 From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Women Transforming Technology. Brought to you by VMware. Hi, Lisa Martin covering the fifth annual Women Transforming Technology event. The first time the event has been remote. So we're not coming to you from Palo Alto today, coming to you from San Jose, but I'm really excited to be talking with one of the event speakers, the founder of Happier Inc, Natalie Kogan. Natalie, welcome to theCUBE. Thanks so much for having me. It's great to join you even virtually. Exactly. And we're so fortunate that this, I guess if you can put a positive spin on it, that this event happened when we have technology to still be able to enable as much interaction in two-way conversations or multiple-way conversations as possible. And I know that you just did a session a couple of days ago at the Digital Women Transforming Technology event. But before we get into that, I saw your TED Talk, it was awesome. And it's such a, and the timeliness of Happier as a subject couldn't be more really pivotal. Tell me a little bit about what Happier is, what the inspiration was for your company. Definitely. So as many entrepreneurs, the inspiration was my personal journey. So I grew up in the former Soviet Union and when I was 13 years old, my parents and I left everything and everyone behind and on a journey to try to come as refugees to the United States. And we had, as you can imagine, this was a really difficult experience. We spent several months in refugee settlements in Europe before getting permission to come to the US as refugees. And we started our journey in the project outside of Detroit on welfare and food stamps. Very grateful to have an opportunity, but really, really tough. And I was really overwhelmed. I was a teenager, I spoke almost no English and it was all overwhelming for me. And I kind of decided for myself that if I could just work really hard, achieve a lot of things, become successful, then I would feel happy. And then I would just like honor this American dream. And for the next 20 years, I did work very, very hard. I did become very successful. I reached the heights of corporate success. I worked at McKinsey, the very well-known consulting firm. By the age of 25, I was a managing director at a venture capital firm in New York. Fewer than 6% women in venture capital. I started four different companies. I was part of Microsoft and other tech companies. And on the outside, I was achieving incredible success. And while I still am so proud of every single thing I achieved, whenever I would achieve it, I feel happy. And then it was just like a bubble, just pop. And I didn't feel happy anymore. And so I pushed myself harder and harder because I equated happiness with achievement. Until after two decades of doing this, I just couldn't do it anymore. I completely burnt out. It was a really, really dark time in my life. And I knew I had to find a different way to live so that I could do work that's meaningful to me, but that I could also honor myself as a human and find joy in the present moment. And that led me to doing a lot of research in psychiatry and psychology and neuroscience and learning all of these incredible skills and practices that changed my life, starting with gratitude, which is how you cultivate joy in the present moment and really inspired me to leave my career as a technology exec behind who found happier. And we've had the same mission since we've been founded and that is to help millions of people thrive in work and in life by practicing science-backed skills to cultivate their wellbeing. What are some of the scientific skills behind it? And anything that you see that is even more pivotal in week eight of this work from home shelter in place? Yes, it sounds really weird to say, but I feel like I've been preparing my whole life to help people right now because the skills that I've learned and that I share are so essential. And the two that I would mention that we've been doing all these virtual sessions for teams and companies, and this is the ones I talk about. The first is the skill of gratitude. Gratitude is just very simply zooming in on something in your life that is good, that is positive, that is meaningful and honoring it with your full appreciation. And we're all right now going for so many challenges and we all have what's called a negativity bias. And that means we are much more sensitive as humans to anything that's negative than to anything that's positive. And when we're going through a challenge, that negativity bias is even more sensitive. So I know many folks right now are feeling really overwhelmed with their own feelings, with their own sense of loss and fear and with all the negative news. And so practicing gratitude is essential because when you pause and you focus on the things in your life as it is amidst the challenge that you do appreciate, you'll remind your brain that the challenge is not everything, that there is more to your life than what is going wrong. And that actually helps you to feel a little bit less stressed and anxious. And the other piece of science that I'd love to share is another skill that I talk about, which is acceptance. And acceptance really, it simply means that we learn to look at how things are and how we feel with clarity instead of judgment, right? And shorthand for judgment is should. Shouldn't feel like this, this shouldn't be this way. And that having clarity and allowing yourself to actually feel the difficult feelings helps us to move through them with a little bit more ease. I think it's one of the most powerful mindsets, mindset shifts that I learn on my journey is that happiness does not mean that you feel positive all the time. Happiness and emotional well-being means that we embrace all of our different feelings, including the difficult ones, and we learn how to move through them with compassion. What are some of the things that when you're talking to the C-suite or executives at certain companies, whether it's VMware or others, how are executive teams managers, where does emotional health come into the play? Knowing that these folks are managing teams, there are, we're seeing, as you pointed out, the negativity bias, we're seeing the numbers of unemployment go up and up and up. Where is emotional health in terms of priority at the executive level? So this is one of the, it sounds really weird to say, but all of a sudden, it's like in this huge wave, it already started, right? Some companies, and we've worked with many of them, already understood, the executives already understood that employee well-being and emotional health is not an extra, it is not optional, it is non-negotiable if you want your people to be at their best. There are literally mountains of research that show that when you cultivate employee well-being, people are more productive, more resilient, more successful, they solve better problems. But what's happened in this crisis is that the companies that were in a place where, oh, this isn't really important or this is nice to have, they are now recognizing that this is actually the most important thing that they can invest in for the success and longevity and survival of their businesses. And so I'm actually incredibly grateful for that. I don't like that the cost that we have to pay for it, but I'm incredibly grateful that in this challenging time, more and more leaders are understanding that their own well-being and the emotional health of their employees is non-negotiable, not just for survival of their businesses, but if they want to be at their best and actually figure out how to thrive in whatever the future holds. And I'm glad to hear that because the massive amount of uncertainty that we're all facing is unprecedented. You can't pick up the phone and call your grandmother and say, what did you guys do back in the day? And honestly, even if there had been something similar if 1918 hadn't been that long ago, people nowadays are used to getting everything that you want on demand and also being able to get connected, have good wifi and be able to deliver what your clients, what your bosses expect. The uncertainty factor that really weighs heavily on emotion is a huge inhibitor to productivity, whether it's- It's a huge thing, so it actually, if I can jump in, uncertainty is the hardest thing for a brain to deal with. Our brains would rather know that something very bad will definitely happen than to be an uncertainty. And I've actually been talking so much to companies and leaders about this that this is literally the most stress that we can experience because our brain's number one job, and I'm the founder of a company called Happier, but I always say this, your brain's number one job is not to keep you happy. It is to help you survive. And so your brain is constantly evaluating your environment. Is it safe approach or is it dangerous, right? Fight or fight, we know that response. What's happening right now is that the brain cannot come up with an answer. It doesn't know, is it safe, is it not safe? And I don't just mean in a macro way, macro economic way with the virus, I mean day to day, things change day to day. We're juggling kids and family and our businesses are changing. So the brain doesn't give up. It still tries really hard to figure out how to keep you safe. And that hard, that working overtime, the way it does that is by releasing stress hormones. So on top of just the very real challenges that so many folks have with worrying about loved ones, juggling, working from home and family, there's also this chronic level of stress that we're all feeling because of uncertainty. Tell me a little bit about the interactive session that you held at WT2 the other day. What were some of the common concerns or questions that you heard from the audience? Yeah, it's really interesting. It was such a great session and we had a lot of questions. We could not answer all the questions. And I think that it means a lot to me because folks really thought about what they wanted to ask. There's a couple of things that emerged as common threads. The first was, how do I help someone in my life? A colleague, someone I manage, a loved one. How do I help them during this time if they're really overwhelmed or stressed or feeling sad? And we talked about the skill of acceptance and we talked about how it might be our instinct to immediately cheer up the person. But actually the bigger gift we can give them is to let them know that it's okay to not be okay and to honor their feelings with our acceptance and that actually helps them get through. So that was one of the themes that came up a lot. Another one was with all of this uncertainty and the stress, like people would ask, I have trouble getting motivated. Like, I love my job, I love what I do, but I have so much trouble getting motivated and that is very real. And the first thing that if anyone listening feels this way, there's nothing wrong with you. Think about the amount of energy your brain is using on all the stress. So no wonder you feel more tired and not as motivated. So we talked about practicing self-compassion in our expectations of ourselves and recognizing that we are undergoing something unprecedented and so difficult. And then to get motivated, connecting the tasks on your to-do list to how do they help someone else? Because that is where we connect to our sense of purpose, right? So that project you're working on with your team or that presentation that you just can get motivated to do, ask yourself, who does this help? And actually answer the question. And in that moment, you connect to your sense of purpose, which helps us be more resilient and more motivated. Yeah, the motivation or lack thereof is a huge problem. And I, you know, you can't think it's not just me, not just you, it's got to be all the way up to the tops of companies that are really struggling because as you say, the brain is so focused right now and busy and trying to process things and there are no concrete answers. But one of the things that you said, I read your article in the Washington Post that you just did in the last week was with your daughter. Thank you, it's my daughter. Yeah, with your daughter Mia. And the validation was spot on. And it's so simple, but it's one of those things that I think often we think, well, let me explain something and try to help you in that way without maybe stepping back and going, well, actually that might help me, but what helps you? Are you seeing that executive leaders are also kind of stepping back and asking their teams, how are the ways that you want me to communicate with you? Or is that something that's happening? You know, I think that we are in an era of human embracing leadership of, and I am so welcoming this era of leaders who are leading with their humanity first and are embracing the humanity of their people first. You know, I have this, actually working on my next book right now, which is for leaders. And I have this concept because I was a leader for so many years and I always thought that I could keep my emotions hidden, that emotions really didn't have anything to do with work. So I have this concept for leaders, they imagine you're holding a whiteboard and this is your emotional whiteboard on it or written your feeling. Whether you want to admit them or not, the team feels them and it's the same for everyone on the team. So when you walk into a meeting, whether it's a virtual meeting or in person, what is written on your emotional whiteboard? What are you feeling and how are you approaching others? What do you want to be written on your emotional whiteboard? I think as leaders, we would say, well, I wanted to say that I care about you as my employee, that I want to hear how you're feeling, but think about are the actions you are taking aligning with what's on your emotional whiteboard? And so listening and caring, I have this came up with this shorthand really for me as a leader during a challenging time and it's ACT, ACT. The first is acknowledge, acknowledge your own challenges, acknowledge your team's challenges, right? Validation, this point we're talking about. See is for care, genuinely care, right? So don't just do it as a check mark, but bring your humanity and compassion and actually care about people. There's so much research that when employees know that their leader cares about them, that on its own is helpful to them for their wellbeing and their productivity and ACT, so ACT, see is teach by example. So do the things that you want your employees to follow and I do see leaders stepping up more and more in their passion and their acceptance. And again, I think this is a difficult but unique moment in time to elevate our human embracing leadership. Do you advise women and men to when we talked about gratitude a few minutes ago, write down, maybe it helps you if you're a visual learner or someone that learns by storytelling to write things down, maybe write down each day a few things, maybe they seem so simple that you're grateful for or maybe even I like the idea of the emotional whiteboard. I can see that as something that would be helpful to write down. Do you recommend that to folks and maybe write down what your actual emotional state is and what you want it to be? So a couple of things on that. So the short answer is yes. You know, when it comes to gratitude, it doesn't really matter how you practice like people say to me like, I'm not a journaler, that's fine, that as long as you are specific in your gratitude, so instead of I'm grateful for my family how about I'm really grateful that I could give my daughter a hug before I started the interview, right? So the more specific the better and actually the smaller the better. You talked about small things, research shows that it's the frequency of small positive experiences that contributes to our life satisfaction more than anything grand, so the smaller the better and capturing does help. So you can write it in a journal, you can write it on a sticky note. Maybe it's a text that you send to a friend to encourage them to practice gratitude as a leader. Maybe it's an email that you send to your team. So capturing it in some way really does help. And when it comes to the emotional whiteboard the practice that I share with everyone is a check in. So check in with yourself, right? It's so incredible, you know, we have this group for women executives called Elevating Women Leaders. It's a all virtual group at the year long program. It was virtual before this and so we have a group that goes with us every year and one of the practices we do is in the morning and in the afternoon you check in with yourself and just say, how am I feeling? And you would not believe the impact that that has on their ability to solve problems on their ability to show up as their best just by pausing and checking in, like how am I feeling? What is on my emotional whiteboard? Acknowledging that without judgment, being compassionate towards yourself and then saying, what is one thing I can shift if I would like to feel differently? The acknowledgement piece is critical, I think because it's the vulnerability to step up and go, I don't feel great about this. And let me say that out loud. Maybe it helps me become accountable to that or I've said it to a boss or a colleague to put it out there. That's hard thing for people to do, especially I can think there is this dichotomy of people being concerned about job safety when we're seeing what's going on in the news. Did any of that come up during your WT2 session about I'm afraid to admit that I'm not motivated because our company's experiencing layoff? Yeah, it's definitely come up in the session and in other sessions of kind of finding that balance. And look, you have to be realistic because we all have different cultures in our teams. You have to be realistic about your leadership. But what I find over and over is that authenticity wins the day, right? So you have to make a call, right? How much do you share? But even if it's just a little bit of acknowledgement, it is helpful because it helps you not resist it so much and more likely than not, there's somebody on your team who feels similarly cool. So that, by the way, there's comfort in knowing we're not alone. There's actually neurological comfort in knowing we're not alone. Like we need that sense of safety. But also you may then be able to move through that and brainstorm together and help each other get motivated. So you have to judge by the culture of your team but authenticity and you acknowledging your humanity to whatever degree you feel comfortable is usually an incredibly helpful practice to help you be at your best. Whatever that means that day. I couldn't agree with you more. I always say authenticity is contagious. Natalie, it has been so great having you on the program. I wish we could keep chatting, but it is time to go. Thank you so much. So folks can go to happier.com or happier8.com for the more. Happier.com. Lots of, lots of tons of free blog posts and videos on all of the different practices I shared, more about anything we do. So yes, come visit us at happier.com and thank you so much for such thoughtful questions. I'm always incredibly grateful for thoughtful questions and interviews, but I really appreciate that. Well, good. Now it's been a pleasure having you. And I want to thank you for watching on behalf of Natalie Kogan. I'm Lisa Martin covering women transforming technology, the virtual version 2020. Bye for now.