On a Living Spree
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Why is friendship crucial for your company and its culture?
Connection through rich experiences and shared goals is the way to attract, retain and nurture talent. Shared experiences cultivate a culture of community, belonging and wellbeing at work. Gallup states their #1 predictor of success at work is having a best friend at work.
Fourteen years ago, I went with four of my friends to get our photo taken with Santa at the Burbank mall. Were we far too old to be doing this? Absolutely. Did we care that we were the only group in line that did not include young children? Nope. Is Santa kinda creepy with five grown women sitting on his lap? Definitely… which makes it even more hilarious. What was meant to be a one-time joke turned out to be so fun that it became an annual tradition, complete with themes and costumes. Even as our own families and lives grow and change, it’s a once-a-year event where we can feel like kids again with each other.
Over time, the things you used to play at become serious endeavors, or to-do list items, or no longer worth doing at all. Running around with your friends outside becomes running on the treadmill at the gym, scheduling coffee dates to see your friends, and attending networking events to make new ones. We think of those activities as good and healthy, but they’re actually remarkably unnatural, not to mention not very fun. Because if you saw a kid doing any of those things, you would feel like you were in an alternate universe. Kids don’t run to stay fit, they run to feel the wind on their face and the grass beneath their feet. Kids don’t network to climb a career ladder, they bond through joyful moments. Kids go for what they want without worrying about why or what for—they just want to have fun. As adults, we deny ourselves that luxury without understanding the incredible benefits we’re missing out on.
Life is short. We know this all too well, and yet rarely make changes to ensure we are living a life without regret. Research shows that we feel the loss and regret of the thing not done, far more than the things we did, but got wrong.
Not only that, but our biggest mistakes often prove to be the greatest factors in our growth. Teaching us and pushing us beyond what we thought it was possible to endure, allowing us to expand in emotional and intellectual intelligence and problem-solving.
Our choices ripple out into the world around us, when we think about what it means to live a life without regret, consider your legacy, your ripples, and whether they left the world better or worse. At the end of our lives, we don’t regret making enough money. But we do regret all the time we lost to the grind.
Bridget Hilton, author and keynote speaker at Experiential Billionaire, is this episode’s featured guest. She speaks powerfully about what it means to live a life with no regrets, how new experiences empower us to be bolder, and how your life can transform when you give back.
If you find yourself putting your dreams off, or worse, not even daring to dream them, then this is the episode to get you thinking about today, not someday!
During this interview, you'll learn...
- The value of new experiences
- How to live a life with no regrets
- The importance of giving back
The 'what are you waiting for' vibe really struck me. We can do anything we set our minds to. I get caught up sometimes in all the things that can hold me back. There will always be obstacles. But I prayed about it all and I was given an idea, and it can truly make a difference, and I want to make the most of this life.
The truth is you can't take it with you - so why not gift experiences (to yourself and others) rather than things?
Bridget Hilton and Joe Huff are obsessed with experiences.
Determined to unlock the secrets of their power to transform lives, they have spent years interviewing social science experts, conducting the largest study on life experiences ever done, and turning themselves into experiential guinea pigs.
Together they have trained to be samurai, danced with the northern lights, tracked silverback gorillas in a hailstorm, stood face to face with hungry lions on safari, absorbed life lessons from Maasai Mara tribesmen, sped across glaciers on dogsleds, built schools for kids in need, studied with monks, helped give 50,000 people hearing, swum with sharks, and explored the experiential riches life has to offer.
As pandemic restrictions started to loosen a little, I was overjoyed to find my pod of friends interested in doing all sorts of new activities—tie-dying clothes, teaching ourselves to roll sushi, hosting Connect Four tournaments, fermenting and labeling our own hot sauce and pickles, and sneaking out to Venice Beach at midnight to swim in the bioluminescent waves. As bad as the pandemic was in many ways, seeing others try new things with people they love was a bright spot, a small glimpse of what life should be like.
These experiences gave me natural bursts of serotonin and dopamine—feel-good hormones—that jolted me out of my depression temporarily. The novelty forced me to pay close attention to the task at hand, leaving little room to dwell on the past or worry about the future. And when I succeeded at something new, it helped build my confidence and courage.
My personal experience aligns perfectly with scientific research. The evidence states that simply being more present by doing something new stimulates and activates regions of our brain that improve our mood.
When you were younger, you might have had some type of allowance to use on whatever you wanted. What if you gave yourself an allowance for your experiences? We’re not personal finance experts, and there are plenty of books on that if you want to go deep (I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi is a great place to start). We do, however, know that when experiences truly become the priority, spending habits often change.
Some of my closest friends are people that I worked with that I shared once in a lifetime (or just out of the ordinary) experiences with, whether it was staying in a haunted castle in Scotland together, seeing someone hear for the first time, hiking Machu Picchu, or simply staying up all night talking about life after attending Coachella together. But it wasn't just about having a good time.
Shared goals and experiences play a crucial role in fostering a great corporate culture by creating a sense of unity, belonging, and purpose among employees.
Here are some ways in which they contribute to a positive corporate culture:
Joe Huff and Bridget Hilton’s transformational workshop takes attendees through a powerful and entertaining half day focused on all the ways companies, teams and leaders can unlock powerful results and untapped human potential by learning how to identify and prioritize investing in fulfilling experiences.
Told through engaging real life experiences and backed by science, their stories energize, inspire, and provide the tools and habits necessary for attendees to learn how to find peak inspiration, build deeper and more meaningful connections with their teams and co-workers, overcome burnout, optimize individual and team performance, and cultivate strong feelings of fulfillment, community, belonging and wellbeing.
- The job market continues to boom, with millions of workers still leaving their jobs each month despite talk of a slowing economy and recession. Also booming, according to recent Gallup polling, worker disengagement and unhappiness.
- This is not just an HR issue but a bottom line one as well: business units with engaged workers have 23% higher profit, while employees who are not engaged cost the world $7.8 trillion in lost productivity, equal to 11% of global GDP.
- Sixty percent of people reported being emotionally detached at work and 19% as being miserable. Only 33% reported feeling engaged — and that is even lower than 2020.
So What Can I Help With?
I hear the term more and more these days, but think sometimes it gets confused with normal work stress, so some managers might just brush it off as being not serious.
While stress is a normal part of work, burnout is a more severe and prolonged condition that can have serious implications for both the individual and the organization. Recognizing the signs of burnout and taking steps to address and prevent it is crucial for promoting employee well-being and maintaining a healthy work environment.
Burnout in the workplace is a state of physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion that results from prolonged or chronic job-related stress. It typically occurs when employees feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet the demands of their job. Burnout is often characterized by a sense of disillusionment, reduced effectiveness, and a lack of motivation.
Characteristics of workplace burnout include:
Welcome to On a Living Spree. Glad you're here! I'm Bridget. I write and speak about the art, science, and path to building a life rich in experiences.
The goal of this blog is to help you discover (or rediscover!) your goals and give you the tools to make them happen, whether it's through me directly or my company Experiential Billionaire. I appreciate you stopping by - much more to come soon.