In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty during his State of the Union address. While there was a sharp decline in poverty levels the decade after the declaration of war, poverty levels have remained mostly consistent for over 40 years.  Ironically, the efforts people made to stay out of fiscal poverty launched them headlong into a new type of poverty: time poverty, that chronic feeling of having too many things to do and not enough time to do them.  Stagnant wages meant people looking to improve their station had to work two or more jobs and additional time working outside of the home meant less time to complete the unpaid labor associated with running a household. In this episode, Pete and Melissa will talk about how the erosion of discretionary time affects our lives, some unexpected things that contribute to time poverty, and what we can do not to feel so time impoverished.

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

There are entire professions dedicated to the concept of giving feedback.  From editors to movie critics to corporate consultants to life coaches, feedback is widely recognized as critical to improvement in all arenas.  While we love getting the kudos that come with a job well done, we don’t always have the same appreciation for the constructive criticism that allows us to reach new heights of performance.  Part of the reason we balk at feedback might lie in the frequency of that feedback and the quality of it.  In today’s discussion, Melissa and Pete shed light on what makes feedback useful, the best ways to deliver it, and how much is the right amount.

Conversation Kindling:

Feedback is one of the hottest topics in business today. Managers are encouraged to adopt a practice of radical candor with their employees, and employees are expected to welcome such constructive criticism with open arms. However, “The Feedback Fallacy,” an article in the March-April 2019 edition of the Harvard Business Review, maintains that telling employees what we think of their performance doesn’t help them thrive and relays how we think they should improve hinders their learning. Research demonstrates that the most effective feedback is delivered when people who know us and care for us tell us what they experience and feel, specifically when they see something within us that works.

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

While the Great Resignation has caused many positions to go unfilled in the job market, there is another force at work that contributes to staffing woes–credential creep. Ironically, the act of requiring unnecessary degrees or certifications–usually with no additional bump in salary–in the hopes of attracting more qualified employees often produces the opposite result. Those additional screening metrics prevent job seekers from being able to apply to job announcements and leave companies with vacant positions. In this episode, Melissa and Pete discuss why a college degree isn’t necessarily the answer to attracting and retaining a qualified workforce and offer up what might be more important than a slew of certifications on our resume.

Conversation Kindling:

In February 2021, Credential Engine released two reports that offer an unprecedented understanding of the credential landscape. The first report estimates that there are 967,734 unique credentials in the U.S. across 16 categories—including both traditional degrees, certificates, certifications, licenses, and apprenticeships as well as non-traditional offerings such as badges.  This finding illustrates the credential landscape is vast—perhaps much larger than many imagined.

The second report estimates that the total yearly expenditures by educational institutions, employers, federal grant programs, states, and the military is upwards of $1.921 trillion. This revelation signals the need to create better processes for accountability and decision-making. Employers and employees shouldn’t have to guess which skills and credentials meet their needs—particularly with the proliferation of new options in this new normal.

View the reports HERE

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we feel like we are out of our depth.  Whether it’s being placed as a lead for a big project at work or coaching your child’s soccer team, feeling like we lack the competence to meet the expectations of those around us can lead us to sometimes feel like frauds.  That feeling is more commonly known as Imposter Phenomenon. In this episode, Melissa and Pete will dissect and discuss these feelings that an estimated 70% of people will experience at least once in their life.

Conversation Kindling:

In this Ted Talk, Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company that has been used by upwards of 70,000 organizations, reveals how he constantly feels like an imposter, but has learned to harness those feelings for his benefit. While successful people are often susceptible to imposter phenomenon, they also tend to question their ideas and their knowledge regularly and aren’t afraid to seek advice and use that input to hone their ideas. Moreover, Mike talks about how imposter phenomenon can enhance our personal relationships as well. As he explains, an attribute of the most successful personal relationships is when both partners feel like their partner is out of their league. Individuals can leverage imposter phenomenon to stretch themselves to be the best partner and achieve a very successful personal relationship.

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

In the year 2020, people searched Google for the word “happiness” more than ever before. It’s not surprising that in the middle of a pandemic, financial hardship, political strife, and social unrest people were searching for the elusive. But the search for happiness is nothing new. People look to find happiness in all sorts of places–their jobs, their relationships, their successes. But what people often don’t realize is that happiness doesn’t reside anywhere. It isn’t a destination or an end state. It’s a process, a state of being. In this episode, we reveal some of the ways that we can harness happiness in our everyday lives.

Conversation Kindling:

One of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness in your life is how much gratitude you show. Check out this seven-minute video to see how gratitude is linked to feeling happier!

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

“Keeping up with the Joneses” is a popular idiom in America.  It indicates an attitude of measuring our success or status by the material goods we see those around us accumulating.  The negative effects of comparison don’t stop at things, though; we can feel the same yearning to keep up with others when it comes to respect, or status, or attention.  This innate urge to compare ourselves to those around us doesn’t have to be negative, though.  We can look up to a mentor or role model and aspire to be like them, their example inspiring us to work hard.  On this episode, Melissa and Pete discuss how the various aspects of comparison affect our happiness.

Conversation Kindling:

Want to discover how happy you are? Take the Happiness Index Survey and see how you compare to one million data points! The questionnaire takes about 15 minutes to complete and will help you see how you define happiness and can help you think deeper about the purpose of life. You can even use your results as a starting point for your Happiness Movement and to spark conversations about the factors that contribute to your well-being.

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

“Good Luck” is a common way to let someone know that you want the best for them in whatever endeavor they are undertaking, but what exactly is luck?  Is it an invisible hand setting events in motion so that we just happen to have the exact change we need in our pocket?  Is it a way that we perceive the world, framing it in a way that acknowledges the role that chance plays in our lives?  And, more importantly, how does this crazy little thing called luck affect our mood?  Does being lucky, or thinking we’re lucky, contribute to our happiness?  We delve into this complicated topic in this episode’s discussion.

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

As we continue our month of exploring happiness, we turn our attention to the effect that our surroundings have on us. Our happiness can be affected by differences in temperature, noise levels, and how crowded a space is. But so much more goes into how a place affects us than just physical properties. The culture associated with each geographic location has an impact on how happy an individual feels there. What makes someone happy in China, can make someone unhappy in Russia.  In this episode, we boil down various inputs and try to reach some common conclusions on how our happiness is affected by where we’re standing. 

Conversation Kindling:

Visual Capitalist shared a map using data from the World Happiness Report that we discuss in this episode to chart the average happiness scores of 146 countries from 2019 to 2021. These ratings and rankings take into account the survey data from thousands of respondents from each country, who were asked to rate their subjective well-being, as well as the tangible and intangible factors that could contribute to happiness, such as life expectancy, perceptions of corruption, freedom to make life choices, and even generosity.  You can follow this LINK to see which countries were the happiest, and unhappiest, in the world.

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

The theme for this month is Happiness, and in this first episode, we’re exploring what impact the people around us have on our happiness.  From friends to family to coworkers, nearly everyone we interact with has the potential to have an impact on our mood, for better or worse.  In fact, we only have to believe that we are sharing an experience with a friend to get a boost in our enjoyment of it.  While there are certainly some unconscious systems in play, we can take control of our happiness by being intentional about who we spend a majority of our time with, regardless of the types of activities we are engaging in.

Conversation Kindling:

In 2006, on the way home from work, Gretchen Rubin, an attorney and law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, experienced an epiphany when she realized that her vaguely stated every day goals and her failure to achieve them made her feel like she was wasting her life away. As Rubin explains, she realized two things: "I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change.” It was in that moment of desperation that The Happiness Project was born.  Rubin quit her job and started what began as a yearlong experiment to pursue happiness, based on the advice of a host of notables, past and present, from Aristotle to Tolstoy to Mark Twain. It became Rubin's mission to test as many of these ideas as possible within one year. During those twelve months, she managed to sort through what worked and what didn't, which has made her something of a lay expert on the subject.  In this video interview with CBS This Morning, Rubin expounds on ways that we can each make room for happiness in our lives.

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod

We’ve all got at least one story where we believe that some covert but influential organization was responsible for a circumstance or event. This means we all have experienced, on some level, the thought patterns similar to those who believe in conspiracy theories. There are a myriad of reasons why some people apply those thought patterns more broadly than others, including our personality, our trust in institutions, our friend circles, and our perceived group affiliations. In this episode, we discuss the appeal of the conspiracy theory, how to avoid them, and how to try to help others steer clear of them.

Conversation Kindling:

In her informative TED talk from 2019, Dr. Elise Wang discusses many additional aspects of conspiracy theories in a compelling and compassionate discussion that concludes with her ideas on the best way to reduce the impact of conspiracy theories on society.  Click HERE to listen.

Visit our linktree to follow us on social media and find us on your preferred podcast delivery platform:  https://linktr.ee/thinksigpod