In today’s episode, I’m joined by Phil Wolfe. He is the Director of Kinex Health and he’s a Workplace Wellbeing Specialist. For the last 10 years, Phil has been designing health programs for a huge range of clients, from the head offices of Australia’s largest banks to the gold mines of Papua New Guinea.

In today’s episode, we talk about the business case for wellbeing, how wellbeing is a skill, how you can increase your wellbeing [00:01:00] and your team’s wellbeing, and much more. I’m really excited for today’s episode, so let’s jump in.

All right, Phil, welcome. And thank you so much again for coming on the balance leader podcast. My pleasure, Rob. Thanks for having me. Tell us a little bit about your background, mate, and how you became a workplace wellbeing specialist. Um, so yeah, workplace wellbeing specialist. I see it. Around all the time.

Now, I thought I thought that I coined it. I mustn’t have because there’s a million of them and not all of them have seen me, but, um, it’s a, it’s a fairly broad term. Not not to me because I know what it means to me. Um, but. Essentially, what it is, is someone who goes into workplaces and helps them to be well, um, that’s it in a nutshell.

We all do that in, in different ways, but that’s, that’s pretty much what it boils down [00:02:00] to. Now, I, I fell into it. I’m a, I’m an exercise physiologist, um, by, by trade, I guess. Um, I started out in clinical work. Years and years ago, I’ve, I’ve always had, I’ve always been super interested in health and well being in particular because they are two separate things.

Whilst they do inform each other, they’re both additive, they’re not the same thing. And I suppose we’ll talk about that in a little bit as well. But growing up in, in my house, um, My father was a PE teacher. Uh, he was a professional athlete. So it was, it was always really encouraged activity, movement, health, eating well, sleeping well.

It was always very highly encouraged. And I’ve just grown up in that environment where I know how beneficial it is and how in control of my health and wellbeing. I am, and I’ve always been quite aware of that. So I was always going to go into something to do with health. And I, I [00:03:00] found exercise physiology, uh, and loved it, loved the course, loved the people that I was with, um, got out and started doing clinical work, which I didn’t love as much.

Um, it was a little bit of a, not a shock, but it was disheartening is a little too strong. but let’s go along with that. Um, whatever’s under disheartening, I’m sure someone will come in and let us know. Uh, but it wasn’t what I really loved. And I sort of started to stray away from it a little bit and try out a few different things.

And I, I started doing health checks, which is what corporate health as it was then known was back then. It was basically just all health checks. Uh, if you weren’t doing health checks, you were doing, um, injury rehab. Or return to work programs. And that was corporate health. Um, but I started doing that and I quite enjoyed it.

And then I, I found a company, um, a boutique company that was. [00:04:00] doing something that I’d never seen before. And essentially they were taking health specialists, mostly EPs and physios, uh, and implanting them in companies between one and five days a week, where they would consult individually with, uh, with the staff of that company, and then also report to the higher ups and feed that information anonymously back to them.

So they’re working with the staff one on one to upskill their health and wellbeing. And also working with management to improve those circumstances. Now, I just, I fell in love with it immediately because in clinical work, people come to you and they’re, for lack of a better term, broken. They’re, they have an injury.

Uh, they have a chronic illness. They have something that they deemed it necessary to come to you for. That’s, that’s intervention. And what I found in workplace well being, or corporate health as it was, is this captive [00:05:00] audience where You get people at all different stages. You get, yeah, the ones that are already sick, the ones that are already injured, but you also get the ones just before they get there and the ones, the step or two or three or four before that.

And you get the ones that are super motivated and excited and really want to test their limits and optimize for performance. So you get this, this subset of society that’s really indicative of the wider population. So it was, it was so exciting to be able to access these people. Not just when they’re hurt or sick, but before that actually happened.

So it was, yeah, it was love at first sight for me and something that I wanted to, to really dedicate myself to, because I saw this, just this enormous potential for good and. If we can put our resources into preventing these things, I mean our resources go so, so much further. We all know that prevention is far better than cure.

So I wanted to get out of the cure space and [00:06:00] move wholeheartedly into the prevention. And this is, in my opinion, the absolute best way to do that. There’s nothing that I could ever think of that’s more effective, uh, or cost effective than, than workplace well being for, in terms of prevention. So that’s what I’ve dedicated my life to.

That’s what my company does. And yeah, it’s um, it’s fun. It’s what I get to do every day. You raised a really good point there about prevention and trying to get in before, you know, the bad things happen. Has that always been the way? I mean, you’ve got a really long background in this space. Have you seen that happen since you started or, or are we getting better at prevention?

Oh, what a question. Are we getting better at prevention? Um, I think in a lot of ways, yes. Um, and in a lot of other ways, no, so people are more acutely aware of their health and well being than they’ve ever been. Um, the, the wellness industry [00:07:00] is a trillion dollar industry, multiples of trillions of dollars, uh, which I think is obscene.

I think it’s completely ridiculous that we have. All of these wellness options. So very few of which make an actual difference. I mean, there’s the detox teas and there’s supplements for everything. And there’s, there’s 18 different kinds of Bowflex and it’s all crap, but people are very acutely aware of their health and wellbeing and they pour money into it and they pour time and attention, but there’s still.

There’s still, um, a little bit ignorant of the basics and the power of the basics. So we’re all buying Reiki mushrooms and we’re buying these wellness teas that are going to have very little to, I would argue, no effect whatsoever. But we’re still not eating right. We’re still not managing our stress levels.

We’re still not exercising regularly. We’re not prioritizing our sleep That’s that’s the 90 percent the [00:08:00] 95 percent of health But we’ll we’ll gladly spend hundreds of dollars on supplements and the stuff that doesn’t work If someone promises us that we don’t have to put in the work, we can just buy their thing and we’ll be good and then we don’t have to put in the work.

So in terms of prevention, yes, a lot of us are a lot more aware of it, but I think we’re putting out. Our time and attention and resources into the wrong things. Uh, and that’s, that’s individuals as well as organizations as well as governments. Um, but yeah, I think we’re more aware of it. We’re just not quite doing it effectively at the moment.

So what does wellbeing mean to you then? And why do you think it’s important for leaders? Yeah, it’s a, it’s a very subjective term. Well being it’s, it’s different for all of us. And I think that’s highlighted by the fact that you cannot find, you cannot find an agreed upon definition. Uh, [00:09:00] there’s, I mean, they’re all going to be quite similar, but nothing’s going to be exactly the same.

And I think that’s actually, that’s not a bad thing. I mean, we do need some consensus on, on what it means to all of us in the broad strokes, but I think it’s really important that we do. Have that distinction and we do make it ours because it is so subjective and it’s so personal for us. But for me, it’s, it comes down to balance.

So it’s, it’s being physically, emotionally, socially, mentally, spiritually, financially well. And in balance, and more than that, it’s maintaining a very high level of control over the inputs that affect those different elements. So it’s the autonomy, it’s the agency to be able to control those things and to feel like we have control over those things.

Soon as we, we lose that feeling, we lose a great deal of the actual well being. Itself. So knowing, knowing that these things [00:10:00] should be in balance and working towards it and knowing that we have control over those elements, I think, is incredibly important. And for me, it’s, it’s everything having that agency, knowing that it is within my power to a very, very large degree.

My well being is within it. My hands. Obviously, it’s made more or less difficult by external factors and by by the people around me by the circumstances. But for the most part, it’s it’s down to me. Um, and for leaders, I think it’s absolutely critical their well being. Is is so incredibly important and leaders, I think, get overlooked so much in this conversation in this workplace will be in conversation.

It’s all about how can leaders facilitate well being and don’t get me wrong. That is it. That is a huge part of it. And there is so much that leaders can do for their teams. But how? What are leaders doing for themselves? So often get forgotten. Uh, we, we feel like everything is up [00:11:00] to them. They have to facilitate this.

They have to do this. They have to do that. But what about them themselves? It’s incredibly important. They look after themselves because they’re responsible for so many people. They’re responsible for the well being of their team to a large degree, for their performance, for their function, for so many different elements.

They have to make sure that they’re healthy and well. One thing that we like to do is get people to imagine Imagine how productive, how influential, how kind, how patient you are when you’re feeling at your absolute best, when your energy is high, you’re happy, you’re in a good mood. You’re an extremely productive and functional member of your team.

Now, imagine all of those same elements when you are having the worst day ever. You’ve had a shit sleep, you got cut off in traffic, you spilled your coffee on your pants. The boss just told you that your report was no good. You are not going to [00:12:00] be a functioning, productive member of the team that day. So looking after your well being and ensuring that you can function at a high level consistently, not always, no one can always, but consistently more.

Uh, it’s. It’s critical. Making sure you’re taking the time to look after your own well being. It means that you can look after everyone else. It’s all that your own oxygen mask on first and all that sort of stuff, which if I have to read on LinkedIn again, I mean, we all, we all understand that. We know, the analogy has been beaten to death.

Let’s just assume that we all know that one and move on. Yeah, I may have used that one recently on a podcast, so I am guilty of it as well. And I did say, I’ve been saying this for years. So Yeah, it’s the cup and the oxygen mask. I’ve, I’ve used them myself as well. That’s um, yeah, I don’t know. Maybe we do need to, to put them out more because we, we just assume what we know, other people know as well.

So maybe someone else is hearing it for the first time and it’s blowing their mind. [00:13:00] So yeah, maybe we shouldn’t stop saying maybe I’m being a little bit too cynical. Good point. We talked about prevention and how important that is in well being. What do you do, Phil, to look after your well being? Um, my well being, I’ve, I’ve cultivated this over many, many, uh, trial and error attempts, and I am still practicing and experimenting, uh, with So many different inputs, but one thing that had, or sorry, two things that have never ever changed and never ever will change, uh, my exercise routine.

Whilst the exercise itself changes constantly cause I get bored really easily and I want it to be fun. Um, the fact that I do exercise will never ever change whatever my capacity is, however that looks, I’ll always. Exercise. Now it doesn’t have to be every day, but that is very regularly every week [00:14:00] and prioritizing my sleep.

I prioritize it over everything. I’ll easily stop work so that I have time to wind down and get eight hours of sleep and then get up early and go again the next day rather than working late into the night. I watch I used to watch a lot of suits, um, and it seems to be par for the course that lawyers would just be up to, it’s just routine, they’re up to 2 or 3 a.

1. Like, that is the worst thing I could possibly imagine. Get a good night’s sleep and get up early, that’s insane. But yeah, two things that I always, always do, I exercise regularly and I prioritize my sleep. That will never, ever change. Now, there’s a bunch of other stuff. as well. I mean, I watch what I eat.

I’m not super strict about it, but I definitely do. I eat better than, I eat well more often than I eat bad. I eat badly. Sorry. Um, I [00:15:00] make sure I get enough sunlight. I’m well hydrated throughout the day. If, uh, if I’m feeling overly stressed, I’ll make sure I take myself out for a walk. And I prioritize my rest and recovery, which are the two different things.

Rest and recovery. I make sure I get plenty of rest and I make sure I’m recovering both passively and actively. To make sure that I’m, I’m ready to go because it’s a, it’s a relatively stressful environment and I run, I run two, two businesses. Um, it can be pretty stressful. So as long as I’m resting and recovering adequately, I know I can do that effectively.

If I’m not, then everything. Just piles up on top of me and it becomes too much. Uh, but yeah, it boils down for me, exercise and sleep are by far the two most important inputs. What does the difference between passive and active recovery look like for you? You mentioned that there that, you know, you do, you try and do both.

How do they, how do you [00:16:00] distinguish between the two? And what are you, what are the actual things you do in both buckets, if you like? Yeah, that’s a good question. So rest and recovery together for me would be something like, uh, sitting on the couch with my partner watching Netflix, which we do quite a lot of each day.

That is our, it’s our time together. Uh, it’s our time to, to recharge, to zone out and we’ll, we’ll probably watch two or three hours of, um, Of content a night constantly chatting to each other throughout poking fun at things and just generally enjoying ourselves. Um, that is passive rest and recovery.

Active recovery would be me going for a walk in the afternoons, meditating, going for a swim, doing stretching or my rehab exercises. Something that I know is going to give me either more energy, more focus. Um. Or some [00:17:00] sort of improvement that actually requires an input from me. So a lot of people will rest and say they’re recovering by doing nothing.

That’s fine. You can absolutely do that, but you can recover without resting. You can actually be actively doing something and facilitating, facilitating it because going for a walk for me is it helps me to recover much, much more quickly than does sitting and doing nothing. So if I only have a very short period of time, if I’ve got 10 minutes, I will 100 percent go for a walk rather than sit down for 10 minutes and do nothing.

Because I know I’m going to recover five times, ten times, twenty times better on the walk. So, making sure I’m actively recovering, uh, and passively recovering as well. Because active recovery takes far, far less time. Why do you think it is that when we’re in active recovery then, that were actually, I think you said five times faster.

I mean, I know you’re just sort of grabbing that figure, but yeah, exactly. It’s not [00:18:00] scientifically proven, but what do you think it’s, what do you think is actually happening in the body or in the mind that is so important? That’s actually creating that experience in the active recovery. Yeah, it’s a really good question.

And I think the short answer is I don’t know all of it and I don’t know if any of us would know all of it, but certainly there’s some combination of, well, I think for me it’s mostly detachment, detachment from what is causing, uh, whatever I’m. Experiencing. So is it that I focused too long on a task and now my focus is starting to wane?

I detached myself from that and now I go and do something that requires literally zero focus for me apart from not getting hit by cars. Um, or is it I’ve been on a Stressful phone call. I removed myself from the environment where the phone call happened and I detach myself and go out into a new environment.

And I’m also doing something that I enjoy. I love, I love walking and [00:19:00] we live, um, we’re fortunate enough to live in, in freshwater on the northern beaches. Walking by the ocean is that’s something I would do every day. I absolutely genuinely love it. So being able to, to remove myself from what I was doing, that was causing whatever the decline was.

Uh, and go and do something that I genuinely love is a, it’s a joy for me. So not only am I not doing that thing anymore, I’m now doing something that I really enjoy. And as well as that physiologically, I mean, uh, light activity will, uh, boost your energy levels. It forces the body to create more energy to, um, to utilize, utilize more ATP.

Um, I guess the blood flowing gets your joints moving, um, pumps. lymphatic fluid, drains lymphatic fluid from your muscles and your joints, just generally makes you feel better. So I think mentally for me, it’s the detachment. Physiologically, obviously there’s, um, there’s noted [00:20:00] benefits there. So you combine those two and it’s a, it’s a no brainer.

I’ve heard you say before that wellness is a skill, and it can be improved, and it can be mastered. So that’s really encouraging, particularly for someone who’s just starting out from perhaps a low base, and they go, oh, maybe this is something that I, even though I don’t feel like it now, maybe I can get better at it.

For that person, where, where do they begin? Yeah, it absolutely is a skill. We, I mean, so many things are skills that we don’t really recognize. We just think that people are innately born. Talented, uh, or able to do things. Now that’s, that’s true to a degree. People are born with more of an understanding or more of a talent or an aptitude for some things.

And some people are born healthier. They’re born genetically healthier than others. All true. But the people who remain healthy or the people who achieve the best health that they, that is [00:21:00] possible for them. are the people who have that set of skills, that set of well being skills that they apply to everyday situations.

Now, for someone who, who might not have mastered that skill set, or who is just becoming aware that it actually is a skill set, that’s the first thing. that it is a skill set and you can learn it. Any skill set can be learned. And once you realize that it’s about awareness and curiosity. So what I mean by that is taking note and, and checking in with yourself about, okay, what makes you stressed?

What makes you sad? What makes you happy? What gives you energy? What takes your energy away? What, what causes your muscles to feel? Uh, all of those inputs, all of those things that are happening to you throughout the day, they’re not just happening, they’re [00:22:00] happening for a reason. There is always, always a cause to whatever is going on, uh, in our brains and in our bodies and in our minds as well.

So bringing our awareness and that curiosity to those things. And recognizing what’s causing this, that’s absolutely the first step, because once we recognize that, it’s not like we have to, for most of this, go off and learn about it. We’ve got all the information that we need. If I know that going for a walk in the morning boosts my energy, then it’s a pretty simple A to B for that.

We don’t need to learn anything else. We just recognize A, and then we We do the input and we get to be so checking in with ourself and asking how do we sleep? What what changed last night to the night before? Why do I feel so good this morning and I didn’t yesterday? Why why is my knee sore today and it wasn’t yesterday?

What can I then from there? [00:23:00] What can I actually do to replicate that or what can I do to mitigate that? So bring your awareness and your curiosity to what is actually happening In your body, uh, and in your mind is absolutely the first step, then all you need to do is do more of the things that work and less of the things that don’t.

And if you do that consistently over a long period of time, then you can achieve essentially anything. Consistency is the. We don’t need all that much knowledge and skill beyond that awareness and curiosity. Now, obviously we can then add knowledge and skill. We can, we can know what foods contain what macronutrients, what micronutrients, what balance we should do them in.

If we want to achieve a specific physiological outcome, what training do we need to do? Um, What rehab exercises if we’re feeling pain in our shoulder, how do we isolate that pain? How do we, how do we improve it? How do we work on it? All of those [00:24:00] things, uh, the knowledge and the skills that come after it, but that awareness and that curiosity and that application of consistency, that’s going to get you 80 percent of the way there.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I think sometimes we overcomplicate things. Yes. Wellbeing shouldn’t be that hard. And as you, as you mentioned, there are already, there’s already so much information already out there. It’s a matter of applying it, being consistent. And then, as you mentioned, the feedback as well, looking for feedback, what’s working, what’s not, and just keep doing more of that.

And also, sorry, just to, just quickly on that point, there is a lot of information out there and it’s very, very, very important to find. sources for that information. Um, and when you’re figuring out how to do that, I always like to look at what is this person’s motivation for saying this. Um, most of the people, I’ll just say it right now.

Most of the people that you follow on Instagram don’t really [00:25:00] know. Well, it’s, it’s either, they don’t know enough of what they’re talking about or their intention is Not to have other intentions and to bring you the best and most useful information for you. Um, it’s not very sexy to say, Oh, it depends when you’re asked a question, what’s, what’s the best thing to do for this or for that?

Well, it really depends on your circumstances. That’s not sexy. That’s not getting any followers. If you take a hard and controversial line, then you will get engagement and you will get followers. Uh, whether. Whether what you’re saying is correct or not, people will engage with it. So look at someone’s motivation for saying what they’re saying.

Um, take your information from a range of sources. Um, if you can peer review journals, obviously is the best, the best way to get a lot of that information, uh, and common sense. If someone’s telling you something that’s very, very controversial, take that with a grain of salt because I guarantee you they’re [00:26:00] making money for saying that.

So be very, very careful where you get your information. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as you mentioned before, it’s a 3 trillion business. People, I think it’s five. I think it’s five and it’s projected to go to nine. In the next decade or so, I, I’d have to check that, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it is.

There’s obviously some people out there who are trying to cash in on that and not always putting out the right information. And I totally agree with you. It depends is not sexy and subjective is not sexy. So people want the hard line stuff sometimes, but it’s not in their best interest. Um, and that’s why, you know, having information out there that people can then adapt to their own situation.

I think a key part of it is learning for them what works and what doesn’t work. And then applying that. And I think that’s the best way to go. Yeah. I picked up on a quote you had on your social media channel the other day. The hardest part of working out is putting on your shoes. Once you’ve got that, everything is downhill from there.

Yeah. Um, it’s something that I’ve found to be true because. I was thinking about it [00:27:00] and as, while I was, while I was writing, um, and doing research for a habit change, um, course that we’ve, we’ve just put the finishing touches on. Um, a little shameless plug there. And I was thinking about it and. How many times have you put on your shoes and your clothes to work out and not going to exercise?

It’ll be very, very, very few. Something would have to, something drastic would have to have to happen in order to stop you from going to exercise. Once those shoes are on, you’re doing it. So we brought it back to what is, what is the catalyst for causing you to exercise? Is it the thought of exercising? Is it the time to exercise?

Is it a friend calling you saying, let’s go? All of those can be subverted. All of those can be sidestepped if necessary. And we’re very, very, very good at sidestepping those, those mental cues or external cues. But once our shoes are on, we’re going to do it. So if you want to [00:28:00] exercise and you can’t seem to find the motivation, just put your shoes on.

Put your shoes on and then the rest will flow from there. Because it’s, it’s essentially, you’ve kicked off the first step in that habit chain. Once your shoes are on, then you go and grab your water bottle. Once you grab your water bottle, you go to the front door. You’re at the front door, you’re either already running or you’re in the car on the way to the gym or to rock climbing or to a friend’s house to go skipping or whatever.

Putting your shoes on is the first link in that chain. So you get those on, you’re going to exercise. So just get over that little hurdle and away you go. Yeah, I used to have a bad habit of rationalizing with myself about why I shouldn’t do it. So I found, for me, and this doesn’t work for everyone, but hard and fast rules around these are the days I work out, these are the times I work out, I lay out my clothes the night before, everything’s ready to go.

to try and remove any barriers, and then it’s just a matter of stepping through the [00:29:00] steps. Even if it means going to the gym one day and saying, you know what, today I’m just going to lift the absolute lightest I possibly can. Once you get in there and you start lifting, you’re like, oh, okay, I’ll go a little bit harder and then you sort of get out of your own way.

How important is mindset across the board for well being, do you think? Yeah, it’s, it’s critical. Um, once you, once you decide that you are a healthy person, not that you want to get healthy or you want to do healthy things, you decide that you are a healthy person and you make the choices that a healthy person does.

That is so incredibly helpful because that is the mindset. I’m, I’m not someone who tries to exercise. I see myself as an athlete and I make the choices that an athlete does. Now, obviously I’m not an athlete. Um, but in my mind, I am an athlete’s exercise. Athletes do not skip workouts, except. [00:30:00] under very exceptional circumstances.

Uh, so recognizing yourself as a healthy person is The first step, and it just makes everything so much, so much simpler, so much easy, so much easier because their identity will inform our choices and our choices will reinforce our identity or weaken our identity. So once we choose to be a certain type of person, and then we make the choices that that type of person does, it’s a, it’s a, um, self fulfilling cycle, which is, which is excellent, but having that mindset, it all stems.

from mindset because your motivation is going to ebb and flow. We know that if it didn’t ebb and flow, we wouldn’t have a word for it, but it does. So having that mindset and deciding that you are someone who does this, uh, is incredibly important. And for, for myself, what I like to do, I mean, this is a little bit strange.

Um, I’m sure not everyone does this, but [00:31:00] I have, and I actually found out that not everyone has an internal monologue. Not everyone speaks to themselves. In their head, which is just wild to me, like me to a hundred percent. I’m all like, there’s always something going on in there. Absolutely. Like I literally have conversations with myself in my head.

Maybe someone can inform me if that’s healthy or not, but it’s natural. Let’s just say it’s good. It makes me feel better. So I, I literally. Imagine that there is someone else in my head. There’s me and there’s my rationalizations. And I have this, I have this conversation with myself all the time. I’ll say, ah, bit sore from the gym yesterday.

Um, maybe it’s best if I just skip today. I’ll just go for a light walk. And, and I’ll, I’ll go tomorrow and then me in the back of my head is sitting there and just nodding along. Okay, cool. That’s great. Oh yeah, no, that makes sense. That makes total sense. Now get in the fucking car and [00:32:00] get to the gym. Yeah.

It’s, yeah, you don’t, um, sometimes you just don’t allow. That to come through or you listen and pay attention. You go. Okay, great. Do it. Anyway, um doesn’t always work and sometimes it’s it’s totally legitimate that yes I’m gonna go for a walk today because I’m not I’m not gonna benefit From doing what I plan to do if I that’s I think that’s a distinction if I’m not going to benefit if it’s going to Harm me in some way, uh, doing what I plan to do, then I’ll do something else.

Absolutely. And it’s being aware of what, of the distinction between those two. But, um, yeah, my mindset is I don’t listen to my rationalizations. I just do it. Um, it doesn’t work a hundred percent of the time. Nothing works a hundred percent of the time, but, uh, yeah, I’m working on it. I’m getting better.

Yeah, me too. And it is a work in progress. So, uh, maybe we could start a club or something. I don’t know. Phil, you work with the, the club would involve everyone in the. On the planet, except for David Goggins, probably. Yeah, [00:33:00] that’s exactly right. Yeah, he’s a machine. What is the business case for well being in the workplace?

You work with a lot of organizations, so you’ve probably crossed this with a lot of different organizations, but what do you think the business case is? Yeah, we have and it it goes back to so first and foremost with if we take the numbers out of it It goes back to imagine how productive and how functional and all the rest of it You are on your best day as compared to your worst How much work did you get done on your best day?

how much did you get done your worst day if you can compare those two and then extrapolate that across a across 365 days of the year, I think you’ve got your business case right there. But obviously that that’s not going to pass the, uh, the bottom line test. So we actually have to show a return. Um, but a return is absolutely possible.

Now, some of these things we can plan out ahead of time. Uh, some of these things we can easily measure and some of them, [00:34:00] particularly the ones with the largest impact, we actually. Can’t measure all, all that, um, effectively. So we’ll stick to the ones that we can. Now, let’s say you pick, you pick your metrics that you want to, that you want to improve.

Let’s say absenteeism, uh, and turnover. They’re two of the very, very big ones. Insurance premiums is another one that’s huge. Uh, and that definitely comes into it and that, that in itself can pay for a wellbeing program. Many times over, but for argument’s sake, let’s just take the two biggest ones, the two most common and it’s absenteeism and turnover.

Now, uh, average rate of pay for Australians. I think it’s about 80, 85, 000 or something a year. Um, which means that the direct cost of absenteeism, not presenteeism, not what work didn’t get done, but literally how much was that person paid to not be at work. It’s about 345, 350 bucks. Now, you multiply that across the organization.

Um, in a [00:35:00] lot of industries, absenteeism rate has gone up to 12. 3 days per person per annum. Uh, we know that people who are unwell, that’s have two or more chronic conditions, uh, are taking many, many times up to, I think, six times more. Uh, days off than people with, uh, with no chronic illnesses. Uh, but it averages out to about 12, 12 and a half days per person.

So you times that by 345 days per year. If you’re in a 100 person company, it’s costing you about 425 grand. per year that you are paying to people not to be at work. Uh, turnover, turnover rate, I think on average is about 10%. Uh, and the lowest end of the estimate, uh, by the Australian, uh, Human Resources Institute, uh, 50 to 150 percent of someone’s.

Now, 75 to 150 percent of someone’s wage, so let’s call it the lowest end. What’s that? [00:36:00] That’s 60, 67, 67, 000. We times that by 10, that’s 675, 000. So automatically in a 100 person company, just based on absenteeism and turnover, if we’re on the average, it’s about 1. 1 million. Now, if we want our wellbeing program to reduce those things.

by 20%, which is fairly modest. Um, then that comes down, hang on, I actually did these figures, give me one second. I like that you’ve got it already calculated out. Yeah, oh yeah, I’ve done this a million times. Um, this is in another course that we did. Okay, so if we want to reduce absenteeism, that 424, 350 per annum by the way, we want to reduce that by 20%, that’s 84, 870.

We want to reduce turnover by 20%. That’s 135, 000. So that’s 220 grand. If we can reduce it by 20%, just those two things, we stand to save 220, 000. [00:37:00] Now, let’s say we want an ROI of three. So every dollar spent, we want to return three. We divide 220 by three and it gives us 73, 000. So that gives us Now, that is the lowest end possible only dealing with two metrics, which there are dozens, but dealing with just those two metrics.

If we want to return 3 for every dollar spent, we have 73, 000 to play with in a 100 person company. Now that’s a very, very conservative budget, but that’s going to give you a very, an extremely comprehensive. market leading well being program. 73 grand, 730 bucks per person per year. That’s two days of absenteeism basically.

Or it’s reducing, it’s reducing turnover by one person. It’s already paid for itself. So [00:38:00] that’s how we work it out. We have to do it in black and white figures. Now that’s just a very quick example, but we have to do it in black and white figures because that’s what people understand. That’s what companies understand.

That’s what they want to see. They want to see a reduction in X. They want to see an increase in Y. Now we can obviously also look at productivity. We can look at presenteeism. We can look at insurance premiums. We can look at, um, mental and physical, um, works compensation claims, heaps and heaps of stuff, but just based on two metrics with very modest decreases and a very high rate of return, we’ve already got more than enough budget, uh, to provide everyone with an extremely comprehensive.

Well being program, but we tend not to, because those are, those are bleed costs, absenteeism, turnover, presenteeism. They’re all bleed costs and bleed costs don’t show up on anyone’s balance sheet. So no one is responsible for them. It’s costing the company. It’s costing the [00:39:00] organization. It’s costing the people.

It’s putting more stress on teams. It’s in every sense of the word costing, but no one’s responsible for that cost. Once you assign a wellbeing budget, someone is responsible. Someone is accountable as a black and white figure that now someone has to, has to delegate, has to spend, has to show an ROI. And that’s what’s scary because that money has to come from somewhere, not realizing that it’s like a waterfall and you just need to stick your hands out and draw some of that, some of the money that you’re letting slip down the drain in.

but you have to find it somewhere. Um, so that’s what puts a lot of companies off. That’s what puts a lot of people off because you have to be responsible for it. And the money has to come from somewhere. Changing it from a bleed cost to a black and white cost is scary. Um, but it makes a whole bunch of sense.

Uh, so getting people to understand that and then creating that business case in black and white figures [00:40:00] and showing the estimated ROI. Yeah, that’s what we need to do. That’s, that’s the boring part. Uh, but it needs to be done. Um, then the rest is the fun part. It’s hard to argue with those figures though.

As you say, they are black and white, and they seem to be a pretty strong business case. When organizations are doing well being well, so someone that already has, or an organization that already has a well being program in place, what does that look like? And I realize that it’s probably subjective, but generally speaking, what does that look like?

Yeah, completely subjective. Um. And no two wellbeing programs that we organize for companies are ever the same, but the companies that are doing it the best, they have that commitment from up top. First and foremost, you absolutely need that. Now you can do it. You can do it without it, but my goodness, it is so much more difficult.

If you have that buy in, From C suite that trickles down and if [00:41:00] they actually commit to it, engage in it and and help facilitate it, you’re already halfway there because then that filters through and it’s encouraged for middle management to get involved and that’s highly encouraged for workers. to get involved.

And before you spend any money, you’re already having, having an impact there. Because if you have a commitment to wellbeing from the top, without a dollar spent, the decisions that come from the top and that filter down will reflect that. It’ll be putting the person before the work, prioritizing rest and recovery, um, making sure communication channels are strong and effective.

All of that, none of that costs money. You can impact wellbeing enormously for free. I mean, obviously someone’s got to do that work. Someone’s got to put in the time and effort to, to arrange that, but you don’t need to pay any external providers for that. Now that’s. Yeah, that’s taking money out of my own pocket saying that, but I don’t really [00:42:00] care about that.

I care about, I care about pushing wellbeing forward. I care that we have organizations that give a shit and organizations that, that are helping to drive this forward and that we’re having an actual impact. The market is big enough. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll make my money. I’ll be fine. I want this. To drive forward, and I’m actively doing that every day.

So first and foremost, the companies who are doing well being well have commitment from the top. They also have, um, could be in the form of a well being committee. It could be in the form of well being champions, whatever, but they have a group of people who are responsible. Responsible is probably the wrong word.

A group of people who are charged with facilitating the well being program and driving it forward and being the connectors and the mavens for this. That have actual power. They have decision making power. They have input into high level conversations and they can do the things that they think are going to [00:43:00] work throughout the organization and the higher ups actually listen to them because a surefire sign that A company is just providing lip service to well being is creating a well being committee who have no power, who have no resources, who don’t get listened to, but they have a well being committee.

So they’re doing the right thing. That’s, that’s the way they view it. So commitment from the top and a group of people who are charged with facilitating this, who have some, have some actual power. Now, the rest of it, the rest of it is completely, uh, individual, uh, but. In my mind, the two things that all companies can do to impact well being immediately beyond that commitment and creating a substantial well being committee or well being champions is upskilling their people in health and well being and upskilling their managers within their teams on the well being dynamics.

So well being [00:44:00] dynamics essentially are the factors that affect. My well being, your well being, our well being together and the degree to which we have control over those factors. So how much activity does someone need at a base level? How much sleep? How much rest? How much recovery? How much stress can Tim handle without, uh, without it causing him harm?

What about Sally? Knowing that and having the skills to facilitate that within our own teams, that’s so incredibly important. That creates this This microculture of wellbeing facilitated by the manager, but also by the rest of the team. And we all know how to help each other, how to help ourselves. How to function together as a unit, um, incredibly important, not that hard to do to teach those skills, uh, which is what we’ll be doing, um, from early next year.

I mean, we’re, we’re already doing it, but we’re going to formalize that into, into [00:45:00] workshops because it’s really, really simple to do, uh, an incredibly. impactful. Um, and yeah, workplace wellbeing specialists. I mean, that’s what, that’s what we provide. Um, if there was something better that would work better, that’s what we would do.

But wellbeing specialists, they’re, they’re excellent. It’s having your own expert so that you don’t have to come up with all this stuff and you don’t have to be the expert because you have someone that is, that will help you do everything that you need to do. So yeah, that’s what I’ve built my business around because it’s, it’s the best way to do it.

If there is something better, yeah, I’ll start doing that at a microculture level. Then is it just a matter of the leader monitoring each of their staff and figuring out which interventions work the best and then test and adjust, you know, trying different things with different people at different stages, wherever they’re at, depending on whether they’re starting from that low base we talked about or from a higher base and then just constantly monitoring.

Is that the [00:46:00] way they should do that? Um, that’s, that’s part of it, but it’s, it’s everyone working on it together. So it’s input from absolutely everyone. So it’s everyone’s responsibility to know what they need, uh, in order for their wellbeing to flourish, basically how, what makes them thrive, what makes them falter.

And working on this together, so communicating those things, those minimum standards for well being and those ideal standards for high performance and operating within that zone and communicating that to your teammates, to your manager and everyone working on it together. It’s not all down to the manager to monitor that and to facilitate that everyone works on it together.

And once you. Once the team understands that and understands their role in it, it all becomes quite simple. Because if you know that there’s something that you can do that’s going to take you a couple of minutes that might [00:47:00] help someone enormously, save them a few hours or save them a lot of stress. If you don’t know that, you’re not going to be able to do that.

If you do know that, you’re able to facilitate that quite easily. And if everyone’s doing that over and over and over for each other, everything just gets so much simpler. Um, and that’s why, that’s why we say it’s, it’s about microcultures, creating those strong, high functioning teams. Because, I mean, organizational culture, what, what is organizational culture really?

Like how, how can you have. a culture that is based on a few words that you say that filters down to everyone and have everyone believe in the same thing. That is really, really difficult. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it is damn hard. Yeah. But you can absolutely do that within a team of 10 to 12 people, 15, 20 people, even have them all pointed at the same thing, driving towards the same goal.

You can absolutely do that. And you do that in team a, and then you do the same thing in team B. There’s a slightly [00:48:00] different. But similar, and then team C is slightly different, but similar, and they All of those amalgamated together, create your organizational culture. So it’s not just this top line. This is our culture.

It’s all of these teams together. This makes up our culture. Um, I think that’s a far more practical, far more useful way. to look at it in, in my opinion, anyway. We hear a lot about high performance in the workplace and everyone seems to want a high performing team, right? You talk about a high functioning team.

What is a high functioning team? And what’s the difference between high functioning and high performance? Yeah, I mean, high performance is great. I’m not, I’m not knocking that at all. That’s absolutely what we want. Um, but performance, when we’re looking at high performance, it’s often very outcome based.

It’s teams that work well and achieve. Functional teams, uh, teams that work well together. Whilst [00:49:00] performance is outcome based, function is dynamics based. It’s how do we fit together? How do we help each other? Do we function as a team? It’s the old saying, uh, a star team will beat a team of stars any day.

And it’s true. It’s so very true. And once we achieve function performance follows function that that needs to be said, it’s not one or the other. So if you have high performance, you don’t necessarily have high function, but if you have high function, eventually you will have high performance. It’ll be far more sustainable that performance.

So in a high performing team, you might have one or two, one or two team members that are driving the results. They’re getting 80 percent of your sales or your productivity, whilst the rest of the team is sort of falling by the wayside and they’re getting left behind because the superstars are doing all the work.

In a high functioning team, everyone is working together. They’re pointing towards the same thing and they’re all working towards the same [00:50:00] goal. So I think that’s the important thing. Performance follows function, but function doesn’t always, isn’t always present in performance. I think it’s, it’s a good analogy.

It’s um, Let’s say someone’s in the gym and they’re trying to lift super heavy weights and we’ve all seen these people They’re dead lifting a lot more than they should or they’re bench pressing and they’re all over the place and they’re arching their back And they’re pushing through their feet and they finally get it up and put it on the rack Super noisily and go.

Yes. I just lifted that. Okay. Well, yeah, technically you achieved that result But let’s say let’s say you do something else Let’s see you bend down and touch your toes. Let’s see you do five burpees. Achieving one particular result doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re functional and, but if you take someone who is functional, someone who can, um, move their body through different planes of motion, someone [00:51:00] who can, uh, run just as well as they can lift, someone who’s flexible, someone who’s mobile, you can easily build strength on top of that, you can easily get them to a point where they’re lifting super heavy weights without injury, without risk.

But taking that person who focuses solely on performance, it’s much, much harder to add function into that. So they decrease their risk of injury. They, and they can do more than a broader set of skills. So. Yeah, it’s a, it’s a very verbose way of putting it, but, um, yeah, performance follows function.

Function doesn’t always follow performance. I’ve heard you talk about burnout before, and you’ve quoted a statistic that in a workplace of 100 people, 60 people are experiencing burnout. So how do we recognize burnout in ourselves, and probably as importantly, also in the people around us in our teams, and how do we go about preventing it?

Yeah, that’s, that’s the buzz term at the moment, isn’t it? Burnout. And I mean, rightly so, [00:52:00] we’re, we’re experiencing a lot of it at the moment. And that’s 60. Um, it depends what source you’re looking at. That comes from a reputable source. I can’t remember. I think that’s from the ABS, Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Microsoft Work Trends Index Report.

That’s where it came from. 62 percent of people from the Microsoft Index. But it’s anywhere from say 40 percent to I saw one the other day where it said 98 percent of HR managers are experiencing some form of burnout. Wow. So it depends where you’re getting your information. But there’s no denying that burnout is a very, very prominent factor at the moment as we, as we add more and more.

And it’s not just from a workload perspective, it’s from an attentional perspective. Like how often. For you, Rob, how often is nothing crying out for your attention? How often do you have the luxury of paying attention to absolutely nothing? [00:53:00] I think the last time was 1996. It’s been a while, mate. It’s been a while.

Exactly. Whether it be kids or the dog or your partner or your boss or your phone or the TV or neighbours or whatever the case may be, something is always vying for our attention. And that requires Energy and that energy, whether we realize it or not, is constantly leaking out of us where 2030 years ago it wasn’t.

We weren’t always, um, contactable. We didn’t have trillion dollar companies designing applications to addict us and constantly draw out our attention and energy, which is absolutely what’s happening. Yeah, so. Recognizing burnout, um, or I suppose any adverse behavior or condition or circumstance or event, it starts with awareness, awareness of a baseline, awareness of, uh, what it looks like to function and [00:54:00] perform well.

So in ourselves, it’s knowing what are we usually like? What is our energy like when we’re. When we’re, when all of our inputs are balanced, when we’re exercising, when we’re sleeping well, when we’re eating well, when our workload is balanced, we’re balancing our resources with the requirements that we have to deal with them.

Sorry, our requirements with the resources we have to deal with them throughout the day, which that imbalance is essentially what. causes burnout. It’s a very simplified way of looking at it, but if our requirements of our lives, our work and our day, uh, whatever the case may be, if they’re constantly outstripping the resources that we have to deal with them, then we’re going to go into overwhelm.

Essentially, uh, if our resources are far greater than our requirements, then we get super bored. It’s up to us to balance those two things. Requirements outstrip resources for a little bit. That’s where we grow and we learn and then resources outstrip requirements. That’s where we recover and rest. Um, but that’s a, that’s a topic in and of itself.

So [00:55:00] recognizing burnout in ourselves is recognizing our baseline and how we’re changing from that baseline, which is the same way we recognize it in others. So if you’re a leader, how do you know if your team members are at risk of burnout? Well, it comes down to what are they like normally? What is their baseline?

What is, what is good performance and function for them? And have they strayed from that? So we know that burnout is essentially, um, it’s fatigue, um, it’s depersonalization and it’s, it’s distancing ourselves, uh, from our work and cynicism involved with our work. There’s, there’s many different elements that go into it.

Um, but knowing how far someone has strayed from their equilibrium, uh, that’s, that’s how we recognize it. First and foremost. So if you’re a leader that doesn’t know what your people are normally [00:56:00] like and the inputs that are affecting them, then you’re gonna have a very, very difficult time recognizing when they’re burning out.

Like, are they just having a shitty day? Or has this been going on for three or four months and they’re slowly declining? Is their poor performance a result of a mistake they made or the fact that they’re a little bit stressed today? Or is it that they’re putting in 100 percent effort but over the course of the last few weeks, they’re only getting 60 percent output.

Bring that awareness. and being involved with them and knowing what they’re actually like and how far they’ve strayed from that is absolutely key for leaders. And yeah, how do we prevent it? That’s a, it’s a tough one. Cause burnout, burnout is a 5 trillion question. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It is. And burnout, burnout’s a syndrome.

It’s not a, it’s not a disease. So as a syndrome, it has, It has, um, a set of [00:57:00] symptoms that we can recognize and we can use to, for lack of a better term, diagnose burnout, but it has no root cause. It’s not a sort of virus that, uh, that causes an illness. Uh, it has many different causes that produce these recognizable symptoms.

So it’s a syndrome, not a disease, which is what makes it so much more complex. Um, but essentially, and in my experience and through my research. It’s about balancing resources and requirements. Uh, and that’s something that leaders need to be acutely aware of. What are the requirements on your team, on your individuals, on yourself, very, very importantly, and what resources do they have to deal with them?

If requirements are greater than resources for a period of time, then one of two things needs to happen in order to avoid burnout. Because if you’re pushing harder than you are able to push over a long period of time, you will burn out given a long enough timeline. It’s going to happen. Now, [00:58:00] so either We need to decrease the resources, uh, decrease the requirements, sorry, or increase the resources.

So the requirements could be workload, um, the time inputs could be, um, targets, whatever. And knowing that people’s personal requirements are also cooking dinner, picking the kids up from school, uh, doing the laundry. All of that, that’s all included. Resources is time, energy, software, hardware, um, colleagues, experience, skills.

All of that. We either need to grow this or shrink this. Otherwise, over a long enough timeline, your team will burn out without one of those two things happening. So, there’s many, many different ways that we can do that, but that’s essentially what it boils down to. Balance resources and requirements. If a leader is listening to this podcast today and you’ve convinced them, the business case for wellbeing for them and their team, they want to start today, they want to, they want to implement, they want to get some quick wins on the board.

What are some of the ways they might be able to do [00:59:00] that just to get the ball rolling for them? Yeah, yeah, really good question. Um, first and foremost, commit to it. Decide that this is important and that you are going to commit to it. It might seem like such a small thing, but it’s not. It’s, it’s everything, really.

Your decisions, your actions, they’ll all stem from that. So first and foremost, commit to well being. Next, we need to find where the health gaps. In our workforce are, um, that could be through looking at the HR data, the bleed costs, absenteeism, um, presenteeism, turnover, all that sort of stuff, or literally asking your people where their health gaps are.

If your leaders are, if they have a high degree of contact and they have effective communication and have a high functioning team, they’re going to be tapped into what those things are within, within their team. Um, we work with a lot of, a lot of organizations where the leaders will come to us and go, okay, my team are feeling this, they’re [01:00:00] experiencing this.

What can we do here? And that’s, that’s ideal because all teams are going to go through these tough times, but knowing that they’re going through that. And then trying to figure out a solution that is absolutely ideal. Um, so finding where those health gaps are and ensuring that, that we can monitor those consistently, that’s the first thing.

Then get very, very clear on what you want to accomplish. So what are your goals for wellbeing? Um, we can’t really just say we want to improve wellbeing. I mean, we can, but that’s extremely broad. Once you know where the health gaps are, then you can get very clear on what you want to. What you want to do.

Do you want to increase people’s energy? Do you want to, um, ensure they’re recovering adequately? Do you want to increase productivity whilst still, um, managing stress levels? You need to get very, very clear on that and create metrics for that. Uh, and then find [01:01:00] out from your people what they want and what they would actually engage with, because it’s absolutely no good designing this program.

That’s got all these bells and whistles if your people don’t want it. If nobody likes yoga, don’t schedule yoga. Like, they’ll tell you what they want and they’ll tell you what they will and won’t engage with. So absolutely ask them. But in terms of your quick wins, um, the number one thing to do is Check in with your people regularly and effectively, not just on what they’re doing, but how they’re doing, because that will mitigate so many issues right at the source.

If your people know that on Wednesday mornings, Rob comes and Rob asked me how I’m doing, um, and he’s going to check in with me and we’re going to have a real conversation where I have the safety to talk about whatever is bothering me. And I know that he’s going to listen to that, understand that, and he’s going to try his best to action.

Whatever needs to be done [01:02:00] in order to help me there. If I know that happens on Wednesday mornings, I’m feeling so much better about the rest of my week. On Friday, I’ll go, Oh yeah, shit. I’ll talk to Rob about that on Wednesday. And it doesn’t need to sit there and fester because I know I have an outlet. I know I have a conduit to talk to you and I know I’m going to be heard.

That’s by far the best way to impact well being now, today, right? The second. Secondly, um, and that’s, that’s free. I know it costs time. Uh, I shouldn’t say it’s free. That has no monetary cost. Beyond the time that it takes, but that time you will get back in bucket loads. Definitely. You’ll get a bucket for a teaspoon of your time there.

Um, and the other thing is recognition. Like it’s, it’s very easy to sleep on how, how much of an impact. Recognition actually has, and there’s a, there’s an exercise [01:03:00] that we like to do, and it’s picture someone that you respect could be someone you love, could be someone that you have a lot of admiration for, but just someone that means a lot to you, then picture them saying to you very genuinely, you’re doing a great job, you’re making a huge difference.

Uh, I’m so grateful. That you’re here with us. You really nailed that last project. You are a great leader. We’re so lucky to have you. I’m proud of you. Now, tell me that those things are better left unsaid. Tell me that it was better that you just assumed those things or that were implied by that person.

Absolutely not. We can’t leave these things left unsaid. They mean so very much to people and we don’t say them anywhere near as often. So [01:04:00] to summarize, because I do tend to, I get, yeah, I get very caught up in this and I get very passionate about this and I could talk about this all day. Um, but to summarize, check in with your team regularly and mean it.

Really mean it. Listen to them and action what they’re telling you, because what they’re telling you will save you a lot of heartache in the future and provide more recognition and appreciation. Just do it. Don’t leave it unsaid. And that goes for, that goes for everyone in your life, your kids, your partner, your friends, your parents.

Yeah. Don’t leave those things left unsaid. That’s awesome. I love that. Phil, what’s one question that I didn’t ask you today that maybe you’d hoped that I would have and how would you have answered? Um, yeah, I think, I think we’ve covered quite a lot. Um, now this, this isn’t a question, I guess, that I had wished you asked me or that I feel that it’s your responsibility to [01:05:00] ask me or, um, or that may have even been appropriate for this, for this setting, a question that we’re.

We collectively don’t ask enough is how are you really? I mean, how many times a day do you say, Hey, how you doing? And someone would go, yeah, good. Thanks. How are you? Yeah, good. It’s some very slight variation on that exchange. Um, it happens all the time. If you ask someone, how you doing? They go, yeah, good.

Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. How, how are you doing? You can ask a million different ways. The second that you ask the second time, they’ll tell you how they’re doing because they know. You’ve moved beyond that conditioned response. That’s it’s habitual. Yeah, good. Thanks. We’ve moved beyond that So now they actually have to think about it and they also know that you care You actually care what their answer is so they will [01:06:00] actually tell you you can do that in any setting It’s very very simple and you’ll get an honest answer most of the time you’ll get an honest answer I think that’s the question that I wish people asked Um, I always appreciate it when it’s asked of me.

Um, I’ll almost always ask. people, um, in different, in different ways, but it’s, it’s so impactful. I think that’s the question I wish we asked each other. I think you’re right. And I think I’m guilty of this as well, being on those automatic responses. So I like the follow up. How are you actually? And I think that you’re right.

I think that will elicit a response. And I think showing. that you’re asking a second time really shows that you do actually care about what they’re saying and you’re not just going to accept the first thing that comes out of their mouth because you are opening a space for them to really tell you how they are.

Yeah, exactly. And it doesn’t have to be, doesn’t have to be really intense. Like, [01:07:00] Oh, how, okay. I know you said you’re good, but how are you really? Um, cause that can be, that can be quite confronting as well. It could be as simple as how are you going? Yeah. Good. How’s your morning been? And then they’ll tell you about their morning.

They’ll tell you about something that happened. They’ll tell you about how they were feeling. Like that’s a very, very casual, casual way to ask, but um, it always elicits. a better response, a more meaningful response. And that’s what, I mean, that’s what we want actually. Yeah. Going back to how do you prevent burnout?

How do you mitigate stress? How do you improve wellbeing? It’s connection. It’s meaningful connection. You don’t have to have a hundred best friends. You can have one, but as long as it’s meaningful and as long as that means something to you and they’re a close connection, that’s, that’s the best way to mitigate a lot of the issues.

That we’re seeing now because we’ve got a lot of service connections. Yeah, that meaningful connection. That’s um, [01:08:00] that’s where it is. Thank you so much, Phil. Thank you not only for being here, but for also all the stuff that you’re putting out into the world. I follow you on LinkedIn. The free stuff you put out there is well worth the follow.

If people want to connect with you or find out more about you, what’s the best way they can do that? Yeah, LinkedIn is definitely the best way. I mean, go to our website, Kinex Health. But LinkedIn is by far the best way you’ll be able to see everything that I talk about and believe in and think about on a daily basis, post on there pretty much every day.

And you’ll get a really good idea of who I am, uh, and my values and what I, what I bring to the table and what my company does without ever having to talk to me. And if you want to, if you want to talk to me after that, that’s great. Just send me a DM. Um. And we’ll talk, but that’s, that’s the best way. Phil Wolf on LinkedIn.

Just, yeah. Just search for Phil Wolf or Kinex Health. And [01:09:00] you’ll find me. And we’ll link to that in the show notes as well. So people can find you very easily. All right, Phil, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Cheers, Rob. Thanks for having me.