Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - YAPClassic: Dan Schawbel Teaches the Art of Talent Stacking
Episode Date: November 30, 2022Building your talent stack can give you a significant competitive advantage and accelerate your career! You don't need to be one of the best at something in order to succeed, because with talent stack...ing you can layer on skills - at various degrees of expertise - and use them together to stand out. This week, Hala’s talking to Dan Schawbel, a researcher and the author of 3 bestselling career books: Back to Human, Promote Yourself, and Me 2.0. Dan also hosts the 5 Questions with Dan Schawbel podcast, where he interviews some of the most successful humans in the world like Richard Branson, Condoleezza Rice, Gary Vaynerchuk, and more. In this episode, you’ll learn how Dan used talent stacking in the HR space to get ahead, why technology is breeding the loneliness epidemic, and why work-life balance is just a myth. You’ll also learn about Dan’s childhood and some of the difficulties he faced in school. Additionally, Dan will dive into the value of continuous learning and turning your pain into power. Topics Include: -Value of experience - Dan’s introduction to the research profession - How research has shaped Dan’s identity - Dan’s struggles with bullying and anxiety as a child - How Dan used his pain to fuel greatness - Dan’s experience working at EMC - Why you should align yourself with brands - Creating your own career - Building a personal brand - Why you should never stop learning new skills - Dan’s unique stack of skills - And other topics… Dan Schawbel is a researcher, career expert, keynote speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. He has led over 60 research studies, surveying over 3 million people in 26 countries. Dan has partnered with brands like Oracle, WeWork, and American Express. His writing has appeared in notable publications like TIME, The Economist, Forbes, and Harvard Business Review. His highly-rated online leadership and management courses have over 155,000 students and he has spoken at conferences such as The New York Times Dealbook Conference and Bloomberg’s Business of Equality Summit. Resources Mentioned: Dan’s Podcast, 5 Questions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/5-questions-with-dan-schawbel/id1401344839 Dan’s Website: https://danschawbel.com/ Dan’s Books: https://danschawbel.com/books/ Dan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danschawbel/ Dan’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danschawbel/?hl=en Dan’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danschawbel/ Dan’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzZPYhfF7HoLTUJoXUHHHvA Sponsored By: Omaha Steaks - Visit OmahaSteaks.com use promo code YAP at checkout to get that EXTRA $30 OFF your order. Shopify - Sign up for a free trial at shopify.com/profiting The Jordan Harbinger Show - Check out jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations Lightstream - Go to lightstream.com/yap and apply now to get a special interest rate discount and save even more More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Join Hala's LinkedIn Masterclass - yapmedia.io/course Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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What's up, yeah fam! Today we're going back in time and we're resurfacing my epic interview with Dan Chow
Bell, New York Times' best-selling author, Workplace Researcher, Career Expert, and
Keynote Speaker.
In this classic episode, you're going to learn how to build your talent stack so you can
gain a significant competitive advantage and accelerate your career.
Skill stacking is something I always talk about and I strongly believe in,
because you don't need to be the best at something in order to succeed.
With talent stacking, you can layer on skills at various degrees of expertise and then
use them together to stand out and win big.
In today's world, the more dynamic and adaptable you are, the better.
Tune into this episode to learn how Dan used talent stacking in the HR space to get ahead,
how technology is breeding what he calls the loneliness epidemic, and why Dan believes
work-life balance is just a myth.
Although this episode was recorded pre-pandemic,
it seems more pertinent than ever.
Before we get started, I did want to ask our loyal listeners
to take a moment and drop us a five-star review on Apple.
We recently hit top 10 in the business category
in the US, Canada, and UK on Apple,
which is an amazing feat.
Help us keep top of the charts by subscribing to Apple if you haven't yet,
and by leaving us an honest written review.
All right, let's dig in right into the main course
enjoying my app classic with career expert, Dan Chouable.
Welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.
So happy to be here with you, Hala.
So to introduce you to my listeners, you are a millennial, Gen Y, and feature work expert.
You might be the youngest bestselling author I've ever interviewed.
You have three bestselling books to be exact.
You have your own podcast, and you've interviewed some of the world's most successful people like Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Warren Buffett, Will I Am, just to name a few. You've written
thousands of articles for Forbes, Time, HBR, and more. And you've won several accolades for all the
things you've achieved at such a young age, such as Forbes, magazines, 30 under 30, and Business
Insiders, 40 under 40. Is there any big accomplishments you want to mention that I may have missed? I think the biggest accomplishment from the work I've done over the past seven years is
51 research studies surveying over 1.3 million people in 25 countries. I think that to me
is a big accomplishment because I didn't really have a research background before 2012.
because I didn't really have a research background before 2012.
I got like a B in marketing research in college.
And so I had to figure all that out.
And over the course of doing all this research,
I've been able to link different findings together
to come up with larger conclusions.
And the art of doing has been my greatest compass
to figuring out what I do next and what I take action on. And the art of doing has been my greatest compass
to figuring out what I do next and what I take action on.
So I think that when people try and figure out,
what do they wanna do for their career,
what they're passionate about.
The art of actually doing something or many things
will help guide you.
Yes.
Right, and so I think that just doing one research project,
I didn't know I would enjoy it,
but then I really enjoyed it. So I said, okay, I'm going to make a career out of it. And the first
several studies I did, I didn't even get paid for. And now this has become, you know, the thing I get paid
the most for. And the thing I enjoy the most, I like the speaking, I like the books and everything,
but the core of what I do has become the research.
And I think that that's the thing I'm most proud of. And it's a thing that has made me reflect
the most on that question that everyone asks is how do I find my passion? And it really comes down
to action. It's experience. You learn through experience. And no book is going to help you get there.
Actually doing one thing or many things
and having these experiences and connecting with people,
that's what's gonna put you in the right direction
and there's no replacing experience.
You can't buy experience, you can't replace experience,
there's no trading of experience, you get the experience
and then that helps you decide what to do next.
Totally, I'm totally on the same page
and I definitely have some questions
on experience and talent stacking that I wanna get into.
And I think that your background on research
is what makes you such a compelling author.
A lot of authors, you know, they kind of compile things
from other people, but as I was reading your latest book,
I realized that like, wow, he does a lot of his own research
and it makes your book that much more powerful.
So I'm sure that's why you've accomplished so much and so little time.
Yeah, I'll tell you about the research.
This is really interesting is I got really into research originally in my early 20s because
I was blogging.
I was really into blogging in 2067 And I was putting out current advice, right? And I felt like I could help people
who are my age or younger get internships,
learn how to network, get a job after they graduated,
like because I had those experiences
and I learned a creative way of building my personal brand
and back then or self-marketing as a way to stand out.
You know, I'd bring a CD of portfolio to a job interview
and that would make me stand out.
So little things like that really helped me.
And yet I got so much criticism
because there's a lot of ageism
for both people who are older and people who are younger.
And so people are like, oh, who are you to talk
about all of these ways to achieve career success?
You're so young, you don't know anything.
You have an experience, anything.
And so that's when I said, okay, what do I do?
And I started citing third party research because I wasn't doing my own research at that
point.
And I looked and viewed research as a shield against ageism.
And then in 2012, I had the opportunity to do proprietary research with another company, and that was my entry into realizing,
okay, not only is this research helpful for me,
but now I can, you know, I compare it to being an archaeologist,
I can find the next dinosaur bone.
So like, in a sense, what I've done over the past seven years
with proprietary research that I've led,
is I've been finding a lot of dinosaur bones, right? So it's
even more exciting to me. So I was very early into the burnout crisis. So over a year ago,
I put out a study with a company called Cronos and we discovered that there's a huge burnout crisis
globally and that's been a really big deal. I mean, when I wrote an article about it, Bernie Sanders shared it, and it was a few millions of times.
I was very early into the four day work week trend
and as people are finding out now,
like with Microsoft Japan testing a four day work week
and it increasing productivity of their workforce
and not being a huge in the media,
all of them are at least the biggest outlets,
cited the research study I did over a year ago.
So it's doing my own research has given me a way
of standing out, differentiating, figuring out
what the trends are, and then that ends up leading
to books, presentations, and everything else.
So the research I see is the core because it orchestrates
everything else that I do.
Yeah, so interesting and such a unique career path.
So how old are you exactly now?
36.
Cool.
So still super, super young, so much that you've accomplished.
Let's take it all the way back to your childhood.
When I was doing your research, you know, at Young
and Profiting, I have a whole research team
and we tend to study our guests.
I found out that you were bullied a lot growing up. You've told stories about teachers locking you in a closet.
Your peers used to put you in a locker. You were known as a poorly behaved child, used to always get in trouble.
And in the past, you've said, no one comes out of nowhere, you only see their success, not their struggle.
So I don't think anybody would have guessed that you would turn out to be this incredible
adult that you are. You've got such a great image reputation. So tell us about the struggle
that you had before all the success. What was it like growing up for you?
Yeah, I mean, when I was in kindergarten and even first and second grade, I was in trouble every day.
And sometimes when someone says that you think,
oh, you must be exaggerating, but literally,
like, I remember being on the Principle's bench
every single day.
I was just sitting there.
There was no cell phones.
I was saying, I couldn't play games
on the Principle's bench back then.
And I remember the Principle had a three-legged goat.
So that's like a very fun memory because what Principle has a three-legged goat. So that's like a very fun memory because what principal has a three-legged goat? It's so random.
So I was always in trouble. It wasn't because that was a bad person. It was
because you know I had anxiety issues. No one called it anxiety back then. And
that was just could not control myself. So it was all over the place and that's
how you get in trouble, especially back then and you know, created confusion, right? Like one group of people were like,
oh he's weak because he can't control himself. So we'll pick on him and the other group kind of
feared me and wouldn't let me, you know, go over their kids' house, the go over their house because
I was always in trouble. So like in terms of perception, it really, really hurt me back then.
trouble. So like in terms of perception it really really hurt me back then. And then I saw it help and my mom orchestrated this when I was in I think believe it was third grade.
And that really really helped me that therapy really got me out of it. But yeah, always
picked on. And I was really bullied for in a sense I've always been bullied right. I've
had cyber bullying for the past many years. But but back then, you know, there wasn't cyberbullying,
and I had to, as you said, I was, you know,
in middle school I was put in a locker.
My teacher put me in a closet.
Yeah.
In elementary school, like things that, you know,
you tell people in their shock with,
especially current generations. I mean, for teachers who do anything like that, you know, you tell people in their shock with, especially current generations.
I mean, for teachers to do anything like that,
they would never fly.
But honestly, my parents' generation,
they would slap and spank students in school.
So I think, in a sense, we've come a long way.
But yeah, it was sort of an interesting childhood
where I was somewhat privileged.
My family wasn't struggling to make ends meet,
but psychologically I was in pain,
not knowing that I was in pain,
and then people not seeing that.
They're just seeing my behavior.
There's something about mental health
where it's like the silent killer.
Totally.
And so how did you take these negative experiences
and use them to kind of fuel yourself and propel yourself into something great.
I think it was a great motivator, right?
You know, if people beat down your self-esteem for so many years, you just need to find an outlet to reclaim the self-esteem.
And for all of my 20s, it was the need for validation. So a lot of that recognition that you have talked about
is because of this need and desire to get recognition
to validate me as a person in order to prove other people wrong.
And a lot of people fall into this, right?
A lot of people who have come out being bullied,
I mean they become very big success stories
because they're trying to find a way to prove to themselves that they're worthy. people who have come out being bullied, I mean they become very big success stories because
they're trying to find a way to prove to themselves that they're worthy.
And so I had to go through all of my 20s to do that.
And so once I stepped into my 30s, I kind of moved away from that.
Like if I don't win another award anyway, like I don't, I'm more detached from a lot of
those things now, which has been much healthier,
but I needed all of my 20s to counter my whole childhood.
Yeah.
That's how much bullying I put up with
and I needed a decade of my life to counter it.
And I only realized that now, right?
Like it's taken me years to reflect.
I didn't even come to the conclusion
that I suffered from anxiety,
even though it might have been obvious more than like a year and a half ago.
Yeah, and it just goes to show how something negative can actually turn into a positive,
and you can use any struggle that you've been through to kind of push you to accomplish things.
I mean, I'm the same way.
I always do my best when I have something to prove. When I'm
trying to prove to someone else that I can do something, all my successes come off the heels of
rejection many times. So I could totally relate. Let's talk about your career journey. You started
out at EMC, which is a computer company, correct? Yeah, storage services solutions. Yeah, and they own VMware.
Yeah.
Dell owns them now.
They bought them for billions of dollars several years ago.
So big company, when I was working for them,
it was about 42,000 employees globally.
Yes.
So tell us about this experience at your first job
because I think you played it quite uniquely.
Yeah, I mean, getting the job was very unique.
I interviewed with 15 people for three positions
over eight months.
And during the last set of interviews, this guy,
I think his name is David.
We sat down, he looked at my resume,
his eyes lanced down and they stopped at Reebok.
And this was like a big defining moment for me
because I had gotten almost no experience at Reebok. I mean, I was an intern at Reebok. And this was like a big defining moment for me, because I had gotten almost no experience at Reebok.
I mean, I was an intern at Reebok
where I got course credit, $0,
and a D-Dest bought them that summer.
I reported to a director originally,
I was a manager, but he moved to a different group,
and I didn't learn anything.
I didn't really do anything to be honest.
And yet, his eyes looked at Reebok
and disregarded the great experiences
I had at other companies. And to me, that moment said, wow, brands are important. I need
to care about brands. I need to align myself with brands and brands has to be a huge part
of my future. That was huge for me. And so a lot of what you've seen over the course
of my career has focused on brands. Every
sentence of my bio, anytime I make a decision of who to partner with,
everything revolves around brands. Brands are important, they've knattered,
brands open doors, right? And through associating yourself with brands, you become
more credible. For instance, here's the logic. If you don't know me, you might not
want a partner or do business with me or hire me,
but if you see that I'm aligned to a brand you recognize through that brand association,
you're more likely to want to connect with me and trust me. And so basically, I think a career
or a business is built on the elimination of risk. So if you see brands on my resume,
I have now eliminated perceived risk in your eyes.
So you're more likely to take a chance on me.
So your goal is how do I eliminate as much risk
from people working with me throughout my career as possible?
So I'm more likely to get opportunities.
Because that's really what all of this comes down to.
If you want to start a business,
eliminate risk by generating revenue, getting
customers, having a partnership with a brand that people are familiar with.
You're more likely to get an investment, you're more likely to grow once you have that
because you've eliminated risks.
So I think that a lot of people are talking about growth and everything else, but I think
in what I believe to my whole career is the most successful careers
and businesses are built by eliminating as much risk
as possible.
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You mentioned a lot of really fascinating things.
Something that you've said in the past is that you should create your own career instead
of letting your company do it for you.
So tell us about how you navigated your career within that company and the things you did
to stand out at EMC?
Okay, well the first thing I did to stand out in my first role at the company in the marketing department was
The head of marketing said everyone needs to create their own marketing plans
so I had created marketing plans before I started work at the company. I did it for Lycos
I did it for a small promotional company around where I lived and
I said, okay, I'm going to do everyone's marketing plan. And like, I'm going to miss a lot of work, right? I think it was like 30 to 50 pages per plan
and per group. And I just did everyone's marketing plan. And in the moment, I knew this was going
to contribute value and be a good thing, and I enjoyed doing it. Really, what I was doing
was creating job security and a stronger network and support system doing it. Really, what I was doing was creating job security
and a stronger network and support system in the company.
You're not gonna fire the cheap employee
that's doing all this additional work
and making people's lives better within your department.
Like that person's protected, that person, you know,
as long as the teammates are nice people
is gonna be protected and supported within the organization.
So I look back and I was like, that was really smart.
The other thing I did as part of the first job
into the second job at the company was I became a six sigma green belt.
Now, the reason why this was a strategic move is because GE created six sigma
was the first company to adopt it.
And EMC was like, okay, we like with GE's doing,
we're gonna adopt it as well.
We're gonna teach courses on being a green belt black belt.
And Six Sigma is about process improvement.
They teach you a formulating way of doing that.
And so I raised my hand,
like because they EMC wanted every department
to have green belts and black belts.
So I was like, okay, I'll be a green belt at 20,
I don't know, three years old. And it was like, okay, I'll be a green belt at 23 years old.
And it was a tough process, a lot of training.
And I actually did a black belt project for my green belt.
So a black belt project is something that happens
more cross-functionally.
It's much more complex and time-consuming.
And I didn't even know.
It just kind of blew up to be a bigger project.
And through that project, I was able to connect
with people outside my groove, form strong relationships,
and represent the team and department better,
even though I was the youngest person in the department.
Now I was fulfilling something that the company wanted
and made the senior director of marketing look good
as a result.
So that was another smart thing.
And then the smartest thing I did without really knowing the implications was outside of
work on nights and weekends, I spent, God knows how many, like let's say at least 50
hours outside of a 50 hour full-time job on building my personal brand back then it called
the self-marketing.
So 12 blog posts a week, you know, posting on social networks,
just really getting myself out there.
And then fast-compining profiled me six months in,
and EMC got wind of it,
and hired me to be the first social media person
in the company's history.
And one of the first ever truly corporate social media
people back in 2007.
Wow.
And then basically, that was all inspired by an article
written by Tom Peters, 10 years before,
called The Brain Called You, which is a reason why
Fast Company Magazine exists today.
It was on the cover of The Brain Called You.
And in that article, a lot of people were empowered
by reading the article.
It was one part of it that really called out to me
that was fascinating.
It said something like, you have to be the chief marketing officer for the brand called
you, build me Inc.
And then it went on to say, the smartest people within an organization would create their
own unique rules.
And what happened to me, intentionally, unintentionally, was I was able to create my own unique role.
I literally wrote a job description as a 23 or 24 year old within a Fortune Tourner company.
So I was able to do that.
And when that happened, I felt like I fulfilled my destiny.
And I was so inspired by those events occurring
that that's what influenced me to write Me 2.0,
which is my first book that came out in April, 2009.
Very cool.
These are awesome, awesome tips for anybody looking
to climb the corporate ladder.
I especially love your point about building
a personal brand on the side.
When you're in a corporate company,
if you have social media weight of any sort,
it really helps.
Like, for example, I'm probably the most popular person
in my whole company on LinkedIn,
and all the executives know me because of it,
and it really helps you stand out
and helps you become an expert in another way
when people look towards digital advice and things like that.
There's a big drawback though,
and this is one of the things I didn't anticipate
when I had this role.
So I was managing at EMC, EMC on Facebook, all the original social accounts.
But at the same time, what I would do is I would schedule tweets, for instance, on my
personal account throughout the day, because I wanted to maintain a presence, even though
I couldn't really use my personal account at work.
But the problem was other employees...
Perspective, yeah. Other employees said, Oh my God, why is Dan tweeting all this
amount? You should be doing work. And so there was a level of jealousy because I
had this prominent role within the company, even though it was young. And, and
people were trying to sabotage me internally. Yes, I faced that at first. And then I
think people realize that there's things called automation, there's things called interns and it died down. But I
agree, it can be a challenge. And you definitely have to have a
company that has a forward thinking culture and is supportive.
So let's go back to what you had mentioned in the beginning of our
conversation about all the experiences that you've had. You say
a career is no longer a race up the ladder,
it's a collection of experiences,
and those who have experienced the most
have a competitive advantage compared
to those who remain stagnant.
So how often do you think that we should be changing
up our careers?
Well, people have three to six careers in their lifetime,
and about 12 jobs between 18 and 45 years old.
So either you force the change or change happens to you.
It's forced down your throat, right?
So I think that you need to make a decision
to what you keep doing what you're doing
or do you make changes in how you do your work
or who you serve or the skills that you have.
And I think that now more than ever before,
the lifespan of a learned skill is like four to five years.
So more regularly, we have to continue to learn and upscale
and practice lifelong learning, right?
And I think that if you shut yourself off
to learning something new or hearing someone's ideas
and thoughts or reading, you're making a huge mistake.
And I've
done a lot of work on upscaling over the past few years on artificial
intelligence and all these things and what everything is telling me is being
more human on a year-to-year basis is going to be more valuable than hard
skills because hard skills will continue to be automated thus driving the demand for the
soft skills to be able to communicate and function as people. So the answer to artificial intelligence
is humanity. And there's no question that humans are going to be working with humans and humans
are going to be working with robots in the future. And so understanding artificial intelligence,
understanding all these new technologies is valuable because you're gonna have to man them, right?
You're gonna have to work together with the machines. Yeah.
But the machines are gonna be doing the stuff, the technical work that used to do and so it will free you up time to do
things that are high impact and those things are re-trivened by your soft-slash human skills.
So that's my big conclusion and to go even further than that,
my biggest conclusion of the year is that
the same technology that has isolated younger generations,
hurting their soft skills,
is driving the demand for those same soft skills
by automating hard slash technical skills at the same time.
Right, so if you're more isolated growing up
because you're always using this technology,
you're not even leaving your home,
you'd rather text than actually have a face-to-face conversation,
that's hurting your soft skills.
Thus, you're not prepared for the future
where it's only going to be about soft skills.
And I've made that conclusion through tons of research
as I did a whole article on LinkedIn about it.
And I think that's a big concern.
Yeah, that is really interesting.
We'll definitely get into technology and isolation
and how those interplay.
I wanna mention just really quick,
I wanna talk about talent stacking.
So a lot of the writing that I read in your latest book
Back to Human reminded me of something
that Dilbert Cartoonist Scott Adams
discussed in episode number 38. And he talks about town stacking where you basically just like take
different skills from your various experiences and you can merge them into something new. So for him,
he was like a decent drawer, a good writer and had enterprise corporate experience. And then he
just merged those skills together and became like, you know, the most famous cartoonist in the world. So I want to know, what do you think your talent
stack is? Like, what skills did you put together to become, you know, the best-selling author that you
are? You're very smart to ask this question. In fact, when you mentioned it earlier, I'm like,
I hope she brings this up again because the biggest difference between how I view myself and my career
when I was younger versus now is that back in the day
when I was focused on personal branding,
my conclusion was you have to be the best
of what you do for a specific audience, right?
Take a niche and own it.
That was how I thought I had built my career.
Yet now in hindsight, what I actually did
was create a talent stack. I was
successful. I stood out because of a lot of different skills that when combined
gave me differentiation in competitive advantage. And so I think it's this
combination of marketing research, communication, through writing, through
presentations, et cetera, with branding, with social media skills,
with the ability to do network, all of this combined has made me very, very unique in the marketplace.
And what I did was I took a skill, or a set of skills that were scarce in HR and brought them to HR. So a lot of the skills I have are very common
in the marketing world, but not common in the HR world.
So I could have, and I had a choice to stay in the marketing world.
I could have been, you know, some sort of marketing guru
or worked as a CMO at a company,
but because I took those skills and brought them into HR,
I had a skill set that was very rare in HR,
so I was able to stand out and grow faster.
Mm.
See, I just think this is such an important lesson.
Everybody thinks they have to be the best at everything.
And it's a common theme that I'm just realizing
as I interview all these super smart, successful people,
they're not the best at what they do.
They're really good at multiple things.
They merge it together and create
their own lane and become very successful. And I saw that in you. So that's why. Yeah. No, I don't
think I'm the best at anything I do. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think you're great at what you do. But
I'm not the best. I'm not the best at what I do. It's the collection of all those skills together.
Exactly. Serving in industry where those skills collectively are rare that has made me stand out and shine. Exactly. Yeah.
All right. Cool.
So in your latest book back to
human, if we want to just stick
on skills for a moment, the
third chapter of your book is
called practice shared learning.
And you explain the greatest
challenge for professional
today is staying relevant,
like we just discussed the
average relevancy of a
learned skill is just five years these days.
So it's obviously clear that we need to continually upscale. Could you just explain to us what this
shared learning concept is? Yeah, this ended up being the most popular chapter in the book,
even though I think it's the most simple one to understand. It's like we are better together,
as is really what it comes down to. And so the idea is that in order to keep up with all the changes that are
happening more and more frequently in our industry, in our economy, in our world,
we have to rely on each other and learn and develop through conversations and
supporting each other if we want to succeed and stay relevant in our jobs.
Right. And so the biggest challenge is staying relevant because things are moving fast. Technology doesn't care about our feelings, the economy doesn't care about
our feelings, but we care about our feelings. And so we need to take ownership and realize
that since there's so much information being published on such a regular basis, we have
to rely on each other to be arbiters of our own industries and professions. So for instance, if you're on a team with four other people,
you only have so much time to be able to read
or to have the right skills of things
that you need to know in that instance
or in that year or five years.
But the people around you are also trying
to achieve something similar.
So if you help each other, if you practice this whole thing
of when I learn I share, that's the mantra in the chapter,
then you can all rise up, you can say relevant together,
and just talking to a lot of my friends,
it is really about the peer network.
I mean, the people who are most going to serve you,
the people who are around your age,
who have similar goals, even if they leave your team
or organization, those are really the people
that you will count on, hopefully, in the future.
And I think, especially in today's world,
there's only like 3.5 degrees of separation,
face-to-face, you've got a whole study on this.
And so the world is really small,
and you want to establish good relationships.
And one of the easiest ways to establish relationships
is just by sharing an article.
Literally, like I keep in touch
with some of the more successful people by
just thinking of them when I read an article and sharing the article with them.
Right. So like I'll give you an example.
I'll read an article in the New York Times about, you know, people's technology
habits and I'll share it with Cal Newport because Cal and I both wrote articles
that are similar and different about our overuse and misuse of technology.
And he's going at it from a minimalistic approach,
whereas I'm more of a, you know,
used technology as a driver to human relationships approach,
but it's similar.
So I know he's into that topic
because he wrote a book on it, right?
And so I think that it's these small little acts
of sharing that add up, that keep you in touch with people,
and then that build the relationships.
You know, relationships are built on trust,
but they're also built on giving and sharing
without asking for things.
So if you start sharing,
if you're a leader within an organization,
and you're just sharing and trying to help your team,
you're starting to create a culture
where it's okay to share.
You know, the leaders are the past were the hoarders of information.
The more information you knew that other people did it, the more powerful you would become.
Now that's not the case. It's actually the opposite. The more you share, the more powerful you become.
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Hey, ya fam.
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So, let's talk about fulfillment.
I know you wrote a whole chapter about it in your book and you're kind of alluding to
it now.
Tell us about why fulfillment is so important
when you're trying to drive employee engagement.
Yeah, fulfillment looks at the full picture.
It's actually the word that's getting tossed
around a lot more in organizations now
because it's whole, right?
It's personal and professional.
And since our personal and professional lives
are so intertwined, I believe in work-life integration,
we have to think of fulfillment across the board.
And we spend a third of our lives working,
a third of our lives not working,
and a third of our lives sleeping.
So if we have a bad experience at work,
it's gonna hurt our personal lives.
If we are personal lives as a disaster,
that's gonna affect our work.
And that's why I believe that people
want to bring their full selves into the workplace.
They don't want to be John or Diane, the worker,
and then John or Diane, the parent,
they just want to be them.
And that's why it's important for leaders
to understand what makes people fulfilled,
be fulfilled themselves, and then inspire
the best in other people while serving their needs.
And that will only become more important because it's really about this whole holistic view
of someone's employee experience in life.
Yeah.
And you want them to go home after a work day and say all these great things about their
job and their manager and their company, right?
Again, it's all about storytelling.
The reason why a lot of things happen to our society
and why people make decisions is for the story.
I believe that even some people who sell their companies
or accept a job, some of it is for the story.
I just got a job at Google that story is interesting
to people it's captivating.
It's so true.
For you, working at Disney, you just have to say Disney plus and people are
immediately interested. Yeah. Right? You don't even have to say what you do. You could be an
intern there and they're interested anyways. These are curiosity because of excitement, because
of what the brand means. And again, that goes back to where I was saying about how important
and powerful branding is. Yeah. But I think that the storytelling aspect
of our work lives is very powerful.
And you want to support and lead a culture
where people are telling positive stories about it
because that is a recruiting tool,
that's a retention tool,
and it's just the right thing to do.
Yeah, it's so eye-opening.
You never think of it in terms of stories,
but when you say it, it's so true.
We literally find fulfillment in the fact
that people respect the brand that we work for,
and it does make a good story.
I love that.
Let's talk about work life integration.
You briefly mentioned it.
From my understanding, you believe that work life balance
is a myth now that the days of unplugging
while your home are over. And you argue that work life integration is a more appropriate
concept as companies expect you to work from home and things like that or work
off hours, I should say. So could you tell us more about this work life
integration concept and perhaps provide some tips on how we can facilitate a
better work life integration in our days.
Flexibility is probably the biggest,
or one of the biggest words,
and employee benefits that has been talked about
since I started my whole career.
And it all started when I was working at EMC,
and I interviewed the head of HR for a podcast.
So this is a long time ago. It wasn't called podcast back then. and I interviewed the head of HR for a podcast.
So this is a long time ago,
it wasn't called podcast back then.
For a video, snippet or whatnot.
And he said something that still sticks with me.
He said, if we expect our workforce to do work
outside of the office, then we have to accept
and also accept that they're doing
personal things at
work.
And that's the equipment.
I'm like, huh, there's no nine to five work day, then it's just you're kind of just doing
work, right?
And it's more integrated.
And then I interviewed Richard Brainson three years ago, and I asked him about this and he
said something like, you know, if you have a lot of friends outside of work, you should
have an equal amount of friends at work.
If you have a lot of flexibility outside of work, you should have an equal amount of friends at work. If you have a lot of flexibility outside of work,
you should have the most, the same amount of flexibility at work.
And so basically, there's no difference between work at the office
or outside the office.
It's just work.
And, you know, we've noticed we've kind of gone to this whole nine to five
work day paradigm to, you know, more flexible work week and work life
integration is part of this. And the solution that I pose in the
book is, is to really come to terms with what matters to you
and what are your priorities. Right. So for instance, choose
three goals you have in a certain week, personally and
professionally. And then look at your calendar and make sure
you're putting in time for all of those six goals.
Or just blending your personal and professional life together, such that, let's say, every Monday morning,
you meet with a new friend for coffee. But then between Monday and Tuesday, you have to accomplish
one work call. And then your calendar should reflect the goals you have in a given week.
Right? So everyone says, I live in Dyba of my calendar, if it's not in my calendar, doesn't exist.
And as a result, we need to inject more of our personal lives in our calendar,
because then it fully reflects who we are and what we prioritize in our life.
And so it really is that simple. It is, you know, like our friends do some eye calendar.
I have all these different events I want to go to.
They're in my calendar.
Some are personal events, some are professional events,
others are meeting people for coffee or dinner,
or doing certain projects with certain deadlines.
So it's really owning your calendar
and making sure it reflects everything.
It makes you completely fulfilled.
And it's on you to do that. You know, makes you completely fulfilled. Yeah.
And it's on you to do that.
You can't outsource that.
You have to make sure that it reflects who you are
as a person and as a worker.
Yeah, totally.
And I think that with work, if you're
out of forward thinking company, as long as you get your work
done and you're able to prioritize well and fit everything
and you can, for example, I'm here doing this interview on my lunch hour, but I plan to stay
at the office till 7 p.m. tonight.
You know, so it's like it's a balance and knowing how to accomplish all your key goals,
in my opinion.
Let's talk about the subtitle of your book.
I thought it was really interesting.
The book is called Back to Human.
The subtitle is How Great Leaders Create Connection
in the Age of Isolation.
And I know this is a really hot topic,
isolation at work.
Many workers today feel isolated from their colleagues,
their organizations, and their leaders.
So can you shed some light about the loneliness
epidemic that we're facing in the workplace
and what you believe to be the root causes of that.
Yeah, I think we live in a very lonely society now.
People are spending a lot of time on their phone and the more time you spend on your phone,
the less time you're spending looking or talking to a person in real life or through a phone
call.
It appears that we're more connected, right?
That you can reach out to people in different countries
that you couldn't have 20 years ago.
But at the same time, because we're not getting
the human interaction, we sow crave and desire,
we feel more isolated.
And even in New York City, you could be around so many people,
but no one at the same time, because people are physically
there, but not mentally, emotionally or spiritually.
And loneliness is pretty deadly, right?
It's not something that people are open to talk about yet.
It affects people at an alarming rate, especially men.
And that's what we found.
And if you think about today's world of work, it's more decentralized than ever before.
People are working from all different areas.
And that's a good thing.
People love flexibility.
I call it the light side of flexibility.
The light side of flexibility is the promise through technology
that you can work when, where and how you want.
But back to human reveals the dark side.
The dark side is that if you work remote,
you are alone here.
You feel more isolated.
And the big finding was that if you work remote,
you're much less likely to say you want a long term career
with your company.
So it impacts team and organizational commitment.
If you don't see and hear from someone for a long
and a period of time, you're checked out and you move on.
So it's interesting how it's like this duality.
It's like, it's very beneficial.
Actually, when I interviewed a hundred top young leaders for the book, they call it a
double-edged sword.
On one hand, it's given us incredible benefits.
But at the other hand, it's been pretty harmful without us even realizing how harmful it
is.
And the technology companies are purposely creating these devices and these applications
with addiction in mind.
It's their business model.
We're the product. And we don't It's their business model, we're the product,
and we don't realize it, right, because we're addicted.
And so it's fascinating because we kind of need
these technology for email and to message people
in order to conduct business or a lot of what you've done
to build your personal brand on LinkedIn.
Like if you didn't use a phone, if you didn't have a computer,
like you wouldn't be able to compete on that level.
But at the same time, you could fall into this trap of always using it and thus your human needs are not met because of that.
So even if it accelerates your career inside, you're going to feel very empty and that it'll hurt your whole life, which will then affect your ability to create good work.
Yeah.
So talk to us about some of the stats
when it comes to loneliness.
I want my listeners to really understand
how big of a problem this is,
and maybe even perhaps the cost of loneliness.
Yeah, I mean, in America,
a significant study of 20,000 adults
and found that half are lonely in 40% lack
meaning for relationships.
In the UK, 9 million people are lowly.
200,000 adults haven't spoken to her close friend
or relative in the past month.
They actually have a minister of loneliness,
Mims Davies, to try and solve the problem.
So it's huge there.
America is not doing as good of a job,
but we should, because it's such a big problem here.
And it costs the US about $7 billion a year,
right? Because it's really a productivity hit. If you're feeling lonely, your productivity is
going to sink, you're going to take more sick days. And then that affects the organization's
bottom line and thus it affects the whole economy. Yeah. So you just mentioned that sometimes we
abuse technology. Technology can make us feel isolated.
Can you talk about the misuse of technology in the workplace?
I heard you mention before that one face-to-face conversation is more successful
and effective than 34 back-and-forth emails.
That was like outrageous to me.
Do you have any other examples of the misuse of technology?
Yeah, so we tap touch or swipe our phone over 2,600 times a day.
We look at our phone every 12 minutes.
We set an average of five texts during a meeting.
So we're always using it and overusing it and misusing it.
And like what you just said, it's like, is this really effective?
And the research says no.
The research says that if we're constantly using it, our message isn't getting across.
Like if you have to send 34 emails back and forth
and it's not as successful as a face-to-face conversation,
that shows you that the emails are actually not effective
because you have to send so many emails
to get the same result as one conversation.
Yeah.
So I think that you see all these leaders
and their teams in meetings
looking at their cell phones. This is very common. And if you're not present, then you're
not showing respect to people who are speaking during a meeting, you're distracted, meaning
is a longar, and you just don't have the same outcome as teams that are not using technology
during meetings are
attentive or brainstorming have a clear goal and therefore we'll get a better
result because they're maybe spending last time but that time they're fully
functional, they're attentive, they're paying attention and they're working
together to get to know each other better and to solve problems.
Yeah, I can totally relate to that. I don't know how many meetings I've been in,
where everybody's doing other work, not paying attention,
and at multiple companies that I've been at.
It's just so interesting.
What are some of the ways where we can kind of assess
how digitally distracted we are?
There's an assessment in the book,
but I think overall, a lot of it has to do
with just being honest with yourself, right?
Like, the more self-awareness you have, the more you think about applications to the different
tools you're using and how to be smarter about when and how you're using them, I think that
can be really effective.
And what I try to preach in the book, which is a little bit different than what other people
are, is use technologies of bridge-to- connection, don't let it be a barrier between you
and the relationships you wanna craft and develop.
So, I think it can be very powerful.
You know, I've interviewed Brian Grazer,
who wrote face to face,
he's like a Hollywood superstar or director.
And he basically said, use technology
to discover people and learn about them
so that you can forge deeper connections
with the right people in person.
And I so believe that.
I think it's almost obvious, but it needs to be said.
And for me, you know, in this book, it's like, okay, well, let's use technology on the
same page to share brief updates with the team and to keep in touch between meetings, between
phone calls, between off sites.
And I think that can be really effective,
but if you are replacing human interaction completely
with technology, you've got a problem
and that's gonna end up really hurting you.
And I do fear that the over lines we have on technology
is gonna pose a bigger threat to our health and empathy.
And if empathy declines because of technology overuse,
because you have more empathy if you physically see somebody,
then if you were to text them, that's
going to lead to bigger societal issues, including
more crime.
Yeah.
So what I talk about in the book, it
has a very corporate context, but the implications are widespread.
Totally.
So, let's move on to productivity.
How do you feel about multitasking and perfectionalism?
Multitasking doesn't exist.
What's really happening is your brain is moving back and forth from one task to the other,
and it's making you less effective.
So it's better to single task, it's better to come up with the five things you need to
do today and then do one at a time instead of bounce back and forth.
So that's why for my books, I do all the research first before I start writing it.
Instead of doing some research, then writing, and then research, and then writing, that
to me is ineffective, I'd rather do all the research first. And I do that with
my articles, too. I do it with everything, actually. So, podcasts, I need to do the interviews
first before I do the intros and everything else. Same. And so, I think that one thing at a time
makes more sense, otherwise you're going to make more mistakes. Totally agree. So your team did some research on how to optimize productivity
such as the time of day that we're most productive,
the day of week, how often we should break,
and things like that.
Could you share some of that data with our listeners?
Oh, yes.
I was very excited to include this as part of the book
because this is on average.
So it's not like, you know, you could be a better nighttime work than a morning person, right?
But for the most part on average,
we're most productive between 10 of the morning and noon.
Tuesday, we are most productive
because Monday we're really catching up
on things that might have happened
on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
We need to get about eight hours of sleep a night.
And that's been a huge struggle for me recently over the past year
Ever since I was in Canada I wanted my events and I woke up at four in the morning and threw me off for over a year
I'm trying to recover. I know it's interesting. I'm definitely a morning person now and then breaks are important
You know, I think that people don't give themselves enough breaks
when they really do need them because we can't focus on work for five hours straight.
It's just impossible.
So I think breaks are healthy, they're important.
And once we come back from the break, we're more effective.
They don't need to be long breaks.
They just need a little bit of a rest.
And I think that with exercise and eating healthy
and the combination of being
thoughtful about how you're spending your time using technology versus not using technology,
I think this can help you have a more effective day because you can't talk about productivity
without talking about health and how you spend your time. And I think that if you're healthier,
it's easy to be productive. You can be productive for longer.
And it's easier to go to sleep because you've kind of worn yourself out throughout the
day.
Yeah.
And just to share some of these data points with my listeners, I thought it was so interesting.
The time of the day that we're most productive is between 10 a.m. and noon.
The day of the week we're most productive is Tuesday.
The optimal amount of sleep which I've discussed many times on this show, is between 7 and 9 hours, a night.
The optimal number of work breaks is one every 52 minutes. The optimal length of a break is 17 minutes, and you should get at least 150 minutes of exercise every week.
So I thought this is so interesting, and I'm going to try to see if I can incorporate
some of these data points to help me be more productive. Something else that you mentioned early
on in our interview is the fact that you were an early trend setter in the data around a four
day work week. And I want to get your perspective on if you think that to be productive you need to
work eight hours a day. Like what do you think is the optimal amount of time
that somebody should work during their day?
It's going to be different for everyone.
So I think that every organization needs flexibility
and every worker should demand flexibility.
But I think that it's going to be custom-per-situation.
So what you need from flexibility
is going to be different than what I need, right? So like if somebody has kids, they might need flexible schedules, but they might
not need to work from home remote. Whereas somebody else, who's maybe older, might want
to work in the office five days a week for 40 hours total. Whereas, you know, for someone
else, they would just rather work from home five days a week.
So it depends on the person, their work preferences,
styles, what they're comfortable with,
their responsibilities and family situation.
There's a lot of factors.
And so I think in the future, my hope is that flexibility
is customized per person.
Yeah.
Because we're just all different.
And we're in different phases of life, right?
So flexibility for me now is gonna be different
than in five years.
But everyone needs flexibility
and if we demand people to work really hard
and stay with our companies,
then we have to give flexibility in return.
I think that flexibility will continue
to become as common as any other employee benefit, like a health
care coverage and learning development.
That makes complete sense.
And so I think that in terms of all companies having a four-day work week or having some
sort of confined work day, it's a political issue.
That's my conclusion.
It's a political issue.
Like the labor party in the UK are fighting for a four-day work week.
If that were to pass, then all companies would have to have it and we can strain the amount
of hours per week.
In America, I don't see it happening unless a politician changes that.
Yeah.
He's that's what it took to get a four-hour work week.
Yeah.
I could never see that passing in America.
There you go.
So then it won't.
But it is a bigger issue than just a corporate issue, and only a handful of companies around the world
have tested for a day work week.
So it's not widespread.
It's in the public consciousness
because of the amount of media attention that they have gotten.
I did a study on the four day work week with Kronos last year,
and we asked the number one question was,
if pay or main constant, how many days a week
would you work?
And the number one answer was for a day work week.
And the other thing that was fascinating about that question was only 4% said zero.
So people want to work, they just don't want to work five days a week.
Yeah, that would be amazing if we could get that change.
Yeah, and that reminds me of this article I read about
the oldest living man.
He's a 121 year old Mexican guy.
And he was interviewed about what he most misses.
And of course, he said relationships.
That's always in the one or two.
But actually, even more than relationships, it was work.
He missed working like he used to.
Wow.
And to me, that pairs up very nicely with the fact
that people want to work in our survey, right?
Like even if there's universal basic income, people want to work.
Yeah.
I mean, it goes back to purpose and fulfillment.
Dignity, identity, all of that.
Yeah.
Okay, so we're running up on time and I close out my show with this question.
What is your secret to profiting in life?
Doing work I find meaningful around people who have similar goals and values.
Doing work that gets me excited to wake up every morning, ready to contribute to the world
and continue on my path, surrounding myself with people who inspire me, who support me,
and have similar goals so that I don't feel like I'm alone in following that path.
Very cool. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do?
You can go to danshabel.com, so it's d-a-n-s-c-h-a-w-b-e-l.com. The podcast is five questions with Dan
Shabel. The book is back to human.. Awesome and I'll link all of that in our show
notes. Dan this was such a great conversation. You are a guru when it comes to workplace trends and I
had a lot of fun talking about it with you so thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative?
I'm Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project.
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