Today we sit down with Tia Graham, an international keynote speaker, best-selling author, leadership trainer, and “Certified Chief Happiness Officer” with multiple certifications in neuroscience, positive psychology, coaching, and employee retention. Her bestselling book “Be a Happy Leader” offers an eight-step methodology for driving productivity and growth through a culture of happiness.

We discuss her work, her career, and the kinds of things you learn when you dedicate your professional life to being happy at work.

Key Points

• Science of Happiness and Positive Psychology
• Neuroplasticity and perpetual change
• The cost of being unhappy at work
• Different paths (individual & universal) to happiness at work

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Have you ever pondered the following questions?

• How do we give people and their happiness the attention they deserve in our organizations and transformations?
• How do we enable change for people and not push change on people?
• How do we create the culture and environment we need for people to express themselves?

Of course, you have! That’s why you listen to our podcast. But while podcasts are a one-way street, our Forward Summits are all about interactions.

Anna Löw will present a case study on their move to a 32 hours work week, the pitfalls, and their successes.

So come and join the conversation at our upcoming summit: HAPPINESS AS THE ‘WHY’ IN AGILE TRANSFORMATION, held in Berlin, Germany, and Online from 30 November – 2 December 2022,

You’ll get to hear from our kick-ass keynote speakers Sunny Grosso; Svenja Hofert; Debra Corey; and Fransisco Mahfuz. Take part in our practice, case study, open, and global networking sessions in Berlin and online!

Go to our designated Forward Summit Website for more info and tickets.

Transcript

*Please note that the transcript has been automatically generated and proofread for mistakes. But remains in spoken English, and some syntax and grammar mistakes might remain.

Elisa Tuijnder: [00:00:00] Most of us spend our careers trying to find happiness at work. Sometimes if we’re lucky, we find it, and if we’re really lucky, we can spend part of our careers helping others. Our employees, coworkers or even strangers find that same happiness in their own lives. Our guest today has not only done all of these things, but has embraced a concept of happiness at work so fully that one of her current job titles is. Get this certified Chief Happiness Officer. We’ll talk to her about that amazing title, her work as a speaker, leadership trainer, and best selling author, and we’ll find out what kinds of things you learn when you dedicate your professional life to being happy at work.

Before we dive in, you are listening to The Happiness At Work Podcast by Management [00:01:00] 3.0. Where we are getting serious about happiness. I’m your host, Elisa Tuijnder, happiness enthusiast and Management 3.0 team member. In this podcast, we share insights from industry experts, influencers, and thought leaders about what it takes to be happy, motivated, and productive at work. So that loving your job becomes the norm and not the exception. We will be publishing every fortnight on Friday, so be sure to tune in and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Our guest today is Tia Graham, an international keynote speaker, bestselling author and leadership trainer who has worked with dozens of global companies, including Hilton Hotels, Hewlett Packer, and the American Heart Association. [00:02:00] She has multiple certifications in neuroscience, positive psychology, coaching and employee retention and her best selling book Be A Happy Leader offers an eight step methodology for driving productivity and growth through a culture of happiness.

As we said at the top, she’s also a Certified Happiness Officer from Woohoo Incorporated and other Happiness at work organizations. So thank you so much for joining me today, Tia. Thank you for having me. No, our pleasure. Fantastic. So we’ll get into your work and that wonderful job title in a moment, but here on the podcast, we always start with the same question.

What does happiness mean to you? 

Tia Graham: Happiness to me means feeling content with my life. Having more positive emotions than the painful ones on average. I know you can’t avoid the painful ones, but having more of the positive. Having fun and different experiences and also just [00:03:00] finding the meaning and purpose in work or parenting just in life in general.

Yeah, 

Elisa Tuijnder: purpose is a hit with people who answer this question. So I think there’s definitely something in that. Hey, so I can’t wait any, any longer. Let’s get into it. So what is a certified Chief Happiness Officer and tell our listeners how does one get this job? ? 

Tia Graham: Yes. So a certified Chief Happiness Officer is someone who has been trained with the research of the science of happiness, positive psychology, as well as the Happiness at work, research on how to increase experienced happiness at work.

And this is from the executive level, leadership level, and then of course the trickle down to all of the team members of an organization. And it’s both, theory, strategies and then the dirty tactics, like how do we make people happier at work and. There are different certification programs.

I got certified in Denmark [00:04:00] with an organization called Woohoo, Inc. There’s also a certification at Florida International University in partnership with the World Happiness Summit. And more and more people are getting certified every single day. And then there are, there’s internal CHS in companies where for example, Deloitte has a Chief Wellbeing Officer, Ken Fisher.

And then there’s also people like me who I’m an entre. The companies will bring me in to help them increase the happiness at work. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Fantastic. Yeah, we at Management 3.0, we also have a Chief Happiness Officer we are very , very grateful for that. And I’m also happy to hear that more and more companies are actually investing in this and taking the time to actually make this a job role and investing in happiness.

Cause that’s what we are also all about, obviously. , I’ve obviously done some research for this, interviews and all of your appearances and speeches you seem like a naturally happy and positive person. And has that [00:05:00] always been the case? And what drove you to build this unique career focus on happiness?

Was that were you always on this path to happiness and sharing happiness for people and creating those spaces? 

Tia Graham: So I am genetically predisposed to be a pretty happy person. I think I got a lot of happy genes from my dad and so I know that, on the spectrum, I definitely started off at a high level.

With that being said, I’ve gone through really challenging experiences, I’ve had very difficult times and years and seasons just like everyone else. So in addition to the genetic piece, really starting in my early twenties when I moved from Canada and I moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, I became very focused on prioritizing my own happiness, making choices to be [00:06:00] happier.

And only maybe five years ago is when I started actually researching happiness, but it’s always been a very big priority of mine. So yes, I, yes, it’s natural. And I also put a tremendous amount of work into. 

Yeah. Would you say, you know that you have this cliche that people say like happiness is the journey it is not a destination, it’s about the road ahead.

Would you agree with that? 

Yeah, think that happiness is about finding the joy and the purpose and connection, all of it in the journey. So many people focus on a future destination, whether it be married, I’m gonna have kids, I’m gonna have this title, I’m gonna buy this house, I’m gonna then I’ll be happier. And it’s No, you won’t. Actually, the research shows you won’t. So it’s that it’s realizing that the [00:07:00] journey is the destination. I think that’s the. That’s where the gold is. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Being in the present sometimes are not constantly reaching for that next one.

Yeah, exactly. So you’ve previously worked in an industry where making people happy was probably one of the most essential things, which was the hospitality industry and led that teams at luxury hotels in the US and Europe. Then you launched your own company called Arrive At Happy. So can you tell us a little bit about the company and what your goals were in launching it and why you decided to step away from, the hospitality industry that you were 

Tia Graham: working in?

Yeah. Yeah. So I love the hospitality industry and if I didn’t have children, I’m not sure because I had a really happy career. Stressful, of course but quite happy. So when I was, let’s say about 12 years ago, I first had the idea for this company and the [00:08:00] reason is that colleagues, whether it was like the GM or hotel or people that worked for me would say, How do you stay so happy?

Where do you get this positivity from? And I remember thinking, I think I can help other people be happier. Like I, I really think I can. Cause people are asking me how do I do it? So I think I can help people. But fast forward, the catalyst for me started to think about leaving the hotel industry was when I went back to work after having my second daughter.

And I was attempting to juggle a toddler, a baby, career, marriage, health, wellness, friends, family. And I was deeply unhappy. Attempting to, and from the outside you’d be like, She has a perfect life. Like she’s got a penthouse in West Hollywood. She’s got two healthy kids, a husband. But I was really unhappy.

And so at that point is when I started. Researching, like what makes people happy? Because I’m not right now and the, to answer your question about the goal was [00:09:00] I remember thinking, Okay, I’m a pretty happy person and I’m really unhappy, so I need to figure this out for myself, and in doing so, I can then help others.

And my, that was really my goals. It was like, I wanna help others. And it’s been this journey, I started off doing one-on-one coaching with leaders and with executives. And then I have transitioned into doing keynote talks and leadership development programs and consulting and all of that because I want to impact as many people as I can.

And along the way I also realized, Happiness at Work is crucial because this is where we spend so much of our time, and so that’s why I didn’t, it wasn’t just the personal happiness piece. It was like, it’s both because I don’t know, you, you spend a lot of time working and everything interconnects.

And so yeah, that, that was really the main goal of yeah, [00:10:00] okay, I gotta figure out how I can help other people with. I love 

Elisa Tuijnder: The paying it forward element to it. And then, being able to go on that journey yourself to finding your happiness again and then helping others is a very noble goal.

as well. Yeah. Fantastic. Giving your certifications in neuroscience and psychology and coaching, you must have a unique perspective on the science of happiness. So particularly happiness at work. And are there any insights you can share about the way we experience happiness in a workplace or even after we leave the office for today?

From those perspectives? From the neuroscience and from the very sciencey side. 

Tia Graham: Yeah. I never, ever prior to studying the science of happiness or, looking at applied neuroscience. Never considered or, and it was never taught emotions and feelings were never talked about in the workplace.

And so [00:11:00] much of our happiness, you have your thoughts, you have your actions, and you have your emotions. And so I think the emotional wellbeing piece, whether it be how to increase the pleasant emotions and savor them and all of that. And I actually would say more importantly, how to have a healthy relationship with those uncomfortable, painful emotions for, for example, stress.

I always had so much stress. I was a director of sales and marketing, I was like, make $45 million that like so much stress. And I never, ever knew, and this is just a micro example, I never knew that there was an upside to stress that there was a positive side to stress. No one ever taught me about stress recovery tools at work.

I always exercised. I, there were things that I did that were just, that was just part of my rhythm. But there is a huge opportunity for understanding [00:12:00] painful emotions in the work and in our personal life, and learning from them, growing from them, having work, be a place where people can actually talk about what is really going on.

That sort of psychological safety piece. And so yeah, I think that’s a huge part. And then, also with the neuroscience piece and the neuroplasticity piece of you can always change. You are never stuck. Okay, your brain doesn’t grow as much in your forties as it does when you’re seven, of course.

But you can change for the better you, you can evolve. You’re never, ever stuck and all of those micro experiences through the day can be hurting you or helping you. So what are the ones that can help you? Those are a few thoughts to off the top of my head. It’s 

Elisa Tuijnder: a message of hope . That’s how it’s [00:13:00] coming to me at least.

That we can always, there’s always a path forward somehow. What we’ve really seen and I’ve spoken to a number of people as well, but we’ve really seen a surgence in mainland Europe and UK of wellbeing services, especially after a pandemic and during the pandemic. I’ve spoken to a number of people who provide these services now because, work a lot in different in these areas as well with other people.

I wondered whether you saw that as well and whether you obviously see that as a good thing, whether you see that evolving as 

Tia Graham: well. Yes, huge. And it’s great that there are companies like Deloitte that have chief wellbeing officers, right? And more that is happening. The shift is going from wellness to wellbeing, right?

There was set, the wellness is a multi-billion dollar industry, just the United States alone of, okay, we need. Give people gym passes or we should do yoga, or we should do meditation. All these things where it’s, [00:14:00] it was, there was a lot of focus on the physical body, which is very important, but it’s just one piece of a, like six legged chair.

And the wellbeing movement is more holistic. It’s how do we support people in their relationships? How do we support people with their personal and professional growth? How do we support people with their emotions or with their psychological being, the mental health piece, All of that. And I’m really encouraged about where the world of work is going. And you have trail blazers like Ariana Huffington. That are, that have been like shouting this from the rooftops being like, your people need sleep, your people need. And and now because of the great reshuffle, employees are saying yeah, I don’t know if I wanna work here where they’re gonna email me at 11:00 PM on Friday.

That’s not good for my wellbeing. So [00:15:00] that there’s like this higher level of expectation. Maybe companies don’t want to invest much in wellbeing, but they’re forced to, which I think is a really good thing just for society as a whole. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Absolutely. Yeah. And especially with so many more hardships that we’ve already endured, but also that are coming with, talk of recession, et cetera, climate crisis that we were just talking about just before we came on the show or aired live.

And these things, they take a lot of our mental energy and so having places at work and having, time to recover from these things will help us in all sets of ways or even, the inflation. So I just saw a post today about somebody how they’re trying to support their employees in the cost of living crisis and how indifferent kind of ingenuous ways they were doing this. Not just here you go money, but also again with mental health and [00:16:00] wellbeing and et cetera. So I love how that, that we’re seeing that. Hey, so you’ve just written a book. And so let’s turn to that book like it’s titled, Be A Happy Leader. And in that you offer a unique methodology for leaders to improve their businesses by embracing happiness in the workplace.

So why, in your opinion, does leadership require happiness? And how does workplace happen is contribute to things like productivity and sales? 

Tia Graham: So it is imperative that leaders focus on their own happiness. My first step in the eight step methodology is start with you, and there is a tremendous amount of research that shows that leaders that are happier, that are more positive.

I’m not talking toxic positivity where you’re positive all the time, you’re a human being, but. You are more positive than negative. You know the leaders, these are the leaders that will have teams with retention, that will have teams that are more [00:17:00] productive, sell more, more creative and innovative, have happier customers, et cetera.

And energy and emotions are contagious. We have mirror neurons. There’s emotional contagion, and Whether leaders like it or not they spread energy to, whether it’s virtual, in person, hybrid, it doesn’t matter. They’re spreading energy and If someone is choosing to work with you and for you, and you are making them feel unhappy while you’re with them, I honestly see this as a, it’s like a ethical decision, right?

And if someone has a toxic negative boss, they’re gonna bring that home to their spouse and their kids. So you could be affecting children, You are affecting children if you know for the positive or the negative. So it’s really important and in terms of just overall business results, there was just a five year study, Martin Seligman and three others did this five year study and showed that happier people are the ones that are [00:18:00] gonna get promoted faster.

They’re gonna get more accolades, they’re gonna be more successful. And so everyone wants, every working person wants professional success and wants growth. And of course they, they work for their livelihood too. And this message of: don’t delay taking care of your happiness. Don’t wait till Oh, when I’m here I will focus on myself.

It’s no, do it now and continue to do it, and the success will follow. Obviously, Sean Acors research from Harvard too, there’s so much research that supports it. And now is just the time where, you know I say the word happiness belongs in business. It’s not like a weekend thing or a vacation thing.

There that there’s money that follows. Absolutely. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. We are, we’re very much convinced about that at Management 3.0 and have been, preaching to the choir for some time about this. Do you like, so obviously managers and leaders should create spaces for [00:19:00] their employees to be happy and facilitate those those roles and rooms and et cetera.

But does it start with the leader as well? Do you think they have to lead by example? Do you have to practice what they preach? Yes. 

Tia Graham: Yes. Absolutely. Now, you could have, and I’ve had this situation when I worked in New York City, you can have unhappy, disengaged, negative, toxic leaders at the top, and you can still create microcultures, right?

With the sales team in New York City. I did this. I was like, All right, it’s crazy above us, but we are gonna create this good environment. But in order to have to realize the full. Financial benefits and business growth benefits, it must start from the top, the ceo, the coo, the executive team, and you can’t fake it.

It needs to be, it needs to be authentic, and you have to care about your [00:20:00] people. As much as you care about results and you have to treat them better than you wanna treat your customers. Yeah. And it seems, it’s funny when I say it seems like such common sense, but it doesn’t happen that much.

Though there’s at least, and I know all the US stats that like, two thirds of leaders are not really engaged, which is crazy.

Elisa Tuijnder: Have you ever wondered about one of the following questions? How do we give people and their happiness, the attention they deserve in our organizations and transformations? How do we enable change for people and not push change on people? How do we create the culture and environment we need for people to express themselves?

Of course you have! That’s why you listen to our podcast. But while podcasts are a one way street, our summits are [00:21:00] all about interactions. So why don’t you come and join the conversation with our kick ass keynote speakers, Sunny Grosso, Svenja Hofert, Debra Corey, and Francisco Mahfuz. Take part in our practice sessions, case study sessions, open sessions, and global networking, both in Berlin and online, go to fwd-summit.com. That is fwd-summit.com. For more info and tickets and as a podcast listener, use the code FORWARDPOD at checkout that is FORWARDPOD to let us know you are a friend of the pod and receive some special Martie the management monster goodies.

Absolutely. Do you think we still have a long way to go for leaders [00:22:00] to believe that actually happier employees will lead to more productive employees, more engaged employees, and eventually will benefit the whole organization? In their, even their financial goals and also their, customer experience, et cetera.

But it actually all starts with employee experience. Do you I have a feeling that leaders are not there yet. , or a lot of 

Tia Graham: leaders are not there. Yeah, I think leaders, I think the majority of leaders want their teams to be happy, want their teams to be motivated. I don’t think that they’ve been trained how, I think that there’s so many myths and misconceptions around how to have your people be happy and they’re like, Oh, they need more money, or, Oh, they left because they love the money.

No. They didn’t leave unless it’s like a $50,000 raise. Okay, sure. They left cuz of the money cuz it was too good to be true. But there’s a lot of misunderstanding and that, [00:23:00] I, not a lot of people know all of the research of the science of happiness, so they themselves don’t know how to be happy and they’re working against themself and they haven’t been trained.

Just now if you think about Harvard Business School, one of the best business schools on the globe, just in the last two years, is there a course on positive leadership. Now these are supposedly the business minds avant-gard and cutting 

Elisa Tuijnder: edge. Yeah, 

Tia Graham: they are just, Learning about positive leadership.

So we do have a long way to go, but I don’t necessarily blame people because the science of happiness is pretty new. Neuroscience is pretty new. We’re talking about the last couple decades, right? Of, of really this explosion. So it needs to be taught, like in elementary schools, in high schools, in universities, it needs to be as important [00:24:00] as history or math, when it gets that integrated into society, which I think it’s coming it’s happening.

I agree. There’s still a long way to go, . 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. That’s why we are all here. And trying to bring that message out there. So we’ve been talking about the benefits of happy workers. What is, what’s the cost of being unhappy? What is the cost of, a very unhappy culture at work, one that we’ve seen for, a number of years?

Why doesn’t that work anymore? Yeah. 

Tia Graham: Hard cost. You think about when someone leaves and you have the knowledge that goes with them, right? And then you have the recruiting and the hiring and the training and all of those expense. And it is, it floors me, cuz whenever I talk to companies, they say, How much does it cost you when someone leaves?

They don’t even know. They’re like, oh. Is it a hundred thousand [00:25:00] dollars? Is it $200,000? What is the cost? And they just, they see it as Oh, people come, It’s kinda this is business. It doesn’t have to be that way. And then you mentioned it on the, productivity piece, right?

If people are. Not super productive. They’re not working fast and they’re not working smart. That’s, there’s a bit, that’s a cost right there. On, on the sales side, if the sales people aren’t extremely happy then, or if only some of them are happy and some are not, they’re not gonna sell as much. So there’s the new revenue cost and the profit and I would say yeah, a lot more.

And then, to the customers, right? Of, of how your, how much customer, loyal, do you have your net promoter score? Are customers referring you? That whole piece. And then, your reputation, your brand, both your employee brand and your customer brand. We’re talking about a lot of money [00:26:00] we’re talking about.

Yeah. 

Elisa Tuijnder: It’s huge. Yeah, I really liked it that you said like, how much does it cost for your employee to go and them not knowing. I was literally, I think yesterday reading a Gartner poll about that. At the moment it’s it’s taking so much longer to find the people that you need. It’s about 6% needs to there’s 6% more skills that you need to have for each role.

So it’s really hard to find the people with all these different roles. So basically saying that you need to really work on the people that you have and nurture them and grow them and make sure that they stay with you because you know those good people are not gonna come along again for maybe quite some time.

Tia Graham: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. No, everyone’s talking to saying it’s so hard to find people, It’s so hard to find people. And if you have a great culture, your own team will help you find people. Doesn’t just have to be HR. The people leaders are, Absolutely. [00:27:00] 

Elisa Tuijnder: We sometimes say recruitment is too important to leave up to just recruiters or just hr.

It’s like it’s a team responsibility 

Tia Graham: that in, I say every leader is a HR leader. Do not think that, like you gotta be able to find your own people if you want them to be amazing. Absolutely. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Yeah. I’m curious to know, but in your experience that if it’s harder for today’s employees or even for today’s leaders, to find them maintain happiness at work.

Because there’s been a lot more challenges recently. There’s more technology, there’s remote responsibilities, there’s all these stressors from outside factors like covid and kids that are working from home and, is it harder now than it was say before the pandemic? 

Tia Graham: That’s a really good question.

I think there are aspects that are more difficult and then there are aspects that are better. And I was just [00:28:00] talking to a vice president of meetings right before I talked to you for a big hotel company and she was saying, she was like, Oh my gosh, it’s so much better right now for working moms than it used to be.

It is so much better. So this positive depends on. Who you think of all the different, demographics and people. Then you might have someone that’s, I don’t know, 22 living with a couple roommates starting out in their career, 24. And they don’t wanna be sitting in their apartment, They wanna be like at the office and Right.

So there, there’s, when you touch on that technology piece, ha, using video or having Slack or all these different tools are fantastic. There just needs to be cultural rules. So that it’s not invasive and takes over every aspect of your life, of people’s lives. You know that I was talking to someone yesterday of we have a really strict rule we don’t send emails on weekends. And I was like, wow, that probably helps with everyone’s cortisol levels if you’re not gonna get emails on Sundays. [00:29:00] So using the tools and taking advantage and I think it’s creating a culture where there’s a combination of flexibility and autonomy and human connection.

You wanna give people both, because everyone alone all the time, people are lonely and isolated and they miss each other. They miss people. But you don’t wanna, we don’t necessarily wanna go back where everyone’s forced to be someplace just because it needs to make sense. Yeah, I think there’s some things that are better, but I don’t know.

I have a love hate relationship with the technology. I love it. And then other times I’m like, I wish social media was never invented. You 

Elisa Tuijnder: know, I go back and forth. Yeah, sometimes I think, when people used to work, you have to send an email and wait for the postman to get, send a letter.

That’s what I was gonna say. Postman had to get it. It had to go somewhere, you had some time to relax. In the meantime, now we’re just waiting for a slack to come back and it goes really fast. But yes, the [00:30:00] technology also allows to, schedule sends and all of these kind of things. So writing a playbook, I think or guidelines from your company is really important.

What I am curious about as well, cause what you’re saying is like, there’s positives, there’s negatives, depends on where you are in your life. Does that also mean that leaders really need to tailor these kind of happiness actions that they’re doing for their employees? 

Tia Graham: So yes and no. There are some actions that are universal for everyone, right?

So for example, give, making sure that people are receiving authentic, specific, positive feedback on an ongoing basis. Everyone needs positive feedback. You need to also coach for improvement, but everyone needs that. Or another example would be, everyone wants to know and understand how they as an individual contributor, and then for the team and the organization as a whole, how they are [00:31:00] making progress in meaningful work, right?

How their company and organization is helping society, better place. Everyone wants to feel like they belong. Everyone needs to have at least one friendship within their organization and so on. So there’s some universal strategies that leaders take for all generations, demographics, et cetera.

And then there’s also tailored approaches where this, where the leader in one-on-one conversation says, how, when and how do you wanna work? And of course we’re talking about knowledge workers. Someone that’s checking someone in at a hotel or, o obviously there’s somewhere, it’s there. It can’t be flexibility cuz you need to be there. But on the knowledge worker’s side saying, when and how do you need to work? What do I need to know about your personal life or about your values that would help you be your best self at work? So it’s a combination of individual, but then also happiness strategies [00:32:00] for all.

Yeah. Great. 

Elisa Tuijnder: So at the podcast, we are big fans of tangible practices and things that people can start implementing tomorrow. So as you have a pretty specific approach outlined in, in Be a Happy Leader, could you offer our listeners some of these practical tips or strategists for embracing a culture of happiness in their workplaces?

Especially in those challenging times that we find ourselves in at the moment? 

Tia Graham: Yes. Yes. One that comes to mind is to make sure as a leader, that you are having fun and that you are creating an environment other people can have fun. It’s easy to get so focused on results and just go.

And I’m Type A, so I. Relate to anyone listening, that’s just go. But to remember that it is, you spend so much time together and bring lightness and bring, bring fun into it. Whether that [00:33:00] be, I don’t know, games, activities, brainstorming jokes, who knows, but just bring some lightness and levity to it, especially in the world today.

God, we need it so much more. Another approach is having everyone aligned and united on what I call this is from the four disciplines of execution, the wildly important goals. So it’s easy for everyone to be in their own, focused on their own goals, and this is what I’m trying to achieve. But at least once a week, bring everyone together.

You can just virtual in person, hybrid of course and say, Okay, what is this? What is our north star? What is, what are we working towards the next 12 months? And what is all of our individual contributing pieces to get there? Bring that, that, I would say that teamwork together and having everyone excited about the wildly important goal.

It’s not just about what you need to do every single day. And then the last piece [00:34:00] I would say is for leaders is be real, be authentic, be vulnerable. Share with people when you’re struggling and why and don’t try and act and communicate like you always have everything together, because then that’s gonna make them feel alone or make them feel less than, show them.

Could be something with your kids, could be something with your boss at your, I think there just needs to be more humanity , I, is a word, but yeah, that’s what it seems like. Talk about what’s really going on. Yeah, 

Elisa Tuijnder: absolutely. Yeah. Have empathy and you know that fun and happiness is contagious, but also.

Yeah. Like you said, be real be in that same level as your employees at times. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So obviously this book sounds great. It’s really in the line of what we all love and stand for. So if our listeners want to [00:35:00] go and purchase your book or find more information about you or your blog or anything, where can they do.

Tia Graham: Yeah, so everything is on my website. arriveathappy.com. My book is there. I have a free four part video series for leaders called the Happy Leader Challenge. So that’s their blog podcast, interviews of leaders, etc. All of that is there, and the book is available on the website, or you can order it on any of the online retailers, whether it be Amazon, Barnes and Nobles.

There’s, also I support small book stores as well. And there’s a paperback, ebook or audiobook. So Audible too. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Fantastic. Great. Super accessible then. So for everyone out there. All right, Tia, I really thank you so much for coming on the show. Really enjoyed our talk and really enjoyed your insights and yeah.

Thank you again. Thanks so much. 

Tia Graham: Thanks for [00:36:00] having me. 

Elisa Tuijnder: Pleasure.

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