This GuidePost talks about how we are always in pursuit of happiness. But happiness is based on chance and not something that can be constantly achieved. Pleasure is also temporary and not something that should be constantly strived for. Instead, we should focus on having joy, which is more internal and based on making peace with your self. To have Joy@Work, we should focus on leveraging our talents and doing something purposeful for others. Although it will take time and effort, the benefits will be worth it in the end.

This GuidePost answers the following questions:

1. What is the problem with the pursuit of happiness?

2. What are the benefits of aiming for joy instead of happiness?

3. What does research show about the benefits of being happy at work?

4. What did the Energy Project find were the benefits of going beyond engagement?

5. What is the most underutilised way to increase productivity, engagement, and performance?

6. What are the three things that bring joy in the workplace?

7. How can you have joy@work?

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Seeking Pleasure, Finding Joy

When you ask people what they want in life, the No 1. answer is “Happiness”. But, there’s a problem with the pursuit of happiness found in the root of the word which is “hap”. Which is the same “hap” in perhaps, haphazard, happenstance and happen. It means luck, chance or fortune and to have happiness means it has to happen to you.

And another problem, when many people think about happiness they’re really thinking about what gives them pleasure and having more of those things. Pleasure is extrinsic, visceral and temporary.

Joy, on the other hand is more consistent and cultivated internally. Joy comes when you make peace with who you are, why and how. Whereas, happiness is externally triggered and based on other people, places, things, events and thoughts.

Aiming for joy is far more beneficial and less transitory. So how can you have Joy@Work

Imagine that someone created a green pill that adds years to your life; it reduces the risk of having a heart attack or stroke; cuts your risk of Alzheimer's disease by more than fifty percent; helps you relax during the day and sleep better at night; it doubles your chances of staying drug and alcohol free after treatment; activates your natural killer cells; diminishes your inflammatory cells; increase your good cholesterol (HDL); and it repairs your DNA.

What if this imaginary green pill reduced hospitalisation so much that it put a big dent in the national health crisis?

Oh, and as a special bonus, it gives you better sex.

The company that made that green pill would be worth gazillions right? The green pill's inventors would win Nobel Prizes and have institutes named for them.

But it's not a green pill. It's the Resilience of fulfilling Your Purpose. And it's free.

And you get side effects. More friends. Greater happiness. Deeper engagement in life. And better sex.

Now imagine a red pill that makes your work almost effortless, yet simultaneously fulfilling. Every moment at work you are in the zone. You're flowing and your performance is so good, and your productivity increases and you are more engaged with your work and with your colleagues.

The company who made that red pill would be worth even more gazillions and businesses would be clamouring for their workers to take this magnificent drug so they could profit even more and keep staff happily employed and engaged for years to come at higher wages with shorter working hours and greater productivity.

Well those red pills would be flying off the shelves faster than an speeding bullet.

But it's not a red pill. It's leveraging your Talent. And it's also free.

Now, what if you take both the green pill and the red pill?

What if you were joyful at work, found deep pleasure in doing what you do and it felt effortless and your job was meaningful for you?

I've worked with so many people who want this to be true for them. I'm certain that you do too.

And there is a way that you can have this. But I must warn you. This is not a magic trick for instant success, nor a silver bullet that will instantly make everything bad disappear.

Some things will appear to be magical but they're actually social cognitive neuroscience. Some things are going to turn your world on its head.

It will take you some time and effort. So if you don't like taking on things that take time and effort you should turn back now before you get a glimpse of the potential joy you could be having at work.

What do you want out of life?

You want to be happy right?

Of course you do. Ask anyone what they want in life and the vast majority will reply that they want to be happy.

They want their partner to be happy. They want their kids to be happy. They want their entire family to be happy.

Ask them if they are happy at work, and you'll be met with a kind smirk as if you had lost your marbles. Ask them if they experience joy at work and they'll laugh at the absurdity of the idea.

Yet a Market-Foundation-Publication-Briefing-CAGE-4-Are-happy-workers-more-productive-281015.pdf">2015 study shows that happy staff are 12% more productive than unhappy staff. And happiness has an even greater impact in sales - raising sales by 37%!

We've known this for years! Centuries even!

3,000 years ago, the wisest and wealthiest man who ever lived understood this: “So I decided that there was nothing better for a man to do than to enjoy his food and drink and his job.”  Ecc 2:24 TLB

So every organisation everywhere has implemented fantastic training and coaching to make sure that their staff are all happy? This is immediately evident as you walk into almost any workplace in any country. How everyone is smiling, laughing, being friendly, helpful, cooperating. How they’re so joyful its contagious you cannot help but smile and wish earnestly that you could join that organisation and get paid handsomely for having fun and enjoying every day… or perhaps not 🤷

In the Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor's research shows that an individual's job success is 25% predicted by IQ. Meanwhile, 75% is predicted by your optimism levels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challenge instead of a threat. That is: your success is largely dependent on your happiness

Conventional "wisdom" holds that if we work hard, we will be more successful. And, if we are more successful, then we'll be happy.

This is broken and backwards!

The problem is two-fold:

1. When you achieve (i.e. your brain has a) success you just change the goalpost of what success looks like. Now success is beyond and you never achieve it. So if happiness is based on success and you never achieve success you cannot achieve happiness.

2. Secondly, by raising a brains positivity in the present, they gain a happiness advantage and the brain performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed. Intelligence rises, creativity rises, energy levels rise and every single business outcome improves: Increased 31% productivity, greater resilience, less burnout, less staff turnover, 37% greater sales (Lyubominirsky, 2005)

But being happy isn't enough!

Being happy isn't the only ingredient to a life well lived.

When I spent several days recovering in hospital from a quadruple bypass, I spoke with many other patients who had had similarly close calls to meet their maker. Two things became abundantly clear:

1. Those with a positive and grateful attitude recovered more rapidly and were discharged sooner.

2. The closer someone had been to death, the more determined they were to live a life filled with meaning and that always, always meant doing something FOR other people.

Why this matters to your organisation

The statistics on workplace engagement are grim to say the least. Depending on the survey you read, anywhere between a whopping 70% of employees in America do not feel engaged at work. Around the world, that increases to 87% who are not engaged. In Singapore alone, a employees-cost-singapore-49-billion.aspx">Gallup survey has 77% of employees are unengaged and 6% are actively disengaged.

Going beyond engagement

The Energy Project undertook a survey with Harvard Business School and found that employees who derive purposeful meaning and significance from their work were more than three times as likely to stay and reported 1.7 times higher job satisfaction and were 1.4 times more engaged at work.

Increasing a sense of purposefulness at work is one of the most potent - and underutilised - ways to increase productivity, engagement and performance.

What if employees were happy AND derived significance and meaning from their work aligned to their own purpose in life? Wouldn't that be Joy at work?

Joy appears 214 times in the NIV Bible - and always associated to living in your purpose. When psychology, neuroscience and the Bible concur, I get kinda excited to find out more, don’t you?

What brings joy in the workplace?

- We derive joy from our using our talents and strengths.

- We derive joy from doing something purposeful, meaningful and significant.

- And we derive joy from our relationships (at work and at home).

- We are joyful when we feel as if we are in control and feel safe and optimistic and that we matter.

- And we get most joy from doing something for others.

- And money helps ... to a point.

Do you Dare to Have Joy@Work? Let’s find out…

Public speaking is one of the top fears of many people – in fact, it’s been rated as the number one fear for some. But why is that? Is it really the act of standing in front of a group of people and talking that’s the problem?

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It turns out that the real fear behind public speaking isn’t the speaking itself, but rather the fear of public humiliation. We’re all concerned about what other people think of us and being put in the spotlight can be a scary thing. We’re concerned about whether we’ll make a fool of ourselves or look out of place. We worry that people will laugh at us, ridicule us, or even outright make fun of us. This fear of looking “stupid” or “silly” is what really stands in the way of many people.

And, because we fear this, we can quickly become overwhelmed with performance anxiety. Now, any time we need to perform in front of anyone else, anxiety sets in.

Performance Anxiety is the fear or stress you experience before, during and after a performing any specific task.

Public speaking is one example, but it could be as simple as brushing your teeth or getting out of your bed or a chair. Or it could be your boss asking you a question for which you haven’t got the answer - it’s not necessarily that you don’t know the answer, but in the pressure of the moment…. Poof! It’s gone. Or maybe the factual answer is not the correct answer?

Any time that you feel pressured to perform or feel the need to meet an expectation, performance anxiety can take centre stage - your mouth dry, head aching, nauseated, shortness of breath, uncontrollable shaking, racing heart, loss of concentration and feeling overwhelmed… heck, you only need to add incredible intense chest pain and you were off to A&E and the cardiac ward!

Performance anxiety is not fun! It’s an equal opportunities affliction caring nothing for age, gender, experience, fitness or race. And fortunately, it’s all in the mind.

If only there was a way to interrupt our anxious thinking and overcome performance anxiety…

If you ever suffer from a little or a lot of performance anxiety, here’s four simple mind hacks I’ve learned from people who always appeared to be calm, cool and super-confident. And anyone can do all of them as easily as you can breathe, laugh, pose for a picture or dance. I didn’t say that you could do them all well, but easy for sure 😃.

Before we get into this, a little medical disclaimer - the information presented in this article is not medical advice and should not be used to replace the advice of a qualified medical professional. Please consult your doctor to discuss any medical issues or treatments you may be considering.

First up is the easiest of all and something you’ve been doing since birth: Breathing. Only, you probably don’t breathe well at all (few people do!)

Breathe!

Instead, deliberately breathe in through your nose for 4, hold for 4 and breathe out sharply through your mouth for 4. And do it 4 times!

This reduces your stress hormones, especially Cortisol, and triggers your vagus nerve and your Parasympathetic Nervous System and helps calm you down.

Easy peasy, right? Ready for something a little more tricky?

Have a Laugh!

No really. Laugh out loud. Start making the sound of laughter and just keep at it.

Of course you can watch the crazy, funny videos on YouTube or TikTok or wherever, or listen to a joke. Whatever tickles your fancy. Or just laugh like the laughing policeman song:

The Laughing Policeman - Charles Jolly / Penrose

It takes a while but I know that you feel way better already. That’s the dopamine rush that’s making you feel good.

And any time you witness someone performing in any capacity who kicks off with a joke… they usually think it’s to warm up the audience, which it can do (but it can backfire badly!), it’s really to warm themselves up.

Ready for a little challenge?

Pose!

This is an astounding trick to play on your own brain. Lets boost testosterone and serotonin in the brain - and a drop of dopamine for good measure :-)

You know that feeling you get at the end of a race where you win? Or when your favourite team scored the winning goal? Or maybe when you scored highest in a competition, or your name was on the coveted list? That moment when you were a winner, a victor, a conquerer, a champion?

Yes? Fantastic - that’s the feeling we’re after. What did you do with your body at that moment? Chances are it was the V for victory pose, a fist pump, a salute, hands on hips or a high five. Whichever you like the most, that’s your pose. Strike it!

No? Oh really? That’s sad. Not even once? You ever felt proud of any achievement? What did you do? A nod to yourself, a secret fist pump, a little “uha” under your breath?

You can strike a pose anyway right? Hands on hips like superwoman, V for victory like a winning runner, fist pump for a medal winner or an ace in tennis.

Strike your pose and let out a roar.

The roar’s just for added bonus 🦁

Feel the pose, close your eyes and hear the crowd cheer. They’re cheering for you. In less than two minutes, your brain is switching channels from SNS to PNS, increasing testosterone, a smidge of serotonin and a dose of dopamine. Feel it as your performance anxiety melts away and is steadily replaced by pride.

Too embarrassing for you? Head to the toilet facilities, and do it in private.

Not so tough after all, huh? A bit odd, sure, but your body is telling your brain that you are proud, a winner, victorious - and your brain, ever wanting to get the world to make sense, responds.

And now for the pinnacle of positive feelings…

Dance!

Dance is complex for your brain. There’s usually music, a beat, which involves your hearing and sense of kinaesthetic touch. There’s some sort of coordinated movement which involves your motor cortex and your body muscles which releases endorphins which make you feel good. There may be memory involved for a specific dance routine - a dose of dopamine. It can be social (some oxytocin) and it’s always fun and it makes you happy. All that and it’s good to stave off dementia, alzheimers, dizziness, anxiety and depression.

Do yourself a favour. Have a little celebration jig. Flail your arms, move your feet, swing your body.

It doesn’t need to be pretty, it doesn’t need to be coordinated, heck it doesn’t need to be in time to any music. Just do the movement and your brain will respond with the appropriate signals, chemicals and feelings because you’re celebrating with a jig - ergo, you must be in a good mood, having fun and are happy.

I saw a Tony Robbins video of his pre-stage routine and adopted something like it for myself just before a vital meeting with the board of a major organisation I’d been trying to win over against much more established and branded providers.

Just before the meeting I was anxious in the waiting area outside the conference room and I was alone. Every “what if” doubt and worry came to the front of my thoughts. There was a large mirror on the wall, but that as OK. I started my jig. I got into it. I did a few vocal exercises, a couple of fist bumps, and slowed down to breathe. I shook it all off and my intense anxiety subsided.

I was invited into the conference room all smiles and pumped and confident and then I saw the huge glass wall looking directly out into the waiting area. The very spot I had been doing my little jig… And I looked at the people and there were a few smirks and looks of disdain… Nothing to lose - I flushed beetroot and shared my little trick with them. I even got them on their feet and doing a jig.

Our fear and anxiety isn’t that we can’t perform, it’s that we will be rejected and feel humiliated!

So accept yourself. Breathe because it’s good for you. Laugh because it makes you feel good. Pose because it makes you feel victorious and dance because it’s fun.

Thanks for reading Joy@Work! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I’m Dr John kenworthy and it’s been my pleasure to share this Joy@Work AdvantEdge Guide with you today. Thank you for joining me and supporting my work.

Remember if you ever think that you might benefit from an outside voice with a fresh perspective to challenge and empower you, your team or your organisation to a new level of performance and engagement, then let’s talk now. You can follow the link at my website joyatwork.coach

And if you know someone who you know would benefit from this Joy@Work Guide, please share this with them either by sharing the podcast link or, if you’re listening on the Joy@Work website, it’s even easier to just click the share button.

Be blessed and have an awesome day.

We all want an inspirational leader. Someone to look up to, to give us hope and direction. A leader who engages us as individuals and treats us well. But most of all makes us want to be better.

But what if that leader is you?!? And today, You’re just not feeling up for it?

Welcome to this Joy@Work AdvantEdge Guide to Find Your Mojo Again by harnessing the power of your inner chemistry.

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And today you're feeling a bit blah. Everything's sort of "meh" and you'd like to just hang in there for the time being and let Future Self take responsibility for that.

We all go through phases in life when our mood is uplifting, positive, dynamic and we feel like we could conquer the world. And then there's that "meh" moment, when everything is a little bland, and what would be really really nice is if someone else would just take charge and be the one to inspire and engage and buck us up.

To choose to switch your drive and motivation on so that you can inspire others, we're going to delve into the neuroscience of how your brain works, learn what drives you (and everybody else) and then we're going to take charge of the chemistry cocktail bar inside your brain.

The Neuroscience of your Get Up and Go (aka your MOJO)

Your brain is not your best friend when it comes to feeling positive, enthusiastic and inspired. In fact, neuroscientific evidence shows that our brains are hard-wired to make us feel mentally crappy most of the time.

Let me geek out with some acronyms for a moment - it's interesting stuff. Briefly, your brain is survival focussed and it is controlled by the Sympathetic Nervous System (the SNS) and the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPPA). Both the SNS and HPAA are reactive systems. That is, they register any (and every) possible threat and fire you up chemically to respond.

This is fantastically useful in keeping you safe but it has the rather unpleasant side effect of making you feel anxious, stressed, disappointed and generally low spirited.

Today's living environment for most of us, especially in urban areas means that both your SNS and HPAA are fired up much of the time in response to the daily challenges you face on your daily commute, in noisy, crowded offices, surrounded by beeping devices and with a boss imposing impossible deadlines... Modern life is taking a large toll on your peace of mind.

Yet, you have another system available to you called the ParaSympathetic Nervous System (PSNS). And when your PSNS takes charge you feel great: calm, relaxed, chill, tranquil, clear-headed, and well, happy.

Yes, the name of the Sympathetic Nervous System is a little misleading in our modern understanding of the word "sympathetic", but it is the system that makes you feel stressed or basically, crappy.

OK, so a quick summary, your brain automagically, or rather, unconsciously, reacts to environmental stimuli through your Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and/or your Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis (HPAA) to prepare you to deal with any threats. Once the threat passes, or you choose to consciously engage it, your ParaSympathetic System (PSNS) switches on to calm you down and get back to other important stuff like digesting your food, maintaining homeostasis, slowing your heart rate and so on.

Just make a note that you can choose to consciously trigger the PSNS. I'll be back to this at the end.

Before that though, let's remember what actually drives you. i.e. what gets you getting up and going?

As you know, we all have six foundational drivers that are at the heart of practical neuroscience.

Of course, your brain is an incredibly complex organ and variations of human behaviour are an endless ocean of subtle differences. But we can identify six neuro-scientifically founded basic needs of human beings and how these influence our motivational behaviours and how we interact with the world around us.

As human beings, we have developed to use the environment to its best and allow for reproduction and the furtherment of our species: our survival and growth.

Your six drivers are:

* Physical Survival! Our physiological needs of hunger, thirst, sleep and sex.

* Maximising Pleasure and avoiding pain to feel safer and more secure.

* Growing Attachment, so that we have a better sense of belonging.

* Increasing our Control.Which helps satisfy our need to matter.

* Boosting our Self-Esteem: Which helps satisfy our need for self-actualisation.

* Being of Service to others. We are only truly satisfied when we help other people.

Each of these stimulates different neuronal circuits and will activate different regions in the brain. Let me briefly share a little more about each of these needs and then we'll examine how we can consciously and deliberately affect them and hence, our FEELING of drive, inspiration and engagement. You can easily remember this using the SPACES acronym.

For a full reminder about SPACES and details of each of your drivers:

Is Your Battery Running Low?

Understanding the 6 Essential Human Needs of Your Team for Successful Leadership

Now, we’ve reminded ourselves about what drives you, it’s time to geek out on some chemistry…

What's chemistry got to do with my feeling driven and inspired?

Well everything!

How you FEEL in any situation is your conscious interpretation of the physiological response of your body, triggered by the combination (or cocktail) of chemicals released as a result of your conscious thinking and your SNS, PNS and HPAA and unconscious responses.

It's a lot more complex than the five chemicals I'm talking about here, but understanding how these affect you will help you understand the essence of how a change in the balance of these chemicals inside you changes how you feel, and hence your motivation and desires.

You will already know much about adrenaline and cortisol - your key stress hormones. And just in case you don't, I have a wonderful little whiteboard video you can watch.

But you also have some "happy" chemicals. These are Oxytocin, Serotonin and Dopamine.

Five chemicals you need to know about:

* Oxytocin - regarded as the “love” hormone. Makes you feel "loved", "trusted", "cared for".

* Serotonin – closely linked with your mood amongst many other vital functions. Makes you feel "proud", "satisfied", "content".

* Dopamine – triggers the joyful hope of anticipated reward. Makes you feel "happy", "joyful", "driven"or "motivated".

* Cortisol – our stress chemical. Makes you feel "stressed", "anxious", "on-edge"

* Adrenaline – creates arousal and readiness to ‘fight or fly’. Makes you feel "frightened", "scared", "angry", "stronger", "alert".

Good times, bad times, you know I've had my share...

(whoops, a little Led Zeppelin slipped in there.)

When our thinking and perception of the environment is associated positively to our own experiences, this triggers the release of our "happy chemicals" : serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin.

On the other side, when we feel stressed, anxious or upset about the fulfilment of our basic needs, this is the result of cortisol, Norepinephrine (the brain's 'adrenaline') and adrenaline.

On the positive side:

* Increased self-esteem means more serotonin.

* Greater orientation and control means more dopamine.

* Having a trusted attachment means more oxytocin, and

* When pleasure is maximised we get more dopamine.

On the negative side:

* Lowered self-esteem means more cortisol.

* Reduced orientation and control means more cortisol.

* Little or reduced attachment increases adrenaline,

* as does pain increase adrenaline.

Your approach to your six basic needs may not be the same as mine of course. Generally speaking, I am a very positive and optimistic person. Someone else might be more negative and pessimistic about it. These approaches are known as your motivational schemata.

Motivational schemata

Motivational schemata are the instruments and methods that a person will develop through their lifetime to help satisfy their basic needs or to protect them. Within this there are two base schemata. On the one hand the approach schema which is a result of a person striving to fulfil their basic needs. On the other hand if a person strives to protect their basic needs this is known as an avoidance schema.

What does this mean?

Depending on your approach, you may be someone who continuously seeks to fulfil your personal needs, or someone who focuses their attention on avoiding the bad things. The way you speak, as in the words you use habitually, often reveal your schemata or approach.

By the way, neither is right, nor is one necessarily better than another, expect to say that we tend to get in life, what we focus on. Thus if you focus on avoiding pain, you'll probably experience (or be aware of) more pain than someone who focuses in the exact same circumstances on pleasure.

Dale Carnegie summed this up beautifully:

Two men looked out from prison bars, One saw the mud, the other saw stars.”

Are you happy or unhappy?

Happiness is a perception of how well the world matches your expectations and desires.

Stress, in contrast, comes from the expectation that our resources are not enough to achieve our desires,

There are days when we don't feel as if we are progressing towards our purpose. Heck, many people don't consciously know their purpose, but unconsciously we are all aware of those days when something just isn't right. we have no sense of progress or fulfilment. These are the "blah" days. the days when we don't feel like "getting up and going". The days when we have lost our mojo.

Well those days are days we have incongruity between our perception of the world and how well you have fulfilled your basic needs.

Any mismatch between your current motivational schemata and your perception of the world defines your feelings, behaviours and actions. Whether you act with the intention of fulfilling your needs or protecting what you perceive that you have.

You sense a need for change.

And maybe, just maybe, the world will see fit to make that change happen to you. Some call this luck, or karma, serendipity or synchronicity. But in the 99.9% of times when that lady luck doesn't happen to call on you today, you'll want to be able to pull yourself out of that funk and reignite your engines.

As a leader, it is your job to inspire others, to engage them and motivate them to do the things that matter. And that's awfully difficult to do when you are not feeling inspired, engaged or particularly motivated. And you already know that it's unlikely that someone else is going to lift you up right now.

Sure it would be nice, and I know that you deserve it, but here's the rub: your boss isn't inspiring you because they ain't feeling it either. So let's choose to take charge of life and choose to switch the motivation engines on.

We can even measure how well we are aligned to our basic needs by assessing how much each of the six needs matters to use personally and how well that is currently being fulfilled.

I'm sharing a simple SPACES assessment tool that you can use to measure the congruity between your current work environment and your preferences:

Now this is going to be a whole lot easier for you if you already (consciously) know your own life purpose (that is you are a eudaemonite). Per chance you don't have clarity on that then here's a podcast and guide for you. In the meantime let's switch on your motivation engines shall we?

If you're busy paying attention to something else right now, like emailing, facebook trawling, driving a vehicle wait until you can take five minutes out. I'll need your complete attention.

Ready?

Breathe!

Yes, I said: "Breathe."

Deep, long, slow breaths. In through your nose and blow it from your mouth.

Surely I'm kidding you? You've been doing this all the time and feeling "meh". Yes, there is more to it, but right now just breathe.

Give it a few more seconds of deep breathing.

...

Powerful huh?

Breathing is your first step to Relax!

Now as you continue focussing attention on your breathing, I'd like you to touch your lips with your (clean) fingers. You might like to lick your lips with your tongue.

Now, you can choose what to do for the next four minutes.

* Practice deliberate physical and mental relaxation

* Meditate

* Pray

* Bring your attention towards sensations in your body

* Focus attention on immediate sensory experiences and feelings (also called mindfulness)

Choose one of the five. I like to spend my time meditating on a verse from the Bible and praying to God.

Whatever you choose, be aware of your breathing, deeply in through the nose and blowing sharply out through your mouth.

Pause the podcast and do it now, safely of course. Come back when you are done and I'll wrap this up with why it works.

Good to have you back (or maybe you're going to do it later.)

What just happened?

Your brain needs a lot of oxygen because it burns a lot of energy, 20% of your body's calorific burn for a 3 pound mass! You just increased the availability of oxygen in your body and hence available to your brain.

Breathing out sharply through your mouth reduces cortisol in your body, which reduces your stress and anxiety.

Because you have taken executive control (by deliberately choosing what to do instead of your body reacting to the environment) you have reduced adrenaline production. The threat must have passed if you aren't concerned about it!

With the two key stress hormones reduced, you then touched or licked your lips, which triggered your PSNS (Parasympathetic Nervous System) to get working - remember this is the system that slows your heart rate and calms you down. You're clearing your thinking brain to consider positive, uplifting thoughts and ideas.

Touching your own body (especially the lips) also stimulates the release of oxytocin - better still when you do this with your life parter. This makes you feel more loved, trusted or cared for and increases your feeling of attachment.

Thinking positive, uplifting thoughts stimulates dopamine and serotonin production and you are believing that you have taken charge of the situation, which increases your self-esteem and sense of orientation and control.

You will also begin to feel greater pleasure whilst reducing pain through this very simple exercise.

To find your Mojo again, Take 5

All it takes is 5 minutes to breathe and either pray, meditate, be mindful, or simply be relaxed to regain that sense of control, to engage and re-ignite the fires of your motivation.

And if it doesn't happen in the first 5 minutes. Take just 5 more.

If you need an outside voice with a fresh perspective to challenge and empower you, your team, or business to a new level of performance and engagement then let’s talk now.

And if you know someone who you know would benefit from this Joy@Work Guide, please share this with them. Just click the share button.

Be blessed and have an awesome day.

Thanks for reading Joy@Work! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Abraham Maslow proposed a sixth level in his renowned five level hierarchy of human needs, which behavioural neuroscience has since confirmed. These levels explain the essential drivers of our behaviours, reactions and reactions.

We all have six foundational drivers that are at the heart of practical neuroscience.

Of course, your brain is an incredibly complex organ and variations of human behaviour are an endless ocean of subtle differences. But we can identify six neuro-scientifically founded basic needs of human beings and how these influence our motivational behaviours and how we interact with the world around us.

As human beings, we have developed to use the environment to its best and allow for reproduction and the furtherment of our species: our survival and growth.

For leaders to be successful, they should first ensure that their own needs are met, and then understand and help their team members meet their needs. To do this, a leader needs to understand that their team members have 6 essential needs easily remembered with the SPACES acronym - Survival, Pleasure, Attachment, Control, Esteem and Service. Each of these needs must be fulfilled in order for an individual to reach their fullest potential. Leaders should strive to provide their teams with meaningful work, opportunities for growth, and an environment of trust, collaboration and respect.

Only by understanding and meeting the essential needs of their team members, a leader can develop a successful and productive team.

SPACES - The Six Needs We All Share

* Physical Survival! Our physiological needs of hunger, thirst, sleep and sex.

* Maximising Pleasure and avoiding pain to feel safer and more secure.

* Growing Attachment, so that we have a better sense of belonging.

* Increasing our Control.Which helps satisfy our need to matter.

* Boosting our Self-Esteem: Which helps satisfy our need for self-actualisation.

* Being of Service to others. We are only truly satisfied when we help other people.

Each of these stimulates different neuronal circuits and will activate different regions in the brain. Let me briefly share a little more about each of these needs and then we'll examine how we can consciously and deliberately affect them and hence, our FEELING of drive, inspiration and engagement. You can easily remember this using the SPACES acronym.

Why you need this

You need to be able to help your team fill their own power cell and ignite their destiny. Every team member has different needs and motivations and it’s the job of the leader to understand and meet those needs through different strategies.

They need to feel accepted, respected and that their ideas matter. Leaders should be mindful to include emotional intelligence in their leadership strategy. They should be cognisant of the emotional needs and psychological dynamics of their team and give team members the space to express their feelings.

Leaders should use empowering language and be mindful of their team’s limits. Each team member should have meaningful work and have opportunities for growth. Leaders should also be conscious of what their team members value and strive to provide them with those things.

It is also the leader’s job to foster a team environment where team members can collaborate, solve problems and grow together. Leaders should recognise the importance of building trust and rapport within the team, and ensure that all team members are treated fairly and equally.

Finally, leading a team requires understanding the different needs of each team member. A great leader is someone who has the ability to empathise and be compassionate with each team member and see things from their perspective. By doing this, the leader can help each individual in the team realize their full potential, and maximise the collective potential of the whole team.

The Sixth Level - Why It’s So Important

Abraham Maslow wanted to add a sixth level to his renowned five level hierarchy of human needs. Today, with our increased understanding through behavioural neuroscience, he was right to want to include it. These 6 human needs are THE essential drivers of our every day behaviours, actions and reactions.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

Every leader needs to understand:

* How to fulfil their own needs, and

* Their role in helping all of their team members meet their essential, human needs.

Ultimately, by doing so, those leaders can fulfil their own need to help and serve others.

Is Your Battery Running Low

Imagine that your needs are like a discharged battery that you are able to charge through your life activities.

When the bottom cell is sufficiently filled, the next cell can be charged. All human beings have 6 essential needs, or power cells.

Though, some people have faulty power packs - with a corrupted sixth cell that has been taken over by a leaky fifth cell. That is, they care less about other people because their self-esteem is so overfilled they hold others in total contempt - because they matter less than me!

Beware overfilling any one cell: Gluttony and Obesity with an overfilled Cell 1, Excessive risk taking for Cell 2.

And many have a leaky battery, where their own needs never get filled.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

Every leader needs to understand:

* Your own needs need to be met BEFORE you have enough to give others, and

* Whilst things may look OK on the surface - people tend to hide their emotional needs fearing that they are the only ones who have them.

By this, you’ll be better able to ask the right questions and better positioned to serve others and help them fulfil their real needs.

Empty Power Pack

If your needs are not met, you are an empty shell. Imagine that your brain is being powered by a rechargeable power pack.

The very first thing that you need when you are born is air. Soon after you need food, warmth and shelter. Sorry to tell you, but you were born needy and totally dependent upon others for your basic survival, and that is our first and primary need…

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* If you’re running on empty - you’re not much use to anyone!

* As a leader, you help your team understand what they need and how you can help them satisfy those needs.

Survival Needs

Your brain’s number one, primary job is to keep you not dead! Thankfully, your brain has been doing a pretty fantastic job of that for you and will continue to do so, providing you look after just a few tasks. You can help your brain and yourself a great deal by attending importance to 4 key areas in your life:

* Eating good, healthy and nutritious food and water

* Getting sufficient rest and good sleep

* Exercising and stretching your body’s muscles regularly.

* Avoiding things, people and situations that may harm you

Do these, and your brain can do its job. Neglect them and your brain will give up sooner than you might prefer.

As a responsible leader you owe a duty to yourself and your continued good health to ensure that you enjoy good rest and sleep, exercise regularly and eat healthy, nutritious food.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* If you don’t look after your health, exercise, sleep and nutrition - you won’t be able to achieve much.

* Encourage and guide your team into a healthier lifestyle of good nutrition, suitable exercise and proper rest and sleep.

Pleasure maximisation (and avoidance of pain)

We follow a simple logic to increase our pleasure and avoid unpleasurable, dangerous or painful experiences. This helps make us feel safe and secure in the world.

Our experience over time gives rise to a whole network of mostly unconscious triggers and associations that are linked to either positive or negative experiences and our resultant pleasure or pain.

You may be seeking hedonistic pleasure focusing more on the subjective experience of maximising personal pleasure and minimising personal pain, or a eudaemonic experience with a more rounded psychological well-being that encompasses the combination of the other three basic needs being fulfilled for a long term meaning or purpose.

Our subjective experiences colour our view of the world and each person has their own unique internal rating process based on our own unique previous experiences.

In short:

* We strive to increase our belief of our own self-worth to ourselves and our perception of how others value us.

* We need to believe that we have some ability to control what happens to us and we need to feel cared for by another human being.

* Lastly, we seek to maximise the personal pleasure we derive from life and avoid unpleasant experiences.

To be able to deliberately impact our feeling of drive, motivation, inspiration or engagement we need to be able to fulfil these six needs in a way that satisfies us personally. And to understand that, we need to get back to those chemicals I talked about earlier.

This is going to help us hack your thinking by knowing the main chemicals involved and what you can consciously and deliberately do to alter the cocktail mix that your SNS, HPAA (and PSNS) do unconsciously for you.

We all need to FEEL and be safe and secure and be free from fear.

In organisations, Psychological Safety is the #1 differentiatorfor personal and team effectiveness!

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* If you do not feel safe and secure and free from fear - then you are likely to make this even worse for your team.

* As a leader, allow your team members to speak up without any negative repercussions. Protect them from other leaders. Encourage all members to speak up freely and always encourage useful conflict and opposing ideas. Encourage everyone to build on previous statements with “Yes, and…” (NOT “No…But…”)

Attachment and Belonging

Our need for attachment is laid down at birth in our brain and memory. It helps us believe that we belong to a protective family or tribe.

This means that our perceptions, behaviours and emotional reactions and motivations can be laid down very early in life.

This is directly linked to the availability of an attachment figure, usually one of the primary caregivers, for normal social and emotional development. When this is not the case this has a negative influence on the fulfilment of this need for attachment.

(Bowlby, J., Ainsworth, M., & Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory. Developmental Psychology, 5, 759-775)

Whether your primary caregiver wasn't there physically or emotionally doesn't make a great deal of difference.

We all need to truly belong to a tribe of people connected to us and who help us meet our needs. A tribe where we have equal value and treated as equal.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* You need a tribe too! If it’s lonely at the top - you ain’t leading, you’re on a walk!

* Treat all team members equitably - they may not be equals but they have equal value! Encourage sharing, and proactively acknowledging each other.

Control and Mattering

Everyone has a basic urge to be able to design and control their environment. This helps fulfil our need to matter.

We need to know where we are going and how to keep ourselves on the right path to reach our chosen destination.

A situation that is unclear and ambiguous stimulates a negative reaction in the limbic system of the brain, specifically the amygdala. This in turn, will stimulate an immediate fear reaction.

If the resultant stress can be controlled and mastered this may stimulate reward circuits and be saved as a learned memory. Otherwise, this can destabilise the neuronal circuits and trigger a negative cycle of thinking.

(Whalen, P.J. (1998) Fear, vigilance, and ambiguity. Initial neuroimaging studies of the human amygdala. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 7(6). 177-188.)

What may matter more, is not that you are actually able to control your environment but that you believe that you control it. This is known as having an "internal locus of control" When the locus of control is external, we'll blame everyone and anyone else and outside forces for what happens to us.

(Fournier, G. (2016). Locus of Control. Psych Central. Retrieved on June 3, 2018, from https://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/locus-of-control/).

The big downside of an external locus of control is that even if they are to blame, they don't give a damn because they are in it for themselves and their own locus of control.

In modern society our greatest punishment is to remove or reduce a persons ability to control what happens to them by imprisoning them, beating them or executing them.

When our base needs are being met, we want more control over our lives (or at least we perceive we have more control) and need to be recognised that we matter and that what we do matters.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* Learn to recognise and appreciate yourself. Respect yourself and achieve mastery in your leadership walk.

* Go out of your way to “Catch them doing something good!” - and deliberately recognise all team members achievements, individually and specifically. Not a catch all - “great job team!” - that’s about as genuine as it seems to you. Show complete respect for others and especially your team members. Coach them for mastery in their roles and beyond.

Self-Esteem and Actualisation

Every healthy individual is constantly seeking to increase and protect their self-worth. This is large part of fulfilling our need to self-actualise.

Self-esteem is a specific human need and only possible through having the ability to reflect and be able to perceive this and bring it to conscious attention.

Our interactions with others enable us to form this self-image that is influenced by a complex network of interactions with others in the environment and their reactions and observations of us.

We therefore develop a perception of our self-worth and a need to be valued and for value.

(Cast, A.D., & Burke, P. (2002) A theory of self-esteem. Social Forces, 80(3), 1041-1068.)

When a friend ignores you (and you notice this), for example, it is likely that you will question your own value to them and hence the value you bring to the relationship.

When your boss tells you that you did a great job on that project, your self-worth increases and your value on that relationship increases.

As Dale Carnegie put it many years ago in the classic ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’: “Everyone wants to feel important”. That includes you!

“Everyone wants to feel important.”

When we are healthy and safe, we belong to a tribe and we matter: we need to pursue our God given talents, to be creative and to fulfil our destiny

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* Leadership develops daily! Pursue excellence and keep learning how you can be and do better. Think before you speak and remember to Pause and Breathe.

* Encourage, Develop, Guide and Empower your team members daily! Your task is to make them better than you. That’s what will be noticed by those higher up the food chain.

Serving Others

Or self-transcendence as Maslow called it, is our highest need. Serving others boosts your health and well-being (survival), happiness (pleasure), greater connection (attachment), that you matter (control) and uses your giftedness (esteem). That is, serving others helps fulfil all your other needs. But to be in a position to do this, you need to fill those needs. You need to be blessed to be a blessing.

When we are personally fulfilled, we transcend to think more about others than ourselves. We need to give and to serve and to fulfil our spiritual selves.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

* You will only be truly fulfilled when you give and give some more. If you have yet to uncover your purpose in life - here’s a clue that will save you many hours - “it’s not about you! You were born to serve others.” How you serve them - that’ll be your gifts to them.

* As a Leader your job is to serve others and when your power pack is filled to bursting, you can charge them up and help them find out and practice how they too serve others.

If you would like to learn how AdvantEdge Coaching can help you, your team and your organisation, then join me for a Complimentary Discovery Session by applying here.

In this AdvantEdge Guide we’ll discuss how establishing Command Intent is a more specific way of setting goals than SMART goals, as it has an embedded purpose. It involves imagining a successful future in each of five areas of life (your Rocket Ship for Life), and focusing on the senses of sight, feel, smell, taste, and sound to create a captivating and rich picture. For teams, the unit in charge of military simulations for NATO recommends asking themselves "if I do nothing else tomorrow, I must ____, so that ____". AdvantEdge Coaching can help to further equip and empower individuals to reach their Command Intent goals.

Why do we need a Rocket Ship for Life?

The Rocket Ship for Life came about because I used to suffer from a major problem. Basically, I was easily distracted. Teachers’ could rarely get, let alone keep, my attention. I’d start a new project only to quickly get bored or frustrated and move onto the next shiny object. If ADHD had been popular back then, perhaps, I could have gotten myself medicated for it!

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It wasn’t because I lacked goals. I had much that I wanted to achieve in my career. But, for some strange reason, I was always looking for something. I couldn’t get or keep focus long enough to stick with it and finish.

The big issue it turned out was not lack of clear goals, not an inability to focus it was that there were gaps in what I was trying to achieve. There was no balance. What many have badly described as work/life balance - but what I prefer to call work/life integration. It’s where you identify your desired intent in the five key areas of your life as the drivers of the things that you do every day, steered by your values and aligned to your overall purpose or mission in this life.

If you ask most people what they want from life, they’ll tell you a variation of “to be happy and successful”. What the Bible calls “Good Success”  in Joshua 1:8.

Some people think that more money will make them happy. The problem is money is a great servant but a lousy master.

And so what if you achieve great success at work if you spend all your time at work and neglect your family and health?

As I mentioned, we have identified five key areas in life that, when attended to fully, will bring you real happiness and success as you fulfil them.

What are the five key areas?

These five key areas are like the engines of a rocket ship that you ride towards your life purpose. Your values are the way you steer and choose which paths you are following. The five areas that we’ve uncovered through our research are:

1. Family and Relationships

2. Health and Wellbeing

3. Spiritual Fulfilment

4. Personal Development

5. Work and Career

As you can imagine, like most people, I’d paid great attention to Work and Career and found it increasingly difficult to keep steering straight. I was working 80 plus hours each week (this was in the days when I was in the hotel and restaurant business) with no breaks, rarely a weekend off and scant holidays. I got away with it health wise for a good few years, but it shouldn’t have surprised me when my body rebelled and finally got me to pay a lot more attention to my health and wellbeing when my heart threw a hissy fit on July 4th 2014 at 11:33!

When you neglect an engine, it’s always going to be much more difficult to keep going towards your purpose, and very easy to get blown off course. It’s why your life and work are “off-balance.”

In the many years I have been coaching, fewer than 20% have anything remotely resembling “balance”. And they’ve usually been coached before or have had their own health or personal life crisis.

There’s many a successful person in the boardroom whose family life is in shambles.

Why these five areas and is one more important than the others?

As you think about each one you’ll realise that if you stop feeding one of these areas and consider the repercussions in your own life:

If you show no ambition in your work, your career stagnates and it just becomes a routine you could do with your eyes shut. Your brain becomes inactive and you are simply marking time until one day you retire… and then what?

Or you don’t bother with personal development after school or college and you learn nothing new. Now everything in your life stagnates. Your brain is bored (it is a learning machine). When your brain is bored, you get depressed through lack of Serotonin and Dopamine and opt-out of everything else life has to offer.

Neglect your spirtual man and there’s a big hole in your life. An emptiness that you can’t quite put your finger on. You’ll try and fill it with all sorts of other things but nothing seems to satisfy.

Neglect your health and well-being and your body will, one day, sooner or later, quit entirely. Your brain tried to keep you not dead (that is it's job) but somehow you resisted that urge until it too gave up fighting you.

Neglect your family and or relationships and you will soon be alone. And humans are social animals. You have an innate desire to belong to a tribe, to matter to others.

We all need all of these engines and just like a vehicle engine, you need to keep it maintained properly.

The trouble is, everyone is fundamentally lazy. Or perhaps fairer  to say that your brain is fundametally lazy. If there’s a “do nothing option”, your brain will take it because doing anything requires effort which burns scarce energy. So, if you do not deliberately attend to each of your engines, your brain will neglect them until something breaks.

If we’re going to burn fuel in these five areas, you're saying that we need to have a reason for doing so.

Each engine needs a driver or motivation for the brain to switch from it’s default “do nothing” to “do something” to get... whatever we intend to get.

So we need to tell our brain specifically what we intend to get once we do something. Then your brain is prepared to spend precious fuel in that area.

Why not set a simple Goal? Or even a SMART goal?

Goals are great, and SMART goal even better. However, Command Intent is usually more suited to changing situations (which is real life) and, very importantly, has an embedded purpose. This is what turns your brain on to motivation.

I've written extensively on why goal-setting matters - here for those wanting to know more.

Establishing Command Intent in each area Really Matters then?

Absolutely, noone climbs aboard a space rocket ready to launch into the heavens and then asks, “so where shall we go today?”

And noone replies, “I don’t know, let’s just start her up and go from there.”

No. Everytime there is a clear command intent for the mission and each and every engine has a very precise role in achieveing that intent to help the rocket ship and crew fulfil that mission.

What’s the difference between purpose, mission and intent?

We don’t have time here to delve into the difference between purpose and intent, suffice to say for now - your purpose is why you were born (it's your overall mission), your command intents are what you achieve along the journey to fulfill your purpose or mission in life.

Let’s get practical: How do you Establish Command Intent in each of these five Areas of Your Life?

Ask most people what they intend to achieve in their career (their career goal), for example, and you’ll probably get a vague answer about money, position, happiness level, and maybe a job title. Honestly, that’s about as useful as telling a blind footballer that the goal is at the end of the pitch.

“Which end?” you ask. And many other questions besides, not least is “how will you know when you have scored a goal?”

So we change the question…

Establishing a Command Intent for anything is simply a case of answering the question:

What does success look like?

And when I use the word “look” - I mean all your senses (look, feel, taste, smell, sound). And be as specific as you can be.

And, when we’re asking what does it “look like” - we mean literally what do (will) you see with your eyes in reality and in as much detail as you can.

Repeat with feel (emotions AND touch), smell (the most evocative and immediate of your senses), taste and sound.

And if it’s not evident in your answers: “How will you know that you have acheived it?” (i.e. how will you measure your acheivements?)

Ask, what will you Win or gain (and lose) when you have achieved it? (This is the embedded purpose).

And lastly, “by when?”

Now that you have a very rich, sensory description, you will have a captivating picture of your future.

And You Do this for all Five Areas of Your Life?

You’ll find it helpful and inspirational to have a clear command intent in all five areas of your life: Your work and career; your family and relationships; your spiritual life; your health and your personal development. Making sure that they support each other and are congruent. Miss one area and you risk struggling to steer your life purposefully forward.

You said, “by when?” - is this just for the long term future?

It’s best to have Command Intents for the short, medium and long term.

Most clients also find it helpful to establish these command intent’s in three time frames of short, medium and long term futures - whatever is short, medium or long term for you.

A little aside on future time frames - most teens struggle with a long term time frame of 10 years, as do most young adults. As we get older, it becomes easier to imagine further into the future.

What’s next?

If you lead a team, then you are responsible for identifying a worthy and compelling vision and articulating it to the team. People continually need to be shown the team's compass clearly and creatively so that their actions align, and they stay motivated with a captivating picture of their future.

In their book, “Made to Stick”, Chip and Dan Heath share help from the unit in charge of military simulations for NATO, the Combat Maneuver Training Center, who recommend that officers arrive at the Commander’s Intent by asking themselves this question. I’ve adjusted this for use with your personal intents:

“If I do nothing else tomorrow, I must . . . , so that . . .

Answer this question in each of your five key life areas and every day, you will have that often elusive, almost mythical: balance.

Where can you go to learn more now?

As an AdvantEdge Coaching client, we’ll help you fine tune your Rocket Ship for Life so that you have a crystal clear picture of the future you and what your success in each of these areas of your life look like and we’ll guide you on the path that will equip and empower you to achieve them. Apply for your complimentary AdvantEdge Discovery session today.

Or you can take up our 6-part Rocket Launch Coaching Program which is designed to help you Establish Your Command Intent in each of the five key areas of your life, then help you identify the core values, beliefs and habits to support your mission. You’ll be more equipped and empowered to achieve your purpose with a practical, systematic and proven approach to transforming your life and moving you closer to the future you. Apply for your complimentary AdvantEdge Discovery session today.

Thanks for reading Joy@Work! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

A change focused neuroscience approach for genuine results in your leadership, work and life that truly Empowers!

All AdvantEdge Coaching is based on our unique and powerful AdvantEDGE leadership development process based on Neuroscience Research in how people learn, change and develop: EDGE stands for Encourage, Develop, Guide and Empower.

It’s based on my post-grad research into effective management learning and development methods.

EDGE isn’t a silver bullet or a magic pill that gets instant results but based upon the latest neuroscience and social cognitive psychology research, EDGE is like a recipe for a pragmatic change focused approach to help clients realise genuine, sustainable results in leadership, work and life.

EDGE isn't only a model for coaching. You can use EDGE in any communication situation where you want to empower change or influence others.

We will use the EDGE development model in all our GuidePosts, and, as well as explaining the EDGE model we’ll also clarify two other critically important aspects that enable us to help you get those results: That is,

1. to clarify what coaching is (and what it is not!) and

2. how AdvantEDGE coaching truly empowers you to sustain your results.

The Purpose of this AdvantEdge Guide is to help you make better, informed decisions as you consider coaching to develop yourself or your team and organisation. There’s a lot of very convincing marketing out there that coaching is a panacea for all that ails business and organisation. 

Your Payoff will be you can understand for yourself, if coaching is suitable for you, and what type or style of coaching might best suit your needs. You’ll also challenge some of the common assumptions that you may have been making.

The truth is, coaching is not for everybody, and there are very good reasons. Here’s the top 10 I hear from clients, in reverse order and coming in at number 10, but still a biggie:

For the Full AdvantEdge Guide, all the links mentioned in the podcast and easy access to the (free!) resources mentioned, please go to the AdvantEdge Coaching System Website here.

It's not that there is this thing called the “Great Resignation” where an unprecedented 44% of people intend to quit their jobs this year. (58% in Singapore!) 

It's not that there is a global problem for CEO’s and leaders of many organisations who want their staff back in the office and are finding that impossible. Some, like Elon Musk, even after threatening to fire them all.

And it's not really about greed for more money, though when you get approached and offered a 20% pay hike for crossing the street, it is a temptation.

It's not even that it's your best and brightest talent who are abandoning ship first. Even though they are the first to be hunted and poached.

It’s a lot more systemic than the headline numbers suggest. The devil, as they say, is in the details.

During covid we all learned to keep our distance from people because they might just be a tad toxic. We avoided buildings and gatherings and events and restaurants, all so we wouldn’t accidentally meet someone toxic.

After 2 plus years we’re tired of avoiding people. And yet, there's one place many still want to avoid going, and that's their workplace.

The underlying problem? It's considered a toxic workplace. And not because there's covid lurking in dark corners but because there are loud and proud managers who think that disrespecting staff is a motivational weapon, that inequity is unavoidable and diversity is a fad. They seem to think that inclusion is exclusive and ethics are a matter of political expediency.

If your talent are quitting for more pay, it's because someone else is willing to pay them more and dangling a glimmer of hope that this new place won't be toxic, or at least, not as toxic as the current place.

But there is something that leaders and managers can do. And if you want to plug your talent drain, you might want to listen up to this AdvantEdge guide:

READ THE FULL GUIDE HERE 

The purpose of this guide is to help you align your leadership so that you use your power to most effectively and joyfully achieve what truly matters to you and your team and organisation.

The power of your payoff when you put this into action will be people will look to you for leadership and direction to help them grow as (seemingly effortlessly) as you.

https://My.joyatwork.coach/5qleadership 

Imagine that your needs are like a discharged battery that you are able to charge through your life activities.

When the bottom cell is sufficiently filled, the next cell can be charged. All human beings have 6 essential needs, or power cells.

Though, some people have faulty power packs - with a corrupted sixth cell that has been taken over by a leaky fifth cell. That is, they care less about other people because their self-esteem is so overfilled they hold others in total contempt - because they matter less than me!

Beware overfilling any one cell: Gluttony and Obesity with an overfilled Cell 1, Excessive risk taking for Cell 2.

And many have a leaky battery, where their own needs never get filled.

What does this mean for you as a Leader?

Every leader needs to understand:

1. Your own needs need to be met BEFORE you have enough to give others, and

2. Whilst things may look OK on the surface - people tend to hide their emotional needs fearing that they are the only ones who have them.

By this, you’ll be better able to ask the right questions and better positioned to serve others and help them fulfil their real needs.