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The WorkWell Podcast™ is back and I am so excited about the inspiring guests we have lined up. Wellbeing at work is the issue of our time. This podcast is your lens into what the experts are seeing, thinking, and doing.
Hi, I am Jen Fisher, host, bestselling author and influential speaker in the corporate wellbeing movement and the first-ever Chief Wellbeing Officer in the professional services industry. On this show, I sit down with inspiring individuals for wide-ranging conversations on all things wellbeing at work. Wellbeing is the future of work. This podcast will help you as an individual, but also support you in being part of the movement for change in your own organizations and communities. Wellbeing can be the outcome of work well designed. And we all have a role to play in this critical transformation!
This podcast provides general information and discussions about health and wellness. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. The podcast owner, producer and any sponsors are not liable for any health-related claims or decisions made based on the information presented or discussed.
Jen Fisher: [00:00:00] Before we begin today's episode, I'd like to share something personal. On my wrist, I wear a simple beaded bracelet with the word hope in its center. Some days this bracelet feels like a beacon of light. Other days, particularly in times of collective struggle, it feels heavier, almost like a challenge, a question, a responsibility.
You see, I've grown weary of hearing people dismiss hope with phrases like Hope is not a strategy. This fundamentally misunderstands what hope really is because here's what I've learned through years of working with leaders and teams I. Without hope, even the most brilliant strategies, fall flat without hope.
Transformational change remains just words on a paper. Without hope, your strategy is dead before it starts. I am and always will be a student of hope. Through my own journey as a leader, I've come to understand that hope isn't just an emotion, it's a cognitive and behavioral process. It requires having a [00:01:00] goal, seeing a pathway forward, and believing in our ability to walk that path.
It's about the courage to envision a better future and the resilience to work toward it. Even when the path seems unclear. Sometimes when we feel hope is out of reach, we start smaller. We practice hope in micro moments, in tiny choices, in small acts of courage and care. And as Rebecca Sonet reminds us, hope isn't about knowing that everything will be fine.
It's about embracing uncertainty as the space where possibility lives. In my own life, I've experienced how hope operates as both a comfort and a challenge. I've navigated personal transitions, witnessed the evolution of relationships and faced professional changes. That tested my resilience through it all.
This simple bracelet has reminded me that hope isn't something that we feel. It's something that we do choice by choice moment by moment, even in times of despair actually, especially [00:02:00] in times of despair in our workplaces. Hope isn't just about grand initiatives or perfect policies. It's about a series of small, intentional choices.
It's about examining our own leadership patterns and having the courage to change them. It's about understanding that our own growth as leaders is inseparable from our collective wellbeing. The feeling of despair can be uniquely suffocating, a tightness that whispers, nothing will ever change. But as leaders, our job isn't to have all the answers.
It's about staying committed to creating positive change. Even when it feels impossible, it's about choosing courage over comfort, connection over control, possibility over despair, not just once, but again and again in small ways, which is why I'm particularly excited about today's conversation with hopelessness rising at unprecedented rates globally, especially in our workplaces, we're facing a critical question.
What if the solution [00:03:00] isn't just better mental health resources, but teaching people how to activate hope And what if hope isn't just an emotion, but a measurable, teachable skill that could transform both individual lives and organizational cultures. This is the Work Well podcast series. Hi, I'm Jen Fisher, and today I'm thrilled to be talking with Katherine Tki as CEO and Chief Hope Officer of the Shine Hope Company.
Katherine has pioneered evidence-based methods to measure and teach hope and organizations worldwide after overcoming her own mental health challenges. She created award-winning programs like Hopeful Minds and Hopeful Cities. Proving that hope can be learned and cultivated her work, which spans from Fortune 500 companies to the United Nations, is revolutionizing how we think about hope as a foundation for workplace wellbeing and mental health.
This episode touches on themes of suicide and [00:04:00] suicidal thoughts with care and compassion. We want you to prioritize your wellbeing, so if these subjects feel too heavy right now, please take care of yourself by pausing or reaching out to the 9 8 8 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24 7 by calling or texting 9 8 8.
Catherine, welcome to the show.
Kathryn Greotzke: Thank you. Thank you so much. It's great to be here, Jen.
Jen Fisher: Well, I am so excited for this conversation. For those that listen and follow me, they know that hope is my jam. And so having you on this show today to talk about hope, um, is so exciting for me. So thank you again.
Kathryn Greotzke: Oh yeah.
Thank you. And I'm so grateful to hear it's our jam. We need more hope champions in the world for sure.
Jen Fisher: We do. We're gonna get, we're gonna get a, hopefully a lot more after this conversation. So I had the title of Chief Wellbeing Officer, which I thought was the coolest title in the world, but you have the title of Chief [00:05:00] Hope Officer, and I know that this is deeply personal to you.
So can you share how this kind of all shaped your mission to teach hope as a skill?
Kathryn Greotzke: Yeah, absolutely. So I, I started in business, really business. I got an international MBA and um, had an undergrad in psychology, but worked for companies and businesses and eventually went on to launch my own brand over 20 years ago called Mood Lights.
And when I was launching the brand, I wanted to do a cause marketing campaign for mental health. So, you know, put a logo in front of a package, raise money for a specific amount of time. Um, really what's become social impact. But I wanted to do that specific to mental health, and I found the branding to be very depressing.
So my initial aim was to set out to rebrand mental health, and I did that as I have a previous suicide attempt myself. Um, when I was 18 years old, my dad died by suicide. And, you know, that was really hard for me. [00:06:00] He was my mentor. We were very close. Um, he was a, a retail banker. I learned so much from him about business.
And I was a freshman in college and it was just, it was really, really hard and, and de I wanted to do something in this space, in the mental health space. And, you know, it initially started as, as rebranding mental health, but I got about 10 years into it. Was it a. You know, a suicide prevention talk and realized they were talking about suicide prevention in time of crisis.
So really 800 numbers restricting access to means. And I thought, you know, if you wanna prevent something, you have to get to root cause. And you know, I've been told by doctors, I'm at a high risk of suicide. And I knew what they were telling me was suicide prevention wasn't gonna work for me. And. Said, you know, I've gotta figure out what, what really causes it.
And across all of the studies, hopelessness came up again and again as the single consistent predictor of suicide. And it's the [00:07:00] primary symptom of depression, a key symptom of anxiety. It's, you know, prevalent in addiction. And I've struggled with addiction, been in recovery 20 years. And so I thought, I gotta learn what this is and figure out how to get to hope.
And, and I realized they were measuring hope, but they weren't teaching you actually how to hope. And so I set out to figure out, you know, how can we do that? And if so, how might we? And now I'm really, we've been able to prove that theory that yes, you can teach hope, and as you increase hope, anxiety, and depressive symptoms decrease.
And so I'm really on a mission to, I, I think to end suicide and violence as well. We need to ensure, all know what hopelessness is, how to proactively manage it in healthy ways and how to get to hope.
Jen Fisher: Yeah. And I mean, I, I feel like more than ever, um, you know, the stats we're seeing around hopelessness, around despair, around loneliness.
This is needed so much more than ever, but. [00:08:00] For so long. We've all, you know, we've all heard the unfortunate statement of hope is not a strategy
Kathryn Greotzke: now. And Well, that bug, I tell you
Jen Fisher: Yes. And yeah. It just, it just won't, it won't go away. And I get so frustrated when I hear that because I, for, for, for me, you know, hope has been such a important strong emotion.
And player in, in my own life as well, that, you know, every time I hear that I cringe. But then I, you know, I, I started saying, well, actually, you know, I. Without hope, your big strategic transformation plans are going nowhere because if you can't get people on board and hopeful about the future and the changes that you wanna make, then you're, you're kind of dead in the water before you even start.
And so when I saw your work, I was like, yes. Finally, we've like moved from theory, [00:09:00] right? This idea, you know, that hope is just something that we draw upon upon like in the darkest days to like, actually this is a skillset and it, I believe, I know you believe, is that it should be a required leadership skillset.
And so let's talk about that. You've proven that hope is teachable, and you've done this through evidence-based programming, so. Tell me about this, like what led you to that breakthrough and what does the research tell us about it being teachable and about the evidence that exists?
Kathryn Greotzke: Yeah, absolutely. And oh my gosh, there's so many ways to go with this, but I'll just first start with, um, yeah, hope is a strategy and I can't wait to talk about why it's a strength in the workplace.
But when I started looking into hope, you know, I thought, how do you hope. Like I'm supposed to have hope, but how? And I realized that we're measuring hopes. So there are different hope scales. We use the, uh, Snyder Hope Scales, so they have an adult one and also a children's one. And, and I did [00:10:00] that because they have a children's one and they've published so much on the outcomes.
So the higher that you score on the scale that you know, the better outcomes throughout life, I mean workplace engagement, productivity. Uh, how well you do in sports, more so than your athletic abilities, even, uh, if you graduate school. Wow. How long you live. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And when you think about hope and and specific to the workplace as well, hope is all about goal attainment.
So can you visualize something in your future? And are you equipped with skills to get there? So do you have self-efficacy? Our workplaces are built around hope. I mean, I mean they're built around goals, attaining goals, you know, meeting objectives. And so to me, teaching hope is, is so critical in the workplace.
But back to how we were able to prove this. So I looked at the scales, I looked at, you know, my work is a little bit different from some Hope scientists as I come at it from the lens of hopelessness. And when you de [00:11:00] deconstruct hopelessness, it's emotional despair, so you feel horrible. It's the emotional component and it's also motivational helplessness.
So I feel powerless to do anything about it. And when those two combine, you know, in a single moment, they, they have really, they can have devastating consequences. So it's really learning. How do we manage our emotional despair and get to feeling better? And how do we get out of helplessness into inspired actions?
You know, hope science deals a lot with the helplessness to inspired actions around goal settings, not so much the emotional component, and yet I feel the emotional component is really just as important in teaching how to hope. So I looked at these scales, I looked at the different, different definitions.
Um, and then I created a program for young kids. I wanted to start with seven to 11 year olds to really prove that you could do this. Um, we created a program, 10 Lessons. We did a pre and post kind of intervention or [00:12:00] pre and post survey. You know, it's, it's kind of considered an intervention and we looked at specifically the hope skills coming out of the courses, as well as anxiety and depressive symptoms.
Social connectedness, some other things. And we were able to show that we could increase hope with this programming. And as we did this, you know, anxie anxiety symptoms, decreased depressive symptoms, and, and so that's where I started. And then we, you know, I've expanded really exponentially since then.
Once I had the belief and knowledge that you could do this, I kind of put my other company to the side. I thought this is the most important thing I can be doing in my lifetime. As you look at hopelessness stats and. The consequence of hopelessness. My aim is to really normalize the conversation around hopelessness.
We all have moments of hopelessness all the time. It's just really our ability to manage them and navigate them. So we've created programming for really all different populations. The va, we have a hopeful cities activation. We do, I do stuff in the [00:13:00] workplace. We, you, we have the programming for young kids.
We have a team program, we have a college course. We just published research on it. It uses the frame, the Shine Hope framework that we've created and and published some research on. That's really an evidence informed and evidence-based framework for how you actually get your way from hopelessness to hope.
Jen Fisher: Yeah. And so I wanted to to talk to you about the Shine framework or have you talked to us, I guess, about the Shine, the Shine framework for hope and, and walk us through it, obviously at a high level. And then if you can specifically talk about I. What can all of us do today to start to apply this into our workplaces?
Kathryn Greotzke: Yeah, absolutely. So the Shine Hope framework, so it, it stands for stress skills. So how we identify and manage our stress response that really gets to the emotional despair of hopelessness, the happiness habits, so how we cultivate, you know, happiness in our lives and really looking at the happy hormones.
So how do we, you know, we have [00:14:00] these bodies that are incredible machines. We can actually create dopamine, serotonin. Ourselves, endorphins in healthy ways and and also in unhealthy ways. So what are the healthy ways to cultivate those hormones? We have inspired actions, is the I, so how we set goals, overcome obstacles to goals, like needing to rego when we need to.
Rego, what does that look like? How do we navigate that? N is nourishing networks. So how we cultivate strong and healthy networks in our lives that are really bi-directional. Um, really being intentional about who we surround ourselves with and, and how they, um, affect us and impact us. And then the e is eliminating challenges, which are the negative thinking patterns that get in the way of our ability to hope so.
Things like rumination, internalizing failure, negative bias, confirmation bias, um, trying to control things outside of our control, automatic negative thoughts. These are all kinds of things that are, that our brain does automatically that get in the way of our [00:15:00] ability to hope. I was gonna say that that for me is the hardest part of the
Jen Fisher: framework.
Kathryn Greotzke: I know. I know and then we kind of use our stress skills and happiness habits to like help, help us work on those. Yeah, it, there's so many things our mind does that is just so unhelpful for us. And you know, the first key is just even learning what they are and coming to understand them. When we did our college research, you know.
What we found is these students aren't learning any of these things. Like, it's shocking to me. They're not learning any of these things and it, and it impacts everything about their lives and, and will and their futures. You know, it seems so to me, necessary that we teach these skills. So that's the basic of the framework.
Um, you know, I do a lot of workplace training though, where I'll measure hope in the workplace. We get hope scores of everyone. And then to me, the first like message or. Four workplaces is, is, um, just getting a sense of where your score is, is so important and [00:16:00] knowing that we can't be good at something until we're taught something.
And so, and it's a teachable skill. Um, you know, again, measurable and teachable and, and it'll impact all, you know, areas of the workplace. So it's really so very important. And to me it's about empowering, empowering employees with skills and tools so they can navigate things more proactively. A, a really interesting stat in the workplace or study that was recently done by the University of Arkansas Medical School is that, you know, 53% of parents right now are missing a day of work a month due to their children's mental health.
Hmm. And you know, you think about. We have a big enough challenge dealing with employees mental health, but you know, a lot of workplaces say, well, the children's doesn't impact us. But really when you look at the bottom line in the workplace and the costs associated with your employees missing that much work due to their children's mental health, to me this is a really important time to take a whole [00:17:00] society, really a whole society approach to mental health.
Jen Fisher: For sure. And and I would say, I mean, even beyond the. One day, right? It's how much is it? How much is it impacting them or their ability to be effective in their roles on a day in, day out basis if their child is struggling with their mental health, right? I mean, that's. Yeah. The first thing in your brain.
Kathryn Greotzke: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, the CDC put out a study that 57% of teen girls are persistently hopeless. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, I think it's approved a little in the last year, but you know, you think about how many of our youth are struggling significantly and you know, to. Cool thing about Hope is that A, it's a, it's a top four need of employees according to Gallup.
So Gallup did this cool study and they we're able to show that it's a, you know, your employees need it. You know, to, to meet the goals that you set as a, as a leader in the workplace. Um, but the other [00:18:00] thing is it's a unique approach to mental health and really violence prevention. And instead of, you know, a lot of these programs people don't buy into or wanna attend because of stigma or their, you know, beliefs or perceptions about it.
But to me, if you're gonna talk about training them on hope and how to be more hopeful in their lives and then. When I do talks, we look first at stress skills. What's stressing you out? Right? Right now? How are you navigating the those stressor in health in healthy ways? And then what resources are available in your company to support you in doing that?
To me, the goal is to get more people utilizing EAP really before they're in crisis. So being more proactive about it, you know, to reduce overall healthcare, healthcare costs in companies.
Jen Fisher: Yeah. I, I, I love that. And, and, and hope is a, a very, in my mind, a very proactive skill. So, um, so I love everything about what you said.
So kind of [00:19:00] reflecting on hope in the workplace as a leader, what are two or three things that, that I can do to. Inspire hope in others and, and inspire hope in myself. Maybe first, but then inspire hope in others that, that I lead.
Kathryn Greotzke: Yeah, well to me it's really leading by example. So I love our wanna work with leaders if they'll write their Shine Hope story.
So share about a challenge that they've had. We have, we have a way you write a story that we all have challenges, so let's kind of normalize the conversation around challenges. And what stress skills did you use to kind of navigate that challenge or overcome that challenge? Or are you proactively using?
Um, in our workplace meetings every week we talk about what stress skills we're using that week, um, and kind of brainstorming ways to navigate our stressors in healthier ways together. So to me, kind of having an open conversation around that as a leader and to [00:20:00] practice together so you can more, there's kind of more commonality around it.
Um, but then they share, you know, through the challenge, what are the happiness habits you practiced? What inspired actions did you have to take to navigate that challenge? What, what networks, what were your nursing networks? How did you cultivate those and what were the challenges you had and how to eliminate 'em.
So to me, writing a story. Being open about your own struggles and challenges is helpful, and then sharing the skills, you know, not the, just the challenge, but the actual skills you use to navigate and, and overcome so that, you know, that's a good way to do it. Also, practicing happiness habits in the workplace or providing opportunities for your employees to do that.
I, of course, would also, you know, if workplaces wanna support a hopeful city activation in their city and, and sponsor that and help get the workforce. Um, activated in the community around, um, teaching hope to younger kids or, or mentoring kids around hope or, you know, activating the city. [00:21:00] We become more hopeful when we teach others how to hope.
And that's certainly been true for me throughout this work. We become more
Jen Fisher: hopeful. We become happier. Oh yeah. All the really, all the research shows that we, that, you know, when we, when we, when we do for others, we do for ourselves. Yes. Yet somehow we always forget that. I know, I know. Yeah, for sure. So let's, so when you talk about Hopeful Cities, talk to me a little bit.
About that. 'cause I'd love to know what makes a city hopeful or what makes a workplace or an organization hopeful.
Kathryn Greotzke: Yes. Right. So, you know, it's a jour, I'll first say, first of all, hope is a journey. Your hope score is gonna go up and down depending on the challenges you have in life. Um, and so to me, as you go through more challenges, the more you wanna shine hope, the more you have to use the skills, practice them.
And yet, what often happens when we go through challenges is we stop doing the things that are necessary. So it kind of build our hope. So, um, but so to be a hopeful city, it doesn't [00:22:00] necessarily mean everyone's hopeful. I am the city. It means the city is committed or somebody in the city. It doesn't have to be city leadership, but somebody is committed to activating hope in the city.
So we have a licensing, um, kind of model for this through the Shine Hope Company where we licensed the programming. We set up a landing page on our Hopeful City's website. We have a public health campaign around Hope is measurable, hope is teachable. Brands can associate with that. Um, put their logos on really billboards or yard signs or posters, and then the QR code leads to the landing page with all of the programming, um, or most of the programming we have available for.
Four cities. So we have a Teen Hope Guide, which is a peer-to-peer kind of downloadable program. Teens can work with each other on their hope skills. We have a parents' guide, so how, how you can use Hope language at home and start learning about hope, the skills in practice together as a family around hope.
We have educator guides, which are programs for younger kids. [00:23:00] Uh, we just did a va, a program for the VA that some clergy are running in va. So. These, uh, social media kind of activation postcards, brochures on the Shine Hope framework. So it's really a marketing campaign in cities and then evidence-based programming available to really all your employees and then all the people in the community to start using them and practicing.
Jen Fisher: That's, that's, that's incredible. I, I'll have to check and see if Miami is a, is a hopeful city. Yeah,
Kathryn Greotzke: not yet. We would love to do that. Not yet. Yeah, not yet. Alright. Yeah, so we can, I've, I've, yeah. Talked to your mayor about that before too. So, Suarez at the time was the mayor, but I'm not sure if
Jen Fisher: he still is.
Yeah. Well, congratulations on that. So, I, I wanna go back to something, you know, you, you've talked about. How your, you know, your work on teaching Hope as a skill has, I mean, it span started with youth, so it spans from youth all the way to [00:24:00] the most senior executive CEOs in an organizations can. Can you talk about some of the like hope related challenges that people see about, I see from the different life stages or career levels that they're in?
I wanna give people kind of this. You know, to, no matter where they are in their life stage, they're not alone. There's other people that are, that are, that are like them and that they, that these are common, you know, common challenges that people have. So can you talk a little bit about what that looks like across life stages or career stages?
Kathryn Greotzke: Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, our, our levels of hopelessness go up and our moments of hopelessness go up when we go through kind of challenges. And so for entrepreneurs, for example, you're gonna have high levels of hopelessness. So you're gonna have to root be really good at understanding what that is and how to, how to navigate it in a proactive and healthy, healthy way.
You know, you have obstacle after obstacle after obstacle, so you're [00:25:00] feeling these moments of hope, hopelessness a lot more so. To me it makes sense. I mean, the rates of depression and entrepreneurs are higher, um, because of this. But when we learn to manage our moments of hopelessness, it doesn't necessarily have to be the case.
You can become higher in hope, and it's a protective factor for depression. So, you know, when you lose a job, when you're, you know, in a, in a position and you lose a job or you change a job, your moments of hopelessness are gonna go up. When you think about. Leaders especially, it's hard to cultivate like the nourishing network part of hope.
You know, it can be lonely at top. You're making a lot of decisions, a lot of hard decisions. Um, you have to meet expectations of a number of different people, and so your moments of hopelessness are gonna be higher and you're gonna be, have to be really intentional about the networks that you create and people that you connect with on a regular basis.
Um, so, you know, I, and, and then I think when we go through personal [00:26:00] challenges, really at whatever level, you're gonna have more moments of hopelessness. And so how do you navigate those in healthy ways and not have it necessarily affect your workplace or your workplace performance? So. To me, it's just all about getting really good no matter what's happening, no matter what level of work or what, you know, stage of life you're in, um, at navigating those moments in healthier ways.
When we don't, that's when we turn to things like addiction or violence or self harm or, you know, those kinds of behaviors they help us navigate or, or violence or, you know. Um, we, we get dopamine when we're violent. So if you're in any kind of despair or you're in any, you know, kind of stress that might feel good, um, but you're just, you're just not regulating your stress response in a healthy way, you know?
So I, I think it, you know, the more challenges we have, you know, for our positions in whatever position or whatever [00:27:00] stage of life we're in, um, the more we're gonna have to practice and, and cultivate these skills.
Jen Fisher: Yeah, it, it's so interesting that you said that we, uh, recorded a podcast with, uh, Lisa Feldman Barrett recently, and we were talking about dopamine and that, you know, everybody's always searching for these dopamine hits, but that dopamine hits aren't always positive.
Oh, yeah, I
Kathryn Greotzke: know. And we teach our kids, you know.
Jen Fisher: Yes. Like, oh, but we we're all chasing it. I
Kathryn Greotzke: know, but it's not always a
Jen Fisher: positive thing. Yes, I know.
Kathryn Greotzke: And we can get them in unhealthy ways too. That's the, you know, that's a really hard thing, especially with violence in youth. It's so frustrating to me because we don't teach these kids the, the biology of it and what's happening in their body.
And so they're searching for ways to feel better. Um, yeah. And when once you start teaching them, well, here are healthy ways to get these, you know. Here are unhealthy ways to get 'em. And so you're not, you know, instead we just shame 'em or trying to [00:28:00] feel better, really. Um, but yeah, we are, we're on a quest for do dopamine.
I'm like on a quest in healthy ways, you know, I can always feel when I wake up and I'm like, Ugh. I'm like, I gotta do something, some kind of happiness habit, you know? So,
Jen Fisher: yeah.
Kathryn Greotzke: Yeah.
Jen Fisher: So you, and you talked about how, you know, feelings of, of hopelessness, um, can, can lead to these behaviors, addiction, not so helpful behaviors.
And, and when I think about, you know, kind of the, the trends or what we're seeing in the workplace, especially. Over the last several years, I think it was all there pre pandemic, but the pandemic in many ways, sh shone a light on on some of the real challenges that we're seeing in the workplace. And I'm talking about things like, you know, really high levels of burnout.
You know, trends like quiet, quitting. Now we're seeing the tensions around return to office. So talk [00:29:00] to me about how we can, we as leaders, can use hope to, to help, you know, to help with these challenges. 'cause there are very real challenges and I, I do believe that that hope is a key strategy for moving forward and moving away from seeing some of these really negative trends in the workplace.
Kathryn Greotzke: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have this, you know, we have this need for stress in our life, like some stress we, you know, there's this optimal level of stress that we need to be motivated and move forward, but then there's that over, you know, way too much stress and that's what really leads to burnout. So to me it's being really proactive about micro doses of stress skills throughout the day.
You know, depending on, on what kind of position you have and really encouraging your staff to take those mini little stress, you know, breaks for managing stress and healthier ways. [00:30:00] If you're sitting at a desk and you're not like standing up every hour, you know, that can be really hard on your health. I mean, there's a lot of new research on just the, the impact of sitting.
Um, and things like nutrition and, you know, long out we need our sleep. We need to be eating well. We need, you know, there are certain things that we really need to live healthy and kind of productive and, and engaged lives in the workplace. Um, so to me it's important that leaders model these and, and exercise.
You know, we, we know so much now about, about the impact of exercise on our mental health and our wellbeing. Um, and so giving time and space and opportunities to do this and then really giving your employers a sense of control. I mean, as employees, we can tend to focus on, and this is one of the challenges, so much of what we can't control, we might not be able to control if we go to the work or we might not be able to control, um, our hours, but [00:31:00] give us areas where we can control and as leaders.
You know, communicate that you're giving your employees some kind of locust of control of coming back to the office. Like what? Give them areas of things that they can manage and, and make sure to highlight that. I mean, um, you know, we need to feel empowered and in control and, and we get into persistent hopelessness when we feel, you know, that despair and that a helplessness to do anything about it.
So. As leaders, focus on giving opportunities of things that your employees can control and make sure to communicate that well and the importance, you know, you, you place. And having them have areas of, you know, where they, you know, what their office looks like, or, you know, just like little things that you can do.
Um. So those are, you know, those are some, I think, important things. And also goal study and making sure you're having, you know, regular meetings around goals, writing your goals down, checking in with [00:32:00] people, providing support, um, providing networks and opportunities to connect with others around solving challenges.
All super important in the workplace.
Jen Fisher: And is there, um, when it comes to communication and communicating, is there. Are there strategies for communicating in ways that are more hopeful? Yes. I mean,
Kathryn Greotzke: yes. I mean, from personal experience, I haven't exactly researched that. That's a really interesting area of, of research.
I'm sure that, you know, I, I think you wanna paint a vision of, of a future for your employees that looks great, you know, that looks good. And if it's just like you've gotta get back to the office, you have to be here. You're fired, I mean. You know, that's not a very hopeful, but you know, we're excited to have you back in the office.
We're excited to connect regularly. These are the things we're gonna do to make it, you know, a healthier and more collaborative [00:33:00] place. This is why it's important. You know, we wanna give you some autonomy and here's what we're doing to make that happen. So. Um, you know, I don't think anyone likes just being told what to do, um, or what they're gonna have to do.
But if you can do it in a way that serves company goals and then also is being, you know, acknowledging that it's a hard transition, here's what we're doing to help kind of navigate that. I mean, a lot of the communications I've seen are just like, you're gonna have to get back to the office. You're gonna fi have to find another job.
And to me that's, you know, not a really, yeah. That's not hopeful, you know.
Jen Fisher: Absolutely. And when I, and when I talk to leaders, I also tell them, you know, ask your workforce. Right? Ask them for their own ideas about how to do this and how to do this well, or how to do this in, in a way that I. Feels better or feels good to them.
Right. It doesn't always have to fall on the leader to solve all of these problems because your [00:34:00] workforce has a lot of ideas. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And, and that, and that helps them, you know, feel more hopeful and be bought into the overall strategy around what. What you know, you're collectively trying to accomplish as opposed to it just being this thing that is, you know, done to them.
Um, that that is what, you know, kind of creates some of that, that hopelessness. So if, if there are leaders that are, that are listening to this and you aren't yet convinced, Catherine, I want you to talk about your research and because it, you actually are able to show that hope predicts. Retention and productivity.
So can you share some specific examples on how hope impacts business outcomes? Yes. Because I think this is so important.
Kathryn Greotzke: It is, yes. And it's actually not my specific research. It's a research that's been done using these Schneider Hope skills. So, um. Shane Lopez wrote a book [00:35:00] on it. That's really brilliant.
Um, and, you know, I work with a number of really incredible hope, hope scientists and leaders in the field. A lot of 'em are in my college program or my college course. Um, Chan Hellman does a lot of work in the space. Dan to Muo wrote a book called Learn Hopefulness that provides a lot of research and great insights as well.
He is at Columbia, so, um, yeah. Your workforce, the higher in hope, the higher in hope they are, the less likely they are to have anxiety and depression. And you know, if you haven't used the depression cost calculator in your workforce, it's depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and it's gonna cost your workplace a lot.
It's really the number one healthcare cost to companies in terms of lost productivity and absenteeism. So. Health overall, it's gonna predict if your employees show up to work. So their hope scores, you know, the higher in hope there, the more likely they're to show up to work, be engaged, um, [00:36:00] achieve goals.
So higher in hope. There's so much research around goal attainment. I am a representative at the UN for the World Federation for Mental Health, and. We're working to get an International Day of Hope and or we're gonna get a paper published that we just wrote on Hope and the SDGs. And when you think about the sustainable development goals, what are they?
They're, they're goals. So the higher in hope we can get people, the more likely they're to achieve these goals. Um, the same is true in the workplace. So, you know, and, and workplaces are built around goals. They're built around achieving things. And also the more likely they're gonna be able to overcome obstacles.
So when they hit roadblocks. They're not gonna give up. They're gonna think, how can I innovate? How can I create around this? You know, my greatest ideas come when I'm in like a pit of, of sadness or anger. And when I kind of dive into that emotion as opposed to run from it and I feel it and I think how can, what can I learn [00:37:00] from this?
What is it telling me? And how can I create a solution that's actually gonna. Um, gonna kind of help it, or where is my power in this and what can I kind of do about this? And, and it's definitely been true in all of the work I've done around hope. I mean, my innovations have come not from running from the stressors, but to be healthy around how I'm understanding them and navigating them.
So, you know, it's. Encouraging the, to me in the workplace, sadness or anger or fear, all of that, those are healthy emotions to really explore and how can we like tap into this and, and solve problems in creative ways as opposed to, you know, our angry outbursts or not showing up to work or, you know, especially as employees, how can we do this, um, in healthier ways.
Um, so yeah, how long they stay in the jobs. Uh, it'll predict retention. So the hiring hope, the more you, you're, you stay in your job, which is o of course, super important, um, in the workplace. [00:38:00] You know, think about the cost associated with retraining and, and all of that. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, there are so many things that, uh, hope will predict.
It, it's pretty incredible. You know, I also think that doing workplace trainings on hope, you want people getting support for their challenges become before they become big costs to the company. And we so often teach or, or you know, as, as leaders share, like, here are the resources, like when you need this, but you know, encouraging to reactive.
Yes, totally. And it's just so hard when you're in a depre if you wait till you're in a depressive episode. The cost of getting out of it is so much greater than if you're just talking about these skills on a regular basis and actively and proactively kind of practicing them. Um, and so that's really the goal, the goal of what we're doing around Shine Hope is just to normalize the conversation around all of it and just, just be really proactive about how we're doing it.
And, you know, as leaders, noticing [00:39:00] when your employees are going through challenges and giving them the time and space and encouragement to. Be proactive about their, about their own health. You know, it's a, it's a bit of a cost in the, you know, short term, but it will save you in the long term, um, for sure.
Jen Fisher: Yeah. So how do we, well, what, what can all of us do, myself included in those listening? I just, you know, I, I feel like every person, every workplace needs to be doing more to. Change the perspective and the view around what hope is and how powerful it can actually be. So what, what can each one of us do to help you in your mission?
Oh my gosh, you're so amazing.
Kathryn Greotzke: I come and train every, with all the workplaces all over the world. Um, yeah, I mean, to me the first thing is. Just measuring employees hope or [00:40:00] sharing that there is a hope scale and they can measure their hope and there are things they can do to become more hopeful. I mean, I think it's important to empower employees.
We can't necessarily, I mean, you know, so much of what our employers do is outside of our control. And so building some kind of skills and tools to navigate what's outside of our control is so helpful. So to me, changing the conversation, hope is not a wish. Um, you know, is, is an important message for employees.
You can measure your hope and you can become, there are things you can do to actually become more hopeful. I mean, we don't know what we don't know until we're taught it, you know? And so I think as leaders, right? We, we've gotta, we know according to the research that hope is critical for employees. And so, to me, building more about what hope is and being more articulate about.
What hope is and why hope is a strategy and what we're talking about. You know, we're not talking about hope as a wish. It's just, you know, it's, it's feeling good about the [00:41:00] vision for our future and then actually knowing the steps we have to take to get there and knowing it's gonna be challenging and we're gonna have obstacles and there are things we can do to overcome obstacles and the company is here to support along the way.
Jen Fisher: Okay. Well, thank you. I, I, I accept the mission. Awesome. Uh,
Kathryn Greotzke: yes. And of course, of course, sponsor Hopeful Cities or get engaged with that. Of course. I would love that because I really, and in an international day of hope at the un, I mean, I can't believe we don't have know. Oh yeah. Please talk to, tell me more about
Jen Fisher: this.
Yes. Tell me more about this. 'cause I'm on board for this too. Let's do it. Amazing.
Kathryn Greotzke: I love it. Yes. You know, I've talked to some ambassadors about it. It's, it's a process to get something done at the UN for sure, but it's. A day of really sharing the science of hope. Um, and the strategies, you know, we have it for peace that, I mean, mean we have a, a lot of days, but to me we need a day specific to hope where we elevate the conversation around what hope is and how we hope and [00:42:00] strategies and things that are happening around the world for hope so.
Um, so we've gotta get our, you know, I'd like to get our US ambassador, um, in New York on board. I think, uh, we have our challenges with hope in the US when you look at violence and mental health numbers of kids. So to me, you know, the US should be really leading the way in this. But, um, yeah, so we get a, we, we've drafted the resolution International Day of hope.org.
You can see the resolution we drafted, if you know ambassadors or. Um, people connected with the un. Um, yeah, we would love support on that. We would love to help, uh, try that forward.
Jen Fisher: Yeah, we'll share, um, your, your information and website in, in our show notes for, for anybody that's listening that wants to dive in deeper and, and provide some help here.
And so, Catherine, just one final question. I I feel like I could ask you 50 more. Um, and, and I wanna, I wanna thank you for, for [00:43:00] sharing your own personal story, your ex. Experiences with, with suicide and attempted suicide and, and addiction, um, at, at the outset. Thank you for being open for all of us. Um, and so I, I wanna ask you kind of a, a really personal question because you, you help so many of us.
Develop hope as a, as a skillset. What, what do you do, um, and what role does, has, like, does hope play in kind of your sustained wellbeing? What does that look like for you? Oh
Kathryn Greotzke: my gosh, yes. Well, I practice what I preach, that's for sure. I'll tell you that. So, yeah, I mean, I use. I mean, my stress skills, meditation, prayer, I mean, I love meditating.
It's been transformative for me to really help me with those challenges that my brain, you know, help me take control of some of those thi those thoughts I have and, and slow my reaction time. So, uh, meditation, prayer, walks on water. Connecting with others happiness [00:44:00] habits. I'm diligent about my sleep. I, you know, I've been in recovery 20 years.
Um, so alcohol isn't great for me, you know, really triggers me. Um, so being consistent on that, I am care, like 80% healthy, 20% cheating for my food. You know, that's healthy too. I know. Exactly. Gotta get the chocolate. Um, yeah. You know, moving towards my goals, I have stretch goals and I have smart goals. I think a balance of both is super important.
I, my goals are intrinsic, so they're really, they're not extrinsically motivated by things outside of myself. Um, super important. I cultivate networks. I, you know, um, I have one of my good friends, Scarlet Lewis, runs the Choose Love Movement. And, you know, we deal with a lot of similar challenges and, and have our own reasons for doing this, but it's, it's helpful to have people in your, in my space and, and [00:45:00] I'm intentional about, you know, cultivating healthy people.
For me, that helped me move, move forward and stay grounded. Um. Yeah. And then, you know, it's, it's a, like you said, the challenges that I have are, um, you know, the thinking patterns are some of the hardest thing, you know, the ruminating Yeah. The worry about the future. The, you know, in turn when I fail it just the other day I was looking at, you know, feedback I'd gotten from a keynote I did with, you know, 1300 school nurses and.
My brain picks out the 10 negative things. Oh yeah. First step. Had that fight.
Jen Fisher: Know I'm right there with you. Oh gosh. You know, so being really focused and, and my husband will be like, what about the 300 other people that said something positive?
Kathryn Greotzke: I know. So, you know, understanding that this is part of what I, and, and, you know, keeping myself accountable and, and you know, it's, it's, I'm not hopeful all the time.
I have suicidal ideations. Still, and I have to stop and [00:46:00] think, okay, what am I experiencing hopelessness about? And if it many things, I break it down to one thing, what's one thing, you know, how can I work on my despair around it and how can I get out of helplessness into action about it? And, you know, that has changed my life.
I think, um, you know, they asked, um, Kevin Hines, who jumped, who you know, had a suicide attempt off the Golden Gate Bridge. What is. You know, the first thing you thought when you jumped off the bridge and he said, I wish I didn't do that. And, and you know, I think that's true for all that we lose to suicide.
I don't think anyone wants to die. I think they want their despair to end and they want their helplessness to end. They, then you really look at both of those two things that you absolutely cannot, you know, you can always move through your despair back to feeling better. It doesn't last forever. It feels like it will and it doesn't.
Um, and you can always get out of your helplessness into some kind of action. It might not be the same relationship you want, or you might have to declare bankruptcy or you [00:47:00] know. You might have to deal with a health challenge, um, but you can always get out of that and do something. And it's just really learning, um, for myself to navigate it in healthier ways and, and to be committed to doing the shine skills that I know are, you know, changing my life and every day.
Help me, help me navigate kind of what I wanna achieve in this, in this lifetime.
Jen Fisher: Well, thank you for sharing that. Um, I can't think of a better way to end this conversation because that was incredibly powerful. So I appreciate you being on the show. I am a partner with you in all things Hope. Um, I wear, I wear a bracelet around my wrist that says Hope, uh, every day of my life.
So it is ever present. Um, and so, yeah, I am grateful for the work you do, and I'm, I'm more importantly grateful that I found you.
Kathryn Greotzke: Yes, me too. Me too. I'm so grateful, Jen. It's been so wonderful to connect.[00:48:00]
Jen Fisher: I'm so grateful Catherine could be with us today to help us understand how cultivating hope can transform our workplaces and enhance mental wellbeing. Her innovative work reminds us that hope isn't just an optimistic outlook. It's a fundamental skill we can learn, measure, and strengthen together. Thank you to our producer and our listeners.
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