Is your workplace a happy environment? Are you getting the most out of yourself and your employees? Join Jenn Lim (Author of Beyond Happiness, and CEO of Delivering Happiness) and Eric Partaker as they discuss insights and strategies to get the most out of yourself, those around you, reach your full potential and live an all around happier life!
KEY POINTS
What Brings You Happiness? – Reflect on your highs and your lows. What were they? What did they mean? What did you learn from them? Build a sustainable way to understand yourself. What creates your highs and your lows and how to create sustainable happiness within your life.
We Rise By Lifting Others – To truly reach your full potential you need to help others self actualize. What could you be doing each day to help someone else in their journey to reach their full potential?
Create A Company That Cares – Create a company that goes beyond caring about how an employee is doing in their role. Care about their wellbeing, and teach them skills that may or may not be directly applicable to their role in the company. When you invest in people and not just as cogs in a machine, it elevates people to a whole new level.
Are Your Company Cultures Exceptional? – What company cultures could you initiate that if people heard of them they would leave their company and run to you? Company culture is an integral part of the business and affects nearly every aspect of the company. It is the backbone of a happy workforce. Spend time perfecting yours!
What’s in it for me? What’s in it for all? – Think about how you can make your company a triple win for everyone, not just for your customers and your employees but also your societal and planetary impact.
TRANSCRIPT
Jenn Lim: Until we help others self-actualize we’re actually not living our full self, treating pain and loss and sadness as more of a friend. The cure for the pain is in the pain.
Eric Partaker: Now we were talking just before you got… Or, just before I hit record, that Tony Hsieh, former CEO of Zappos, had put me in touch with Fred Mossler and helped me in the past when I was building a Mexican restaurant chain in a past life, and you had originally founded your business, Delivering Happiness, with Tony, right? And you’re on that mission to help create happy company cultures around the world. Is that right?
Jenn Lim: Yeah. That’s been the trajectory for the last 11 years now. Super crazy. But, when Tony and I launched the book, Delivering Happiness, in 2010, lo and behold, we had no idea that there was going to be a company and I’d still be writing it all these years later. But, yeah, that was the whole genesis of it. Yeah.
Eric Partaker: Yeah, I loved that book, by the way. And speaking of books, you have another book coming out in-
Jenn Lim: I do.
Eric Partaker: … October, right? 2021, Beyond Happiness. Love that little blurb on that. What’s that all going to be about?
Jenn Lim: Yeah. So, I mean, this book, there was always a next book I was talking to the publishers about. And so, the contract was signed January 2020, and then of course, 2020 happened. So the series of events leading up to Tony’s passing in November, I couldn’t write the book that I was supposed to write, basically. It was just like, “There’s no way. The world has changed, both for the globe and for myself.” And with the processing of what happened with Tony and all that, then shifted gears to not just talk about the work we’ve done in the last 10 years with companies and governments and hospitals around the world, came up with this new title of Beyond Happiness, where I feel was able to really and actually try and embrace what was going on in the world. And also what’s going on with Tony and us as leaders in the world, and how we approach it from a different mindset and from a different place of heart.
Eric Partaker: What is this fascination with the whole person and trying to get people connected to their purpose and make sure that company workforces are happy and… You know, a lot of people just build a company and they just want to make as much money as possible and crush anybody that comes along the way in their path. You take a much different approach. Where is all of that? What’s that born from?
Jenn Lim: I think it’s born from… Well, to literally be born from where we were when we were born, and getting real with that.
Eric Partaker: It’s a good place to be born from.
Jenn Lim: Yeah. And as we get older and have all the… We have our genetics, but we have our nature and nurture. Like we go through our environments and we learn all these things that are sometimes good and sometimes not good. And it impacts us in ways that unless we actually… Basically just get real with ourselves. And that means definitely celebrating what’s great with us, but also just recognizing what are our shadow sides and what are the things that we’re trying to not bring into our sphere of life that impact us as individuals and therefore us as leaders? So I think just a few years ago this sounded so woo-woo, and like, “I don’t need to do that. Like, [inaudible 00:04:12] self-awareness,” all of that. It’s just like, no, actually [crosstalk 00:04:12]
Eric Partaker: Who needs to be self-aware?
Jenn Lim: I know. I can make a lot of money and not be self-aware-
Eric Partaker: Yeah, exactly.
Jenn Lim: … and that’s totally fine. There’s a lot of people that do that and want to do that and there’s no twisting alarm on my front. It’s like, “You be you,” but when we do get real within ourselves first in this more holistic approach of embracing our high, celebrating, but also really embracing our lows. And that’s where the shift happened of the book that I was supposed to write after Tony’s passing. It tested me again, and I’ve been in the happiness business for 15 years now. But after that, I was like, “Hey.” I had to sit down with myself and say, “Is this still true?”
Eric Partaker: How did the direction of the book… Yeah. So Tony… Very, very tragic, his passing. And how did the book change then? What made it change? Why did it need to change? What happened thereafter?
Jenn Lim: Well, I think for me that I was already going to talk about, as part of our very tactical exercises and practices that we do for leaders to get real with themselves, really understanding and actually going through steps of mapping out your own story, mapping out your hero’s journey of highs and lows. It became even stronger in the sense of what it means to go through my lows in life, because previously my lowest low was losing my dad almost 20 years ago now. So he was too young. I was in my 20s. I was just like, “Why does this happen?” And really getting real with my own values in the sense of, “How am I going to prioritize my time in the course of the day?”
When Tony passed, and he was a lot younger than my dad, he was a public figure. He was one of my best friends. He was like one of my soulmates. All those things, and obviously business partner, but it just really thrust my growth and understanding of what this all means and had me question and verify, “Is this still true?” So being able to embrace the highs and lows. And a quote from Rumi really got me through this, and I read tons of books and all this on the subject matter. But what he said was, “The cure for the pain is in the pain.” And that got me through a different trajectory, and I was already reading up on this for years because of my dad’s passing, but with Tony passing then, it was like really put in my face. I thought, “What does that actually mean?” And the highs I was feeling-
Eric Partaker: I was just going to ask. What does that mean to you? The cure for the pain is in the pain. It’s very reminiscent of Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is the Way, right?
Jenn Lim: Yeah, exactly.
Eric Partaker: What is it?
Jenn Lim: Resistance. I think it’s in our nature sometimes to block things out and not have to deal with it and know that it’s okay. Like, maybe, happy go lucky. It’s like, “Oh, that didn’t happen.” Or to the point of, on the other end, where it’s so depressing and sad that’s like, “I don’t even want to think about it because I’ll just get into a hole.” For me it was really treating it like treating pain and loss and sadness as more of a friend.
Eric Partaker: Wow.
Jenn Lim: Putting it next to me and having a conversation with it rather than try to block it out as to why I feel these things. And instead having more of a open dialogue of why I feel these things based on these events, especially the combination of Tony passing, let alone a pandemic, let alone global recession, social injustice, and having conversations with those things to understand that for me, being able to embrace it and sit with it side-by-side, the shadows, then I was able to see where the height of true happiness or peace or joy or whatever you want to call it, can really be within myself.
Eric Partaker: Yeah. It’s interesting because if we take we the lows out, then on a relative scale, we don’t have the highs, right?
Jenn Lim: Right. It doesn’t get as high.
Eric Partaker: Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s one simple way of looking at it. I love that you used the phrase actually highs and lows. One of the things that I’ve always, as I’m sure you’ve done a lot of as well, one of the things I do a lot of is public speaking. And one of the things that I always try to do when I’m up on a stage or virtual or whatever, speaking is weave together a story that actually shows the roller coaster journey of life. That it is high, and it is low, because I get so frustrated when I go to a conference or if I listen to someone speak and they’re just talking just about the highs, as if… I mean, first of all, it’s a very boring rollercoaster, right?
Jenn Lim: Yeah.
Eric Partaker: It’s like, there is no roller coaster.
Jenn Lim: You just have to hold tight.
Eric Partaker: Yeah. Exactly. And it’s not very relatable, is it? Right?
Jenn Lim: No.
Eric Partaker: Because we all go through those.
Jenn Lim: Yeah. We do this exercise with a lot of our leaders and executives, but we call it the happiness heartbeats. So, knowing there’s the highs and lows. And you just picture how your heartbeat looks like on a machine. The higher it goes, the lower it goes. And if it stays around the same, then you’re just going to have a little bit of hum. And then it’s the worst when it’s probably flat because you don’t have anything to think about any more. But that’s the whole point of being able to identify that within ourselves.
I mean, just do a quick reflection exercise on what were those highest highs? What were those lowest lows? What did that mean? What did we learn from it? What were our values that were present or not present? What were the people that were present or not present in those moments? And that starts building a more sustainable way to understand how to be real with ourselves and actually have more sustainable happiness in enjoying our lives.
Eric Partaker: What’s one of the most powerful lessons you learned personally from one of your lows?
Jenn Lim: Hmm. Definitely when my dad passed, I was… This is going to bring us back to the day of the dot-com days. So all in one year, the dot-com boom, money, title, status was super high. And then all within a year dot-com busted. I got laid off and my title and status was gone. My dad was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer, and then 9/11 happened all in one year. So that was a low moment. Not in that order. My dad was the highest order of the low, but it really forced me to rethink how I looked at life and my priorities and therefore values. So I knew at that point, not money, title, status. It’s the people in my life that will really lead that conversation within myself, and being authentic. Number one, of that. So, if I couldn’t get real with myself, how would I be able to prioritize people? It wouldn’t do them justice. It wouldn’t do me justice.
So I had to really get honest with how do I actually show up and not feel like I’m trying to be something? So that’s when it got real, and that was a couple of decades ago. And then of course it got brought back in a whole new ringer cycle with 2020 and the world events that we had, and Tony just saying, “Hey, is this still true?” And it’s like, “Yes, it’s still true, but then some.” Like, “It’s yes and… It’s really getting into that relationship with those low moments.” And really like that Rumi quote, again, just a feeling. There’s a big topic around mental health and where we are as a society and individuals and voodoos. So that to me is directly tied. The mental health comes from being able to have that conversation with those low moments.
Eric Partaker: Yeah. And we’re talking about highs and lows predominantly right now from a micro point of view and that we’re talking about like as an individual person, individual life, but of course, with Delivering Happiness, with your business consultancy, you’re looking at it not just from a micro point of view, but you’re also looking at it from the macro, right? From a company culture point of view. So what’s the problem that you’re trying to solve with Delivering Happiness? Where does Delivering Happiness fit in the landscape? Why is it needed?
Jenn Lim: I love the way that you bridged that question. It’s like, yay, great segue.
Eric Partaker: I was working on that segue for years.
Jenn Lim: You were. I was like, “Damn, that was smooth.” Oh, Eric, what did you have for breakfast? [crosstalk 00:14:29]
Eric Partaker: I’m just drinking Coke Zero.
Jenn Lim: Ah, nice. Oh, I’m a little jealous. I ran out the other day. So, yeah, why I love what we’ve been trying to… Because back in the day it was about Zappos and they were like a poster child for culture. That was like 15 years ago. And then it was like, when Delivering Happiness was launched, it was like, “Well, this doesn’t have to be a Zappos story.” So it’s like, “Well, how do we make it sustainable? And how do we make it scalable so that we’re using scientific forms of happiness, positive psychology, and create a method that every company and organization then can use,” essentially. So that’s where the beauty comes in. It’s not necessarily the things we were talking about from an individual basis. So we call it me/we community.
So, me, obviously individual. We is teams and organization and community from a business context, so customers, partners, and vendors. And now of course we’re touching on society and the planet in more ways every day. So the beauty of it all that we saw, especially over the last several years, is that the concepts that we talk about for sustainable happiness for an individual applies to that of a company. So the things that we use to make sure that we’re, as individuals, we think we’re happy, actually can grow companies in a more sustainable way.
And of course in the last few years, especially after COVID, there’s more things that we need to add on to that in terms of resiliency and belonging, accountability and commitment. But the things that we’ve seen and being able to actually be more profitable by focusing not just on the normal mechanics but actually focusing on people at the same time so that you have the people, profits and purpose all in alignment. So it’s not a zero-sum game. When you have those three things together, you actually see your impact grow, not just in your bank account or your stock price.
Eric Partaker: In your money pot.
Jenn Lim: Yes, exactly. So that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s being able to show in a measurable way because otherwise people are like… Naturally CFO’s are like, “What? That doesn’t make sense. Why would I spend money on that?” It’s like, “Well, this is an asset, people are, and this is how you do it. And this is how you show…” We worked with Starbucks for a few years and being able to show that there was a lot of moving parts in a huge company like that. But [crosstalk 00:17:27]
Eric Partaker: So were you showing a numerical correlation between the happiness and the people increasing? And then even the profitability of the company increasing?
Jenn Lim: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. For different organizations, they are comfortable using the word happiness and we have measurements around that and tools around that. So it really depended on what their culture is about and terminology that they’re comfortable with because they could use other things like engagement or productivity or things like that. But the biggest thing though, like what you brought up and it’s a great point that I want to build on is, until you are able to really be clear about that measurability of, if it’s engagement, if it’s retention, whatever your problems are in your money pot of people, like being able to track that to and correlate to a person’s well-being, essentially, that’s the most sustainable way to keep this impact growing.
Eric Partaker: Yeah. Because obviously you have a segment of people who they don’t need the money convincing argument, that, “Yeah, I want to make my people happier and more engaged. And of course, let’s just do it just because I believe in that.” But if you can create that data connection, then you also you get the other side of the brain focus as well, so to speak, and you just get a bigger piece of the pie. And then, I guess, ultimately-
Jenn Lim: Exactly.
Eric Partaker: … you get to do what you’re… So we talked about Abraham Maslow right before we pressed record. And I was saying how… So ultimately what I’m trying to do with this podcast is solve what I perceive to be the world’s biggest problem, which is that Abraham Maslow estimated that only 2% of people are operating to their fullest potential. Now, whether it’s 2% or, I don’t know, 3% or five or 18, I’ve seen various studies and the number changes. But there is a unanimous agreement that it’s too small, the number, and it’s a minority and that we need more people playing to their fullest capabilities. So I see that connected to also what you’re doing with Delivering Happiness, helping people self-actualize, realize their full potential. But what I was getting to before I hit record, you said, “We should really talk about Abraham Maslow because I have some cool things and ideas to share about my thinking about his pyramid and hierarchy needs and all that. I don’t know where that would go, but…” So, yeah, I love that-
Jenn Lim: That’s a…
Eric Partaker: … loved that toe… Yes, soak that one.
Jenn Lim: Yeah. That’s one of those moments where we didn’t plan for this, like that earlier segue that you had. That was amazing. This is another one, because we had no idea. You didn’t know I was going to talk about Maslow in my book, and I did, because I’m super… Tony and I put Maslow in the first book, Delivering Happiness. And this one was like, when I started reflecting and generating the lessons learned along the way in the last 10, 11 years, I looked at the pyramid again, Maslow’s hierarchy, and I was like, “This just is not cutting it anymore.” So I did my own take on it. But what I was happily surprised about in the research was that he did his own take on it, too, 50 years after he created that pyramid. Because I was like, “No, I was like…”
So, I’ll break it down in two things. So I’ll leave the second point. The first point was, how it was built as a pyramid and was a hierarchical one. And I think the more updated current version of it is that it’s not a hierarchical one. It’s actually more of a spectrum so that you’re not necessarily… You need physiological needs before you can go to the next, before you can actually build all the way to the top of self-actualization. That was his original intention. But these days, I think we see a flow of the different polars of, someone could maybe have just barely those physiological needs, but actually be more self-actualized than someone that’s in-
Eric Partaker: Yeah, you don’t need…
Jenn Lim: … in an office or-
Eric Partaker: Yeah, you don’t need to go… It’s not like this ladder, rungs the ladder and you have to go. Yeah.
Jenn Lim: Yeah. Bidirectional. And then, so I also talk about other elements. But the other thing that I thought was really cool, and I’m really surprised that this isn’t more in public and publicized, is that he came up with something before he passed, called transcendence. So it wasn’t self-actualization at the top. He actually sounded like… It’s transcendence. And people don’t talk about that that often, but that’s exactly what the analogy that we’re bringing in the parallel between coming from the me to the we, the individual to the group or the company. What he said was that, “You know what? That’s not what we’re all about. Until we transcend, which essentially is, until we help others self-actualize, we’re actually not living our full self or potential.” That 2% that you’re saying. So that transcendence is-
Eric Partaker: Oh, I love that. I love that. Healthy.
Jenn Lim: … top of the [inaudible 00:23:17] yes. Help others self-actualize, then that’s when you’re truly living up to that potential. So I think that, to your point of what you’re trying to do with your podcast and everything you’re working on, adding that element is so current-
Eric Partaker: Yes. I’m transcending.
Jenn Lim: I think you literally were transcending for a moment there. You’re like elevating.
Eric Partaker: No, no, no. Yeah, but I just had this funny thought though, of the person who’s transcending, but like paying complete disregard to their physiological needs, their love needs, their [inaudible 00:24:05] needs, they’re just an absolute mess, but yet they’re helping other people self-actualize. Does that qualify as transcendence still?
Jenn Lim: I would say that I was… This channel and Maslow right now, but what I would say is that it qualifies as an element of it, but that’s why it’s not hierarchical because we can all have different elements of those levels of the pyramid and not actually really have all our physiological needs met. The same thing, that we’re not truly transcending because all this… We have crap relationships because we treat people like crap, that kind of thing. So, yeah, it has to be more holistic.
Eric Partaker: We also forgot the most important part in Maslow’s update which was that he said it wasn’t even a pyramid anymore, it actually became a trapezoid with a cylinder that was next to it, and a cube… No, I’m just totally making it up. Anyway, we got to get off these stupid Maslow jokes. It’s going down south quickly. Okay. So-
Jenn Lim: I’m sure he’s turning in his grave right now.
Eric Partaker: Yeah, exactly. Now, let’s go back to Beyond Happiness, because I’m really excited to read the book when it comes out.
Jenn Lim: Thank you.
Eric Partaker: Can you share with us, I don’t know, one of your most favorite lesson in the book, or just a little bit of a tidbit, something that you’re very excited for people to read and learn from.
Jenn Lim: Hmm. I think going back to this idea of no more Maslow’s jokes and no more… But the whole thing about 2%, and the biggest thing I think for me is how… This thing about authenticity and how we show up as leaders. So I mentioned the happiness heartbeat exercise that we do in terms of really charting our own journey and understanding what that means from… And highs and lows standpoint. Another thing that we do but introduced in the book formally is what I call the wheel of wholeness. And this applies to not just us as leaders, but the ideal is that it applies to everyone in an organization. So when we look at the wheel of wholeness, you can imagine just a pie and there’s different slices, and the slices can include the mental, the emotional, the relational, the physical, the financial, the spiritual.
So depending on who you are, you can pick your own pieces of what’s most important to you. Using that as basically from a scale of one to 10, of just putting the points down as to where you are as a snapshot in your life in that day, becomes a really useful tool to be able to say, “These are the things that I’m totally kicking ass at, and these are the things like, ah, just feel really not safe about, or insecure,” or you’re not confident about. And then just doing it on a regular basis. It could be monthly, it could be quarterly, whatever it is, but then you get a sense of what needs to be worked on and what you’re feeling good about and celebrating. That is, I think, especially now, in this time and age of what’s been going on with this age of awakening or resignation, as we know a lot of people are just like, “Hell with this. I am not going to deal with this anymore.”
So a lot of leaders are just like, “How do we retain people? What are we doing about this exodus?” It’s like bringing up this very simple tool and not just doing it for ourselves as leaders, but also for the people we lead and say, “Hey, I actually care about this.” And it doesn’t become an onus on the leader. It becomes a dialogue because they need to take ownership as well. But at least you can have a very clear and transparent and just caring, empathetic way of talking about what needs to be done for the company, for the team, and therefore themselves and yourself. So I think it’s one of the things I’m really excited about and talking about and had no idea that it would be even more important now that we’re seeing just people quitting left and right, and actually taking a stand for themselves as what’s important to them. And then it becomes an easy tool to have this dialogue in a very meaningful way.
Eric Partaker: Yeah. I totally, totally agree with you. It’s something I’ve certainly experienced, like companies that I’ve either worked with or built. The moment someone in a company realizes that this company actually cares about me in a way that is beyond just me doing well in my role, creating this report or whatever. Cares about my wellbeing, wants to teach me a skill that may or may not be directly applicable to this role or company, but that are just good for life in general. When you invest in people as people and not as cogs in the machine, in my experience, it just elevates people to a whole new level.
And it’s part of this whole thing that we’re talking about, which, whether, we’re saying the top is self-actualization or self-transcendence, whatever, but if the commonality is that we all just want to reach our full capabilities and we’re going to be naturally most attracted from a stickiness point of view, to connect with people who support that within us. And that’s why I think what you’re doing is so cool, because what happens is, it’s just helping create those cultures, right?
Jenn Lim: Mm-hmm (affirmative). In a scalable way.
Eric Partaker: And to realize how stinky that is. It’s just like people are, “I love that stuff,” right? They want to be supported in that way. I like to think of threes. So I always think that we’re predominantly, and you can nest things however you want, but I like to think that we’re most obsessed with our health, our wealth and our relationships. And within health, I think mental health and spiritual health and emotional and physical. And then within wealth, I think of both, what you do to make you money and what you do to grow that money.
And then relationships. I think of everything from the relationship with yourself, to your family and friends, if you have a spiritual or religious component. So I think there’s lots of ways to skin the cat, and I guess I’m just saying that, yeah, really aligned with what you’re teaching and doing. What do you think is… Just some fun ways of thinking about things. So what’s one thing that you think many leaders out there are doing, but shouldn’t be doing?
Jenn Lim: I’d say that it’s really interesting to me when we get pinged for services. Like, CEO says, “Hey, can you help with our culture? Or, can you help with this or that?” And they think that they’re checking a box off. They’re just like, “Culture. Check. We’re good. We’re going [inaudible 00:32:14] of that.” But it’s not what it’s about. What I love is when leaders… I mean, they’re well-intentioned, sometimes they’re not, but let’s just say, when they’re well-intentioned, like, “Yeah, I want to build our culture. I want to make sure it’s scalable and sustainable and people are happy.” They’re thinking it’s for them and then not realizing it’s actually for themselves as well, because checking it off a box is one thing, because it’s almost like a, “Oh, HR,” or like, “People ops,” whatever. That’s a little bit too limiting as to what the real… And you already… I know we’re cut from the same cloth and wanting to share about what you believe, when you unlock this with people and get them engaged because you care about them, when they realize it’s actually about themselves as well.
There’s a few examples in my book of CEOs and other leaders in their own right that thought they were doing the right thing and said, basically… So as an example, so David Kidder, he’s in my book, and he just sold his consulting company Bionic to Accenture like a month or two ago. So, big highlight for him. But what he was messing up on before at Bionic, he thought he was pouring himself into the company. And the CFO called him one day and said, “Why are you ruining this company?” And he’s like, “What are you talking about? We just got a round of funding. We were just growing our employees like crazy, and we’re going gangbusters.” He was like, “No, this company is going to fail because this company is all about you.”
And he was destroyed. He was like, “Are you freaking kidding me? I’m taking time away from my family. I’m pouring my energy and I’m not having any sleep.” But the CFO just basically echoed what everyone else in the company was feeling, of, “It’s all about David. It’s all about his stakeholders or shareholders in his view.” And it was a wake-up call. And sometimes we think we’re doing the right thing, but until we get, again, real with ourselves and get up there, and they can actually listen to what people are saying and be open to it and even ask, because the CFO might’ve never called him and he might’ve gone down that path forever. But that reality check, I think, it helped him get to this point of, like, “Shit, I got to get real with myself.” And then, therefore, the latest news of selling to Accenture is pretty amazing. He just didn’t know he would get there, but he did it by realizing he had to do it with his team.
Eric Partaker: Yeah. And that’s another example, I guess, of what we were alluding to at the beginning of the chat, when we said that sometimes you could be so focused on the money that you can just forget that there’s these other components that… And this isn’t to say that the money’s not important, because I also have an issue with people who are saying, “Oh, money is not important,” and do things purely for love, and, it’s, “Well, okay.” But money is important to people, so you can’t throw that out of the picture completely.
Jenn Lim: Yeah. Exactly. Well, that’s why in the wheel of wholeness, financials are part of it.
Eric Partaker: Yeah, exactly.
Jenn Lim: It’s just part of the equation. It’s not the whole pie, but it is a piece.
Eric Partaker: Yeah. One fun thing that I’ve challenged leaders to do sometimes is, I say, “I want you to sit in a room and I want you to just have a lot of fun doing this. Just brainstorm and put together the company culture which is so incredible that if people heard of it, they would leave your company and run to it. Just what is that company culture that people would actually leave for if they got wind of it and heard about it? What are all the things? How strong would it have to be in order to have that effect and actually pull people out of the company, and they’re like, ‘Okay, well, we had…'” And then of course, obviously, then you say, “Well, okay, why don’t you build that company culture?” And then, “Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Maybe we could build that ourselves.” So, some fun ways to push people to think outside of the box, even though they’re actually capable of creating things that maybe they don’t realize.
Jenn Lim: Very true. One of the things that… Just to build on what you said in terms of imagining that, this week, again, I know you like to be practical and tactical. One of the things that we do is, it’s culture as a animal or culture as a car. So when you have that visioning exercise of when you’re asking these are like, “What’s the culture you want to create?” It actually makes it more tangible when you compare it to what kind of animal do you want to be like? Or what kind of car would you be? Like, [crosstalk 00:37:23] what kind of car are you now? And what kind of car do you want to be? So, for example, “Right now we’re like a Ford truck because we’re sturdy, we’re operational, we’re getting stuff done. Have been around for a long time, but we want to be a Tesla. We want to be innovative, we want to be ahead of the curve and just being our own boss.” Things that when you get those kind of visuals it gets creative, but it gets also specific in terms of the adjectives that you would use to describe those things. But, anyway, just wanted to build a little-
Eric Partaker: Nice.
Jenn Lim: … build it to what you just shared.
Eric Partaker: Yeah. Love it. Okay. To give people another little tangible thing on the way out here, I would love if you could share… Okay. So for the person who has their team, or who has their company, or even just their family, whatever their kind of unit of people is, if you were to share just one high leverage success secret, one tool which can help them elevate that culture in a non-linear way. Like, it’s a leverage point. What’s the one thing that you’d recommend? Knowing that it won’t be one-size-fits-all, but you have a feeling that it would probably hit home for a lot of people, what would it be?
Jenn Lim: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I am a big believer in learning and I’m a big believer in the answers are within ourselves. And not to sound like this cheesy Mariah Carey song of, like, we’re all our own hero. But I think that this tool has been helpful and it’s actually just two questions that need to be answered at the same time. What’s in it for me? And what’s in it for all? So, if you are able to answer those questions, a lot of times they either just answer the first one or the second one, but not simultaneously. And then that actually helps build the picture of how do we make this a triple win for everyone, not just for our customers, our employees, but also as we’re thinking bigger of our purpose of societal and planetary impact, if we care about the globe. That’s a tool that I have been big about, and it’s just really simple. Make sure you answer both questions, not just one.
Eric Partaker: And at the same time, right?
Jenn Lim: At the same time. Yes.
Eric Partaker: I don’t know how you got it.
Jenn Lim: Well, in the same session.
Eric Partaker: No, I know. You have to be like this amazing… I don’t know. It wouldn’t even be like a ventriloquist. You can’t actually do it. Anyway, Jenn, it’s really, really cool to talk to you as I-
Jenn Lim: Likewise.
Eric Partaker: … listen. Yeah. I’ve been a big fan behind the scenes of what you’ve been doing, and I think it’s super cool, super needed. Having a big impact in the world. Super excited, once again, to read Beyond Happiness when it’s out, and it’s out in October again, right? October?
Jenn Lim: Yes, October 12th. Not that I’m counting the days, but yes.
Eric Partaker: And if anybody, given how amazing your work is, and I highly vouch for it, if anybody wants to get in touch with you and talk on the business consultancy side of things, how do they reach out?
Jenn Lim: Yeah. So deliveringhappiness.com, but also for the book I’ve just launched, jennlim.com. So it’s J-E-N-N-L-I-M.com. If you just want to shoot me a message, we’d love to entertain any random Maslow’s jokes and comments that you might have or questions, of course. But, yeah.
Eric Partaker: Cool. All right. Thanks a ton, Jenn. Really, really happy that you were on the show today.
Jenn Lim: No, thank you for having me. I hope you have another Coke Zero on the way for a little break.
Eric Partaker: I will. I will. Cool. All right. See you soon, Jenn. Bye-bye.
Jenn Lim: Okay. Bye.
Eric Partaker: I hope you enjoyed that discussion, and I know you’re going to absolutely love the next one as well. It’s with John Lee Dumas talking about his newest book and all the incredible things that you can be learning to increase your financial awareness and wealth. And I know you’ll love that. Just click on the link right here and I’ll see you there.
