hear you say that
too.
I think one of the mostfascinating topics associated
with hope in my mind is theconcept of agency or control,
and feeling like you havecontrol over your life.
And it sounds like in thatscenario that you just mentioned
, you felt like you lost alittle bit of that control and
they were like here, here's someslides for you to teach from.
We don't want you to actuallycreate your own content or, you
(06:39):
know, bring things to the classthat you've created yourself,
and we see that a lot in theworkplace.
You know, look at like retailemployees.
They don't even have controlover their schedule, michael.
They can't even decide what dayof the week they're going to
work, let alone the actual tasksthat they're doing and the job
that they have.
They have little to no controlover that too.
(07:00):
So I think that's an importantpiece.
And then another that you kindof alluded to.
You've talked about Seligman.
I love his PERMA model.
In fact, it's kind of bakedinto my workplace assessment
that I created.
But the R in PERMA isrelationships, isn't it?
And again, I think it's anotherimportant point to make when I
mentioned earlier that we spendthe majority of our lives
working.
(07:20):
That means these relationshipsthat we forge at work are really
important.
I read somewhere I can'tremember where it was, it was
recent and it said yourrelationship with your manager
has more of an impact on yourmental health than your
relationship with your spouse.
I don't know if that's true ornot, but it's important, and so
your relationship with yourmanager obviously took a
(07:43):
negative turn, and that impactedyour perception of your future.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
What you're quoting is correct and it was coming
from I believe it was comingfrom a derivation of data from
Gallup, and Gallup had said that70% of how you feel about work
is coming from your manager andover 50% of managers are burned
out and, like 65%, are lookingfor jobs, so they're not in a
(08:09):
good spot.
So that is basically justtrickling down into the
organization with that impact.
Sure, it's going to be morethan your spouse or your kid,
because you spend so much timeand when you're not at work,
work's rattling around in yourhead If it's, if it's bad stuff.
I remember when I quit my myjob a few months ago and I was
uh, well, I was kind ofscreaming at the dean I
shouldn't have done that, but itmade the hijack and as I was
(08:34):
screaming I have nopsychological safety here which
was sort of fun.
I was like you know, I'm tiredof you being in my head for six
hours after I've left this placeand she just looked at me like
wow, I can't believe.
Like she seemed surprised and Iwasn't exaggerating.
I mean, you know, when you havea problem, you know it can
rattle in your head for a long,long time, and so I think that
(08:57):
the mental health benefits.
But it reminds me to get backto hope.
What do you do with people whohave a job like you just
described?
I have zero agency.
You're telling me when I'mhaving my bathroom breaks, when
I'm coming to work.
How do they get hope when theyhave so little autonomy?
Any hope for them?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, it's a great question.
I think it's quite personalactually, when I put together
the workplace hope assessmentwhich anybody can go out there
and take, and I don't ask foranybody's demographic data or
any kind of information, I'mjust trying to collect
information about what makespeople hopeful or not hopeful at
work.
There's a few differentcomponents of it, right, and
we've already talked aboutseveral of them.
(09:36):
You know, those folks that arenot very hopeful frequently
don't have a lot of agency orcontrol.
They don't have goodrelationships with people.
They don't have the ability toinfluence what they're working
on or when they work or wherethey work.
They don't find a lot ofmeaning in it.
It might be really kind ofadministrative and transactional
in nature.
So I think for all of us thosedifferent components have a
(09:58):
different sequencing andprioritization.
So you know again, I think forthe retail worker, let's say,
that says I don't have anycontrol over my schedule.
One of the things that we'redoing this is not meant to be an
infomercial, but I work for acompany called Infor and we
provide workplace technology.
So we say to those companieswell, why don't you give those
(10:20):
folks some self-service toolswhere they actually have the
ability to go out and request acertain schedule, swap shifts
with people.
You can see whether or not thatperson has the right
credentials to be working thatshift.
You can see if they're going tobe in overtime.
So you can set up rules to sayno, you can't do it or yes, you
can.
But what happens then is theyfeel like they have more control
(10:43):
than they actually do, becausethey have a chance to influence
when they work and where theywork and who they work with.
Maybe they want to work on ashift with somebody they really
like.
So technology, I think, has thepotential to play a role in
this.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
It's really interesting you say this.
Let's go back to last century,when I owned a money management
firm on Wall Street.
I think this was back in.
I owned it from 94 to 04.
So this is probably somewherelike 1999, 2000.
I was when I had got becomeestablished and we were, we were
(11:17):
, we were a good size.
I was doing three day weekendsand I got wind that my employees
were resentful that you knowI'm not working as much as they
are.
And I got that and I really gota benefit out of having that
third day, kind of like just doall the crap you have to do, you
know mop the floor, you knowbrush the dog, that sort of
stuff.
And then the other two days arelike real weekend stuff.
(11:37):
Let's have some fun.
And I thought you know I havethat.
I'd like to give them that intowhat you just said.
You can swap, you can take yourFriday off or whatever day off
you want.
You have to get someone tocover you, so they have to be
qualified, et cetera, just likewhat you're talking about.
And here's the thing that Inever counted on and it was
(11:59):
amazing I got freecross-training.
They train each other and I hadyeah, there was cross-training
with it and I think anyorganization that is looking to
have more people to upskill it'sa really great way to have.
Okay.
Now let's say that you and Iare working together and we do
different jobs, but we kind ofget what we're doing in total.
(12:20):
You want the day off, I wantsome extra money, so you're
going to train me.
Well, now you're my mentor andI'm the mentee.
So now we just had a littlespeed mentorship program, so
that's cool.
You get to feel great thatyou're this expert and you get
to feel good that you justoffered me a kindness.
I get to feel great that, hey,well, now I can get more more
hours because I can do morethings for the organization.
(12:42):
And no one paid a training cost.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Love it.
It sounds like you were aheadof your time with the four day
week all the way back in the 90s.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
It's just because they were angry.
It wasn't that I was reallyforward thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I think there's legs to that, though, Michael.
I think the four-day week hasreal potential because of what
you just described, I think andwho knows what will happen, you
know but the promise of AI tomake humanity 10 times more
productive at work couldeventually mean we don't have to
work five days a week, 40 hoursa week, week 40 hours a week,
(13:24):
because we become so ultraefficient and productive that we
can take Fridays or Mondays orwhatever day of the week and get
some more stuff done.
I could use it, man.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It's funny you say that I've done a lot of work on
the four-day work week and weactually interviewed a.
He was a senator in Californiabut he was from Hawaii, so he
was trying to do legislation,and he basically said that
Americans work seven days a weekuntil the unions came in and
basically the unions inventedthe weekend and he said you know
(13:50):
, our work schedule has notchanged in 80 years.
Yeah, yeah.
It's literally, it's forever.
When he talked about the fourday work week, the data shows
that there is a little bump inproductivity.
So, net-net, you're a littlebit better, because when you are
in the office let's say it'sgoing to be Monday through
Thursday it's heads down, getthe work done and no goof off,
(14:13):
and I'll tell you if I need toget some serious work done.
I got to be home.
I need to be home.
With the phones off, I can't bein the office.
You don't want me in youroffice, because I'm going to
come up to you and be like hey,marcus, how you doing, how's the
weekend?
You're going to be like dude,like you were, like disruptive,
and I am.
But because I likerelationships and I'm like, if
(14:34):
I'm going to be in the office, Iwant to talk to my friends in
the office, but I think there'sthere's something there.
You know, it's really quiteinteresting that there is really
good data that the four-daywork week is helpful.
The trick to it, though, isthat they have to keep the same
salary.
That's right.
That's how the data was done.
I would do it.
I would use it as a competitiveadvantage, especially the
(14:55):
people who the ones that arebeing forced to go back to work,
the ones that are being forcedto go back to work.
We just did a piece on LinkedInthat and this was referencing
some other data that usually ouryounger generations they're
willing to take about a 10% paycut to work remotely, and I'm
thinking diversified workplace.
If the internet goes out in oneplace or there's another COVID,
(15:16):
we're not going to have anybreaks in the productivity.
We've got these people who arealso cross-trained and it's just
a huge benefit and I think itwould be really competitive,
especially to someone who'strying to start a business, if
they're willing to attracttalent and say, look, it's
remote work and it's four daysyou'll have a line out the door,
you will.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I think it's a brilliant concept.
I completely agree with youthat if you're going to ask
people to come into a physicaloffice and you know, use a
carrot and a stick and thecarrot being hey, but you only
have to come four days a week, Ithink that could be significant
.
I just love this whole idea ofthese very traditional 100 year
(15:56):
old workplace norms starting tobe questioned.
I don't know if you've read thebook the 100-Year Life.
No, tell me about it.
It's a really interesting book.
It was actually written like adecade ago almost, so they were
way ahead of their time, likeyou.
Basically, the premise is thisLife has three stages education,
work and retirement.
We all agree to that.
(16:17):
Now, I don't know about you.
You and I may not live to be100, but my daughters probably
will, because of you knowthey're going to live healthier
than their dad, they're going tohave access to better medical
care and they're going to havetheir genes edited so that they
avoid all you know kind ofsickness and disease, but bottom
line is they're going toprobably live longer.
Well, let me ask you a question, that if we live to 100, do
(16:40):
those three stages still makesense.
Well, let me ask you a question, then If we live to 100, do
(17:03):
those three stages still makesense, especially in the?
To stay relevant, I also thinkwe're going to have to work a
lot longer into the futurebecause we're obviously going to
live longer, so we're going toneed more money.
So, anyway it just it begs thequestion why not rethink those
stages, why not rethink allaspects of our working lives?
One of the concepts in the bookwas talking about if we, you
know, re-sequence some of thosestages, maybe in the middle of
(17:26):
your life.
You know, you've heard of theterm of a gap year, right, where
kids come out of school andthey take a gap year and they
backpack around Europe.
I read this book and I said tomy wife I'm going to take a gap
decade.
And she's like what are youtalking about?
Like, well, listen, I can stopworking from 50 to 60.
We can travel the world, we cando anything we want, and then
I'll get another job from 60 to80.
(17:48):
And you know, there's no rules,there's no reason why we can't
do that.
And she's like, yeah, I don'tthink so.
We need health insurance and sothere are prohibitors to this.
I mean, I just love thisconcept of rethinking everything
about work.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Well, I love that and I think there should be a
rethink on retirement.
And I have this really strange,unique experience that when I
had the money management firm, Iretired when I was 36.
Wow, and that was 22 years ago.
And I thought, oh, I'm doinggreat.
And I could not believe howdepressed I got, like seriously
(18:23):
depressed.
I went through 24 differentantidepressant combinations.
You know they give you two,three pills and they tinker five
milligrams here and there andnothing worked.
Until I looked atorthomolecular medicine, which
was basically a food formedicinal function, and that
popped me out of it, you know so, less alcohol, less going out
to restaurants with delicious,unhealthy food, and that popped
me out of it, you know.
So, less alcohol, less goingout to restaurants with
delicious, unhealthy food, andthat popped me out of it.
(18:45):
And what really?
What really worked was goingback to work.
And when I went to Penn andMarty Seligman, the father of
Positive Psych, was my professor, yeah, when we, when I got into
the program on the first day,he like opened it up and he said
um, oh, there's, I read oneperson's essay.
I'm going to have him, like youknow, give you the his three
(19:06):
minute bio.
And it was me and I was like,oh, oh boy.
And so I tell him my, my littlestory, um, and he stops it like
in 30 seconds.
He just reduced me to nothing.
He goes um, yeah, this is verytypical of people that have
early success.
They lose their meaning andpurpose in life and then they
get depressed and I'm like, yeah, that's actually correct.
You just watered me down to onesentence, marty.
(19:28):
Are you serious?
Yeah, I mean, I felt like sotiny, but the funny thing is
it's helped me create a theoryfor retirement.
I will never retire, so what Idid is, when I did go back to
work, it was as a professor,which that's where I belong.
That's my thing.
But I don't want to work toomuch.
I work about three, maybe fourdays a week, but as I get older
(19:49):
I'll bring it down to three, andthen I'll bring it down to two,
then to one, then I'll just becrawling to work.
I'll probably get a wheelchair,I'll pay someone to push me and
then when I'm they retire fromeverything.
And I don't think you're goingto live as long if you retire
(20:12):
without a purpose.
And I think hobbies are great,but a purposeful hobby is
something that really jazzes youup Like my dad goes fishing and
I think you need more than thatLike you know, volunteering or
you know whatever your yoursecond thing is going to be but
what do you think about neverretiring?
We don't have the money to doit anyhow.
The average 401k balance is$45,000 in the US and you need
(20:33):
about 2 million.
So, guess what?
You're going to retire forthree months, and so what do you
think of the concept of justnever retiring?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I completely agree and I've actually seen more and
more come out on that topic inthe media about the idea that
retirement is really unhealthyfor you and an alternative to
retirement would be.
Most of us have some kind ofpassion in our lives and if we
won the lottery tomorrow maybewe would pursue that passion.
(21:02):
But we can't.
What if you decided thatpassion was going to be your
point of existence instead ofretirement, and that could take
the form of a side hustle or apassion project?
But I think what you're goingto see, michael, is retirement
not completely go away, butexactly how you described it.
Instead of going from you know,40 to 50 hours a week down to
(21:25):
nothing, I think you'll see agradual decline in the amount of
activity associated with yourmain hustle and then there will
be more of an investment in yourside hustle, which will
eventually become kind of whatyou spend your time in your
retirement on.
In fact, I'm starting to seemore interest in internal side
(21:45):
hustles.
I'm gainfully employed at thiscompany, but I want to do some
stuff, other stuff.
I'm interested in a lot ofthings.
Can I do a side hustle insideof my company and learn
something new?
And, to your point cross trainand people are starting to
realize that's probably smart.
So I think you're absolutelyspot on.
I think we're going to see aredefinition of the term
(22:08):
retirement for a wide variety ofreasons, including financial,
but I'm never planning to retireeither, which is literally why
I created all of this Hope atWork stuff.
I have no idea what I'm goingto do with it.
I may do nothing with itmonetarily and simply just make
it my passion project.
Who knows, I love that.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I love that and I think it's a great way to close
our podcast.
I have loved this randomconversation that we just had.
It was just really interestingand it's like the whole point of
my podcast.
It's kind of like to your pointthe podcast is my passion
project.
I don't make money off of it.
I don't want to, I don't wantto.
I think money would kind ofmess it up a little bit.
I just really like to have acool conversation and learn
(22:50):
something and if peoplelistening in can come away with
some tidbits.
So in closing, Marcus, whatmessages do you want to leave
the people that were listeningtoday about your work and hope
and ways that you might be ableto make their lives better?
As we sign off and go for abeautiful weekend?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, well, again, I would love for people to visit
the site it's real simple, it'sworkplacehopecom and take the
assessment and it's literallygot 10 questions and then
there's a few demographicquestions just to better
understand who's taken it.
But that would help a lot, youknow, just for us to understand
hope a little bit more youtalked about I didn't realize
that you studied under MartinSeligman.
(23:27):
That's amazing.
You must have learnedincredible things To your point.
Positive psychology has done somuch and it has come so far
since the 1990s.
But hope isn't something thatpeople have spent a lot of time
researching and understanding.
And if we're going to spend themajority of our lives working,
then I think we need to getbetter at understanding what
(23:49):
makes people hopeful at work.
And I do expect there's notgoing to be a one-size-fits-all
magic wand, and that's okay.
There's going to be a lot ofpersonalization, but I think
it's important that we make it apriority.
And the second piece I'llmention, michael, is I think
technology is going to play ahuge role in changing how humans
work, and I'm not trying to beall Pollyanna, no-transcript,
(24:37):
but your attitude is going toplay a big role in whether or
not you embrace that or you fearit.
So I would suggest to peopledon't fear it, embrace it and
see what comes of it.
It's going to be an excitingdecade.
That's the other reason why wecan't retire right.
It's not going to be anexciting decade.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
That's the other reason why we can't retire right
.
It's not going to be boring andyou do not want to be left
behind.
No, marcus, thank you so muchfor being on the show.
I've really appreciated yourinsights and for our listeners.
Thank you for listening.
It's Friday here and we hopeyou have a great weekend and
we'll talk to you soon.
Bye everybody.
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode.
(25:11):
If you'd like to hear futureepisodes, be sure to subscribe
to the happy at work podcast andleave us a review with your
thoughts.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Are you interested in speaking on a future episode or
want to collaborate with us?
Let us know.
You can send us an email atadmin at happy at work
podcastcom.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Send us an email at admin at happyatworkpodcastcom
and lastly, follow us onLinkedIn or Twitter for even
more happiness.
See you soon.
Welcome back for another episode of the Happy at
Work podcast with Laura Tessaand Michael.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Each week we have thoughtful conversations with
leaders, founders and authorsabout happiness at work.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Tune in each Thursday for a new conversation.
Enjoy the show.
Welcome to the Happy at Workpodcast.
Hi, my name is Michael McCarthy.
(00:42):
Our guest today is MarcusMossberger, future of work
strategist and an expert at hope.
Marcus, welcome to the show.
Thanks, michael, appreciate youhaving me, so I'm curious.
I see that you're focusing aton on hope in the workplace.
It's a really interestingintersection.
Why?
Why does hope at work matter?
(01:04):
And initially, tell us a littlebit about your background, how
you got to seeing that hope isreally important, and then we'll
dig into those details.
So tell us about you.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
It's all really related, actually, and I
wouldn't know.
I don't know if I would saythat I'm an expert at hope.
What I am is extremelypassionate about it, and that
came from a class that I took atthe University of Kansas back
in the 90s, the 1990s I'm datingmyself already, michael Last
century.
Me too.
I was there, all right good.
So I went to the University ofKansas and one of the classes
(01:36):
that I took while I was therewas the psychology of hope, and
it was taught by Rick Snyder,who I didn't know at the time,
was like the guru of hope.
He literally wrote the book thePsychology of Hope and I
absolutely fell in love with it.
And for me, I realized that hopefor a lot of people, if you
think about it in Maslow'shierarchy of needs the base of
(01:58):
that pyramid, the basics thatyou need, like air and water and
food I think hope is moreimportant than those things,
because if you don't have it,nothing else matters.
So I realized how important itwas, and then I started getting
an interest in the world of work.
So I decided to study humanresources, I went into the field
(02:18):
, I got into HR technology and Ikind of forgot about it
honestly for a while, michael,and a few years ago I decided to
dust it off, and I kind offorgot about it honestly for a
while, michael, and a few yearsago I decided to dust it off,
and the reason for that is and Ithink you'll relate to this, I
think most people will relate tothis, michael we spend the
majority of our lives as humansworking, and most people don't
(02:39):
have an incredibly positiveassociation with the world of
work, and I don't like that.
I don't think that's the way itshould be.
I think we should enjoy ourwork, I think we should find
meaning in it, I think we shouldbe good at it, I think we
should be able to establishauthentic relationships, I think
we should have control over ourlives at work, and so I decided
(03:00):
to resurface this interest inhope.
So I started a newsletter and apodcast and I created a
workplace hope assessment.
No idea what I'm going to dowith any of this stuff other
than make it a topic ofdiscussion, because I think we
should talk about it.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
You know what I love about this?
It reminds me when I wasstudying positive psychology at
Penn, I had the opportunity tolearn under Dr Martin Seligman,
the father of positivepsychology, one of his first
experiments he ever did, whichnow, by the way, is unethical
and you could never do it again.
It was using dogs and it wasbasically showing them.
(03:37):
They were shocking dogs.
That's why you can't do itagain.
But basically they wereshocking them where they would
stop trying to do things, andeven when they could, like, get
out of their box or, you know,go for the food or jump over the
wall, they wouldn't do it.
And when it comes to work, itjust gave me the idea.
Do you think that if peopledon't have hope, they won't try?
Speaker 1 (03:59):
Absolutely.
I think it's just like thatexperiment that you mentioned,
where they're like what's thepoint?
And the reason that I thinkthat's important.
And let me maybe start, michael, by giving you kind of my
definition of hope in thecontext of the workplace.
It's the active belief in abetter future, and that's pretty
nebulous.
(04:19):
Admittedly, that was purposeful.
But I want to point out twothings.
Number one it's an activebelief.
There's a difference betweenhope and optimism.
Optimism is like, hey, thingsare going to get better, but I'm
not going to do anything aboutit, I'm just maybe things will
get better.
Hope is actually taking someresponsibility, some agency,
some control, and saying, hey,I'm going to make it better.
(04:39):
So it's active.
And then the better futurepiece is really important.
It's funny when you ask peoplewhy they leave organizations.
Yes, they talk about money, yes, they talk about their manager,
but I think, for the most part,if you look at the data,
especially over the last decade,the number one reason is I
don't have anything to lookforward to here, and it's not
just like a career advancementor a huge raise.
(05:01):
It's like I want to do more.
I want to do somethinginteresting.
The next generation inparticular, I think, is really
looking for purposeful,meaningful work.
They're willing to forego bigtitles and compensation.
They also want flexibility,right.
So I think when people don'tsee something to look forward to
, they're just like those dogsin the experiment they just stop
(05:21):
trying.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
It's funny, you say that I was a professor at two
different schools and so I lovethe Harvard job because it just
makes me work harder and harder.
The other school was near myhouse and they paid well and
they were nice to me, I had alot of autonomy, but then I got
a micromanager and my autonomywent away and I didn't see a
(05:46):
future.
I was like I literally I didn'thave hope.
I was like there is no tomorrowis going to be a better day,
because I just felt like I wasjust being so micromanaged and
controlled and so I guess Ireally left because I didn't
feel like I had a hopeful futureand I didn't.
Everything was prescribed.
It was almost like reading offa script.
They were giving me slides toteach in class.
(06:06):
I was like are you kidding?
So yeah, I agree with that.
That was my biggest reason,that I just didn't see that
tomorrow would be better thantoday with the way that the
workplace had changed.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, it's interesting to hear you say that
too.
I think one of the mostfascinating topics associated
with hope in my mind is theconcept of agency or control,
and feeling like you havecontrol over your life.
And it sounds like in thatscenario that you just mentioned
, you felt like you lost alittle bit of that control and
they were like here, here's someslides for you to teach from.
We don't want you to actuallycreate your own content or, you
(06:39):
know, bring things to the classthat you've created yourself,
and we see that a lot in theworkplace.
You know, look at like retailemployees.
They don't even have controlover their schedule, michael.
They can't even decide what dayof the week they're going to
work, let alone the actual tasksthat they're doing and the job
that they have.
They have little to no controlover that too.
(07:00):
So I think that's an importantpiece.
And then another that you kindof alluded to.
You've talked about Seligman.
I love his PERMA model.
In fact, it's kind of bakedinto my workplace assessment
that I created.
But the R in PERMA isrelationships, isn't it?
And again, I think it's anotherimportant point to make when I
mentioned earlier that we spendthe majority of our lives
working.
(07:20):
That means these relationshipsthat we forge at work are really
important.
I read somewhere I can'tremember where it was, it was
recent and it said yourrelationship with your manager
has more of an impact on yourmental health than your
relationship with your spouse.
I don't know if that's true ornot, but it's important, and so
your relationship with yourmanager obviously took a
(07:43):
negative turn, and that impactedyour perception of your future.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
What you're quoting is correct and it was coming
from I believe it was comingfrom a derivation of data from
Gallup, and Gallup had said that70% of how you feel about work
is coming from your manager andover 50% of managers are burned
out and, like 65%, are lookingfor jobs, so they're not in a
(08:09):
good spot.
So that is basically justtrickling down into the
organization with that impact.
Sure, it's going to be morethan your spouse or your kid,
because you spend so much timeand when you're not at work,
work's rattling around in yourhead If it's, if it's bad stuff.
I remember when I quit my myjob a few months ago and I was
uh, well, I was kind ofscreaming at the dean I
shouldn't have done that, but itmade the hijack and as I was
(08:34):
screaming I have nopsychological safety here which
was sort of fun.
I was like you know, I'm tiredof you being in my head for six
hours after I've left this placeand she just looked at me like
wow, I can't believe.
Like she seemed surprised and Iwasn't exaggerating.
I mean, you know, when you havea problem, you know it can
rattle in your head for a long,long time, and so I think that
(08:57):
the mental health benefits.
But it reminds me to get backto hope.
What do you do with people whohave a job like you just
described?
I have zero agency.
You're telling me when I'mhaving my bathroom breaks, when
I'm coming to work.
How do they get hope when theyhave so little autonomy?
Any hope for them?
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, it's a great question.
I think it's quite personalactually, when I put together
the workplace hope assessmentwhich anybody can go out there
and take, and I don't ask foranybody's demographic data or
any kind of information, I'mjust trying to collect
information about what makespeople hopeful or not hopeful at
work.
There's a few differentcomponents of it, right, and
we've already talked aboutseveral of them.
(09:36):
You know, those folks that arenot very hopeful frequently
don't have a lot of agency orcontrol.
They don't have goodrelationships with people.
They don't have the ability toinfluence what they're working
on or when they work or wherethey work.
They don't find a lot ofmeaning in it.
It might be really kind ofadministrative and transactional
in nature.
So I think for all of us thosedifferent components have a
(09:58):
different sequencing andprioritization.
So you know again, I think forthe retail worker, let's say,
that says I don't have anycontrol over my schedule.
One of the things that we'redoing this is not meant to be an
infomercial, but I work for acompany called Infor and we
provide workplace technology.
So we say to those companieswell, why don't you give those
(10:20):
folks some self-service toolswhere they actually have the
ability to go out and request acertain schedule, swap shifts
with people.
You can see whether or not thatperson has the right
credentials to be working thatshift.
You can see if they're going tobe in overtime.
So you can set up rules to sayno, you can't do it or yes, you
can.
But what happens then is theyfeel like they have more control
(10:43):
than they actually do, becausethey have a chance to influence
when they work and where theywork and who they work with.
Maybe they want to work on ashift with somebody they really
like.
So technology, I think, has thepotential to play a role in
this.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
It's really interesting you say this.
Let's go back to last century,when I owned a money management
firm on Wall Street.
I think this was back in.
I owned it from 94 to 04.
So this is probably somewherelike 1999, 2000.
I was when I had got becomeestablished and we were, we were
(11:17):
, we were a good size.
I was doing three day weekendsand I got wind that my employees
were resentful that you knowI'm not working as much as they
are.
And I got that and I really gota benefit out of having that
third day, kind of like just doall the crap you have to do, you
know mop the floor, you knowbrush the dog, that sort of
stuff.
And then the other two days arelike real weekend stuff.
(11:37):
Let's have some fun.
And I thought you know I havethat.
I'd like to give them that intowhat you just said.
You can swap, you can take yourFriday off or whatever day off
you want.
You have to get someone tocover you, so they have to be
qualified, et cetera, just likewhat you're talking about.
And here's the thing that Inever counted on and it was
(11:59):
amazing I got freecross-training.
They train each other and I hadyeah, there was cross-training
with it and I think anyorganization that is looking to
have more people to upskill it'sa really great way to have.
Okay.
Now let's say that you and Iare working together and we do
different jobs, but we kind ofget what we're doing in total.
(12:20):
You want the day off, I wantsome extra money, so you're
going to train me.
Well, now you're my mentor andI'm the mentee.
So now we just had a littlespeed mentorship program, so
that's cool.
You get to feel great thatyou're this expert and you get
to feel good that you justoffered me a kindness.
I get to feel great that, hey,well, now I can get more more
hours because I can do morethings for the organization.
(12:42):
And no one paid a training cost.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Love it.
It sounds like you were aheadof your time with the four day
week all the way back in the 90s.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
It's just because they were angry.
It wasn't that I was reallyforward thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
I think there's legs to that, though, Michael.
I think the four-day week hasreal potential because of what
you just described, I think andwho knows what will happen, you
know but the promise of AI tomake humanity 10 times more
productive at work couldeventually mean we don't have to
work five days a week, 40 hoursa week, week 40 hours a week,
(13:24):
because we become so ultraefficient and productive that we
can take Fridays or Mondays orwhatever day of the week and get
some more stuff done.
I could use it, man.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It's funny you say that I've done a lot of work on
the four-day work week and weactually interviewed a.
He was a senator in Californiabut he was from Hawaii, so he
was trying to do legislation,and he basically said that
Americans work seven days a weekuntil the unions came in and
basically the unions inventedthe weekend and he said you know
(13:50):
, our work schedule has notchanged in 80 years.
Yeah, yeah.
It's literally, it's forever.
When he talked about the fourday work week, the data shows
that there is a little bump inproductivity.
So, net-net, you're a littlebit better, because when you are
in the office let's say it'sgoing to be Monday through
Thursday it's heads down, getthe work done and no goof off,
(14:13):
and I'll tell you if I need toget some serious work done.
I got to be home.
I need to be home.
With the phones off, I can't bein the office.
You don't want me in youroffice, because I'm going to
come up to you and be like hey,marcus, how you doing, how's the
weekend?
You're going to be like dude,like you were, like disruptive,
and I am.
But because I likerelationships and I'm like, if
(14:34):
I'm going to be in the office, Iwant to talk to my friends in
the office, but I think there'sthere's something there.
You know, it's really quiteinteresting that there is really
good data that the four-daywork week is helpful.
The trick to it, though, isthat they have to keep the same
salary.
That's right.
That's how the data was done.
I would do it.
I would use it as a competitiveadvantage, especially the
(14:55):
people who the ones that arebeing forced to go back to work,
the ones that are being forcedto go back to work.
We just did a piece on LinkedInthat and this was referencing
some other data that usually ouryounger generations they're
willing to take about a 10% paycut to work remotely, and I'm
thinking diversified workplace.
If the internet goes out in oneplace or there's another COVID,
(15:16):
we're not going to have anybreaks in the productivity.
We've got these people who arealso cross-trained and it's just
a huge benefit and I think itwould be really competitive,
especially to someone who'strying to start a business, if
they're willing to attracttalent and say, look, it's
remote work and it's four daysyou'll have a line out the door,
you will.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
I think it's a brilliant concept.
I completely agree with youthat if you're going to ask
people to come into a physicaloffice and you know, use a
carrot and a stick and thecarrot being hey, but you only
have to come four days a week, Ithink that could be significant
.
I just love this whole idea ofthese very traditional 100 year
(15:56):
old workplace norms starting tobe questioned.
I don't know if you've read thebook the 100-Year Life.
No, tell me about it.
It's a really interesting book.
It was actually written like adecade ago almost, so they were
way ahead of their time, likeyou.
Basically, the premise is thisLife has three stages education,
work and retirement.
We all agree to that.
(16:17):
Now, I don't know about you.
You and I may not live to be100, but my daughters probably
will, because of you knowthey're going to live healthier
than their dad, they're going tohave access to better medical
care and they're going to havetheir genes edited so that they
avoid all you know kind ofsickness and disease, but bottom
line is they're going toprobably live longer.
Well, let me ask you a question, that if we live to 100, do
(16:40):
those three stages still makesense.
Well, let me ask you a question, then If we live to 100, do
(17:03):
those three stages still makesense, especially in the?
To stay relevant, I also thinkwe're going to have to work a
lot longer into the futurebecause we're obviously going to
live longer, so we're going toneed more money.
So, anyway it just it begs thequestion why not rethink those
stages, why not rethink allaspects of our working lives?
One of the concepts in the bookwas talking about if we, you
know, re-sequence some of thosestages, maybe in the middle of
(17:26):
your life.
You know, you've heard of theterm of a gap year, right, where
kids come out of school andthey take a gap year and they
backpack around Europe.
I read this book and I said tomy wife I'm going to take a gap
decade.
And she's like what are youtalking about?
Like, well, listen, I can stopworking from 50 to 60.
We can travel the world, we cando anything we want, and then
I'll get another job from 60 to80.
(17:48):
And you know, there's no rules,there's no reason why we can't
do that.
And she's like, yeah, I don'tthink so.
We need health insurance and sothere are prohibitors to this.
I mean, I just love thisconcept of rethinking everything
about work.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Well, I love that and I think there should be a
rethink on retirement.
And I have this really strange,unique experience that when I
had the money management firm, Iretired when I was 36.
Wow, and that was 22 years ago.
And I thought, oh, I'm doinggreat.
And I could not believe howdepressed I got, like seriously
(18:23):
depressed.
I went through 24 differentantidepressant combinations.
You know they give you two,three pills and they tinker five
milligrams here and there andnothing worked.
Until I looked atorthomolecular medicine, which
was basically a food formedicinal function, and that
popped me out of it, you know so, less alcohol, less going out
to restaurants with delicious,unhealthy food, and that popped
me out of it, you know.
So, less alcohol, less goingout to restaurants with
delicious, unhealthy food, andthat popped me out of it.
(18:45):
And what really?
What really worked was goingback to work.
And when I went to Penn andMarty Seligman, the father of
Positive Psych, was my professor, yeah, when we, when I got into
the program on the first day,he like opened it up and he said
um, oh, there's, I read oneperson's essay.
I'm going to have him, like youknow, give you the his three
(19:06):
minute bio.
And it was me and I was like,oh, oh boy.
And so I tell him my, my littlestory, um, and he stops it like
in 30 seconds.
He just reduced me to nothing.
He goes um, yeah, this is verytypical of people that have
early success.
They lose their meaning andpurpose in life and then they
get depressed and I'm like, yeah, that's actually correct.
You just watered me down to onesentence, marty.
(19:28):
Are you serious?
Yeah, I mean, I felt like sotiny, but the funny thing is
it's helped me create a theoryfor retirement.
I will never retire, so what Idid is, when I did go back to
work, it was as a professor,which that's where I belong.
That's my thing.
But I don't want to work toomuch.
I work about three, maybe fourdays a week, but as I get older
(19:49):
I'll bring it down to three, andthen I'll bring it down to two,
then to one, then I'll just becrawling to work.
I'll probably get a wheelchair,I'll pay someone to push me and
then when I'm they retire fromeverything.
And I don't think you're goingto live as long if you retire
(20:12):
without a purpose.
And I think hobbies are great,but a purposeful hobby is
something that really jazzes youup Like my dad goes fishing and
I think you need more than thatLike you know, volunteering or
you know whatever your yoursecond thing is going to be but
what do you think about neverretiring?
We don't have the money to doit anyhow.
The average 401k balance is$45,000 in the US and you need
(20:33):
about 2 million.
So, guess what?
You're going to retire forthree months, and so what do you
think of the concept of justnever retiring?
Speaker 1 (20:42):
I completely agree and I've actually seen more and
more come out on that topic inthe media about the idea that
retirement is really unhealthyfor you and an alternative to
retirement would be.
Most of us have some kind ofpassion in our lives and if we
won the lottery tomorrow maybewe would pursue that passion.
(21:02):
But we can't.
What if you decided thatpassion was going to be your
point of existence instead ofretirement, and that could take
the form of a side hustle or apassion project?
But I think what you're goingto see, michael, is retirement
not completely go away, butexactly how you described it.
Instead of going from you know,40 to 50 hours a week down to
(21:25):
nothing, I think you'll see agradual decline in the amount of
activity associated with yourmain hustle and then there will
be more of an investment in yourside hustle, which will
eventually become kind of whatyou spend your time in your
retirement on.
In fact, I'm starting to seemore interest in internal side
(21:45):
hustles.
I'm gainfully employed at thiscompany, but I want to do some
stuff, other stuff.
I'm interested in a lot ofthings.
Can I do a side hustle insideof my company and learn
something new?
And, to your point cross trainand people are starting to
realize that's probably smart.
So I think you're absolutelyspot on.
I think we're going to see aredefinition of the term
(22:08):
retirement for a wide variety ofreasons, including financial,
but I'm never planning to retireeither, which is literally why
I created all of this Hope atWork stuff.
I have no idea what I'm goingto do with it.
I may do nothing with itmonetarily and simply just make
it my passion project.
Who knows, I love that.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I love that and I think it's a great way to close
our podcast.
I have loved this randomconversation that we just had.
It was just really interestingand it's like the whole point of
my podcast.
It's kind of like to your pointthe podcast is my passion
project.
I don't make money off of it.
I don't want to, I don't wantto.
I think money would kind ofmess it up a little bit.
I just really like to have acool conversation and learn
(22:50):
something and if peoplelistening in can come away with
some tidbits.
So in closing, Marcus, whatmessages do you want to leave
the people that were listeningtoday about your work and hope
and ways that you might be ableto make their lives better?
As we sign off and go for abeautiful weekend?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Yeah, well, again, I would love for people to visit
the site it's real simple, it'sworkplacehopecom and take the
assessment and it's literallygot 10 questions and then
there's a few demographicquestions just to better
understand who's taken it.
But that would help a lot, youknow, just for us to understand
hope a little bit more youtalked about I didn't realize
that you studied under MartinSeligman.
(23:27):
That's amazing.
You must have learnedincredible things To your point.
Positive psychology has done somuch and it has come so far
since the 1990s.
But hope isn't something thatpeople have spent a lot of time
researching and understanding.
And if we're going to spend themajority of our lives working,
then I think we need to getbetter at understanding what
(23:49):
makes people hopeful at work.
And I do expect there's notgoing to be a one-size-fits-all
magic wand, and that's okay.
There's going to be a lot ofpersonalization, but I think
it's important that we make it apriority.
And the second piece I'llmention, michael, is I think
technology is going to play ahuge role in changing how humans
work, and I'm not trying to beall Pollyanna, no-transcript,
(24:37):
but your attitude is going toplay a big role in whether or
not you embrace that or you fearit.
So I would suggest to peopledon't fear it, embrace it and
see what comes of it.
It's going to be an excitingdecade.
That's the other reason why wecan't retire right.
It's not going to be anexciting decade.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
That's the other reason why we can't retire right
.
It's not going to be boring andyou do not want to be left
behind.
No, marcus, thank you so muchfor being on the show.
I've really appreciated yourinsights and for our listeners.
Thank you for listening.
It's Friday here and we hopeyou have a great weekend and
we'll talk to you soon.
Bye everybody.
We hope you've enjoyed thisepisode.
(25:11):
If you'd like to hear futureepisodes, be sure to subscribe
to the happy at work podcast andleave us a review with your
thoughts.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Are you interested in speaking on a future episode or
want to collaborate with us?
Let us know.
You can send us an email atadmin at happy at work
podcastcom.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Send us an email at admin at happyatworkpodcastcom
and lastly, follow us onLinkedIn or Twitter for even
more happiness.
See you soon.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com