Our life and success as a person have relied on our ability to form relationships with others. The most valuable lessons, chances, and blessings in life come from our interactions with others. However, how can we establish meaningful connections that bring out the best in ourselves and the people around us?
In this episode, Work Happiness Project Founder Nini Fritz joins us to talk about genuine connection. She offers valuable insights on how to cultivate genuine, meaningful connections and emphasizes the importance of choosing people who uplift you and enrich your life.
If you’re looking to deepen your relationships and connections, this conversation is for you. Tune in now to gain valuable insights on fostering genuine connections that bring joy and fulfillment to your life.
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Building Genuine Deep Connections with Nini Fritz
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less, and, today, I want to talk to you about a really important topic and that is building genuine deep connections. Looks like an entire culture, a lot of people are suffering from the consequences of not building as deep of connections as we once did. We see a lot of problems with the loneliness epidemic and people that feel like they just really don’t fit in. My guest today, Nini Fritz, is the founder of The Work Happiness Project as well as The Digital Detox Connections Stronger than Wi Fi Program, sharing one of my great passions about getting people off the internet and into real life, connecting with real people and connecting with the real world.
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Nini, welcome to the program.
Thank you so much. Lovely introduction.
I’m glad. I usually try to think through these introductions a little bit.
You did well.
All right, well, let’s start with talking about what you’re observing and what we all are observing in the world around us today. We just went through the pandemic but even before the pandemic, there were people increasingly moving their lives online and people becoming increasingly disconnected from one another in the world.
Yeah, that’s correct and, well, I think we live in this time age of this loneliness paradox. It’s pretty much a connection paradox. I think that is actually like an even better description. It’s statistically proven that we are like the most connected generation ever existed when you look at all like the online connections we have, but we’re also proven to be the loneliest generation in history. And, yeah, I think that’s very shocking, fun fact that we all have to accept. There’s misconception of having thousands of LinkedIn followers, millions of YouTube subscribers, a few hundred Instagram followers, Facebook friends, whatever it is, but when it comes down to needing someone to call or like a shoulder to lean on, we look at all these connections we have and then we realize the people we can actually go to, if we’re lucky, is like a handful of quality connections. And I think this gap between the perceived connection and the actual connections we have makes us feel much lonelier. When you feel like you share your meal on social media, post a picture of your pizza, but you don’t have anyone to share your meal with, that makes us feel like this is hyper — yeah, this pathetic connection pretty much and that is very dangerous, actually, for human connection to think we have that but we actually don’t have it and then it makes us feel much lonelier and much more disconnected.
Now, just to preserve my own innocence, I just looked this up now. My LinkedIn profile only has 960 connections so I’m not guilty of this thousands of connections thing quite yet. So, what do you think is creating these weaker connections? Because it seems like, in the past, we’d have fewer total connections but the connections we had were more likely to be deeper. Is it kind of this whole idea of I just posted, look at my za, my pizza on social media, and that doesn’t really create a meaningful discussion that actually connects with people or is there something else behind it?
Yeah, I think this sums it up pretty well. We have to differentiate between weak ties and strong ties. So, I always kind of describe them like metal. You can have like a lot of like loose, weak metals that they don’t bond very strongly, like it’s not like a safety net you build, like if you fall, the weak ties are not going to catch you because the system just collapses. So, if we want to invest in strong ties, this is actually what keeps the safety net together so when we fall, when we have a downtime, this is the safety net that keeps us up. But in this online world, it is exactly what you say. So, we go to a party and then people are going to be like, “Oh, let’s stay connected,” so what you do is like exchanging your Instagram or at a networking event, it’s your LinkedIn, so the way of staying connected is not like, “Oh, I’m gonna give you a call and we’re gonna meet up for coffee and share genuine conversation and get to know each other,” our way of staying connected is I scroll through my feed, you pop up on a post or on a story so I’m up to date what kind of pizza you’re having for lunch or where you go on a holiday so you feel connected because you’re kind of on track with what’s going on in this person’s life and the person who posted it scrolls through like, “Oh, who liked my post?” or, “Who’s seen my story?” and then it brings them back into like your field of awareness and be like, “Oh, cool, this guy, I don’t know, I had a holiday fling with five years ago in Ibiza, he posted his lunch, cool, I’m feeling connected,” but, yeah,
It supports an existing connection and it’s, of course, an easier entrance to build up on a real life conversation when you know what that person has been up to lately or when you know their hobbies, their interests, when you come in, like, let’s say on a quote they shared recently and it’s like, “Oh, that really resonated with me,” so it’s not black and white, it’s not that you say, “Oh, all social media is bad,” we just have to see it as a tool to help us increase the connection or deepen the connection but not as a substitute to actually build the connection.
I do wonder though, about 20 years ago, when people were first getting onto Myspace, eventually would be the Facebook and Facebook, is there anyone that could have seen this coming as a result of this new phenomenon, we can call Web 2.0, online interaction, as opposed to Web 1.0 was just reading stuff online, Web 3.0 is going to be different, I don’t even want to begin to speculate that, but is there any way people could have seen this coming or is this one of those surprising side effects that no one would have been able to know that social media would have eventually led to this?
Good question. Well, I would say my answer is not based on any research articles but I think the people who created the internet were probably visionaries who really had in mind to like, you know, the World Wide Web, which if you look at it this way, it’s like a big spider web of connecting people, so I do think their intention was probably to connect people across the oceans with the click on the key and it’s just turn on your computer and send a message to someone at the other end of the world. So I think if you’re crazy enough to build the internet, you should be crazy enough to come up with this vision but I’m pretty sure they did not have in mind that it should be used as a substitute for human connection. And, also, when it comes to early connection platforms, such as Myspace or Facebook, if we think about the origin of where it stems from, it was like a uni network so it was meant for — like Facebook, kind of like everyone at university shows their face in a book so you know who they are, what they do, and kind of get a name to the faces you see around so it wasn’t meant to be like a connection tool with people you haven’t met yet, it’s kind of like a digital friends album to stay in touch with the people in your closest surrounding. Yeah. And then I think it’s like the natural trend of any hype, you see the good of it and you build up, build up, build up until it peaks and you realize, oh, it actually has downsides as well and I think now we’re in this smooth transition phase that we kind of crave a little going back to the roots and so technology and online connections, I think they have reached their peak now, maybe there’s still a little bit to go but I think now we’re already on our way to, yeah, seeking more meaningful connections. If you look at big startups or big tech companies in the Silicon Valley, they’re even doing digital detox retreats —
Oh, wow.
— which is kind of like a summer camp for adults in terms of getting off your screen, getting off technology, sit around the bonfire, roast some marshmallows, to actually bring back the human connections and they’re the ones who created all the stuff that makes us addicted to technology and I think that in itself, yeah, means a lot.
I mean, I love that even they are doing it.
Yeah.
So where we stand, end of March 2023, by the time this episode will be out, it’ll be April 2023, do you think most people have come to the understanding about this value of number of connections versus the quality of the connection, the depth of the connection? Or do you think most people haven’t quite gotten there yet even though most people I think by now realize that there is a problem with loneliness in general?
Unfortunately, I have to answer this question with a no. I don’t think that people acknowledge that. Like the fact that we’re having this podcast now means that we are very much aware, very much in this world. But, shockingly, I realized, like when I host my workshops and give talks, that for some people, it’s like the first time they’re hearing it and they’ve probably been wondering, it’s like, “Oh, why do I feel so lonely and disconnected by having all these online connections?” and then I say it out loud and, suddenly, something clicks inside of them, they’re like, “Oh, they’re actually not my real friends and that’s why I feel lonely.”
It’s like who are the people you’re going to meet for a walk when you can only see one person? Who is like someone who’s checking on you on your mental health, how you doing? Of course, we can stay in touch online but I think that kind of, yeah, gave you like a clearer segregation of what are my quality connections and what I just like, let’s say, quantity connections or weak ties, even in the offline world with people that I just meet at the bar to watch the soccer match or people I see at the gym that like you come together based on interest but who are the ones who actually proactively reach out to spend quality time. And, yeah, I think this trend or this space plus the shift to remote work, because before, like same like we worked in offices, so it’s a no-brainer that you have this water cooler, coffee kitchen conversation, but when everything was going online, you only met up for Zoom meetings, all you talked about is work and you’re missing this human component and that must have required a strong human bond before to proactively check in with a colleague, if you don’t just coincidentally meet them in the coffee kitchen. As the remote work went on and companies actually jumped on the train of creating more human connections and investing in team culture, that kind of picked up again, but in the beginning, it was all about implementing the systems so the company is running online but the human component was neglected.
The side effects of COVID were like a massive wake-up call for checking in on our quality connections in life. Share on X
And you talked about this whole idea of who am I going to call when I’m in a tough situation or even when I’m having one of my mental health struggles and you need someone to talk to, who am I going to call. Well, let’s say someone’s feeling really thin on that, anyone out there listening feels like maybe they only have one or two people, maybe not even that actually, I think especially in the US, there’s about 13 to 15 percent of people now report not having a single person they can call when something like that happens. So, if someone wants to foster deeper connections in some kind of way, whether it be maintaining the connections you already have or deepening some of those more casual connections that you have to say, okay, maybe one or two of them will become these better friends, what do you think someone should think about doing differently in their day-to-day lives if they’re just looking to develop more of those real meaningful connections?
Yeah, awesome question. I love it. So I think, first and foremost, be selective who you surround yourself with. I think this is a hack because this is both saying the average of the five people we spend most time with so we become that person. So if you surround yourself with nagging, complaining, toxic people, you cannot help but be influenced by their vibe so, yeah, make sure you check in with yourself first, kind of calibrate your compass and be like, okay, what are my values? How do I see my best self? And check in who’s bringing out the best version of myself. But I came up with a system that I called the Human Traffic Light and it’s basically dividing the people I know and I meet and would consider my circle of friends, more or less, into red, yellow, and green. So red, those people that are just like kind of energy vampires, you spend time with them but they actually make you feel a little bit depleted, they’re either complaining about others or complaining about themselves or they’re just like very negative and then either it drains your energy or it takes a lot of energy to kind of defend yourself or defend others.
So, basically, if you look at it from a battery perspective, it depletes your energy. Then you have the yellows. They don’t increase your energy levels but they also don’t deplete it. They’re nice to maybe share coffee with or lunch but you wouldn’t spend your prime time with them, like you don’t spend a Saturday night dinner with them. They’re nice company but they’re also not leaving you with the spark. And then you have the green people. They make you leave with more energy than you came with. They’re inspiring, they’re listening, they’re holding space, they allow you to fully express yourself, and, yeah, so make sure if you think about quality connections, that this list is full of greens and maybe yellows but definitely no reds and, yeah, then spend quality time with them. Don’t just catch up to Netflix and chill, like occasionally that’s cool to have a movie night but invest in experiences and learning something new together, trying out a new sports class, trying out a new restaurant, maybe a fancy cuisine, like Gregorian food or whatever makes you curious and share a memorable experience so you actually have something that bonds you. And, yeah, number three, put away your phone.
I think the greatest gift we can give to someone is really our time and undivided attention so when you want to spend time with them and invest into making deeper connections, be present, hold space, listen, ask questions. Share on XI think this is a quick roadmap on how to make more meaningful connections with people you actually want to invest in.
Now, can someone that’s eventually going to be a green light person in your life begin as a yellow light person in your life because you just don’t know them well enough? I think it’s very rare for a person you just met for the first time to be an energizing person because you don’t know who they are yet but, over time, they can become that?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think some people, especially introverts, they might take a little bit longer to break through the wall but once you’re in their bubble, they can be some of the most amazing friends because then you know that they don’t have also an abundance of relationships so they actually have more time to invest and nurture that relationship because they’re not busy seeing a hundred other people. It can also turn into X when you see them, you don’t know, it’s like they can either open up and once you crack through the first layer, they just share their real feelings and actually they hate everything and everyone, but they can also be like secret superheroes and really good in holding space and listen and inspire you. So, yeah, I think the yellow ones are definitely a lot more surprised X, it can spring into both directions, yeah.
And can someone be green to one person and red to a different person, depending on how the vibe is?
Absolutely. It’s funny you say that today because I had this conversation, exactly that conversation yesterday. And totally depends on how that person makes you feel. And, at least for myself, I clearly know who brings out the best version of me and who just doesn’t. The people you notice they bring out the best version in you, they’re more likely to be green.
Yeah. And is that also another way we need to be thinking about it because it’s one thing to think about the person that makes you happy right now in the moment versus the people or the environment that makes you a better person over time and brings out the best in you?
Yeah, yeah. Of course, you also need to consider some people, they might be green but in terms of, oh, yeah, we’re having fun at a party because we can dance together and be wild but they’re not necessarily the ones who you can count on when you have a problem or who’re going to be there so there’s not like a one fits all solution. You can also have your traffic light for different areas in your life and then, ideally, the ones that have multiple overlaps.
So now I want to switch gears and talk a little bit about your story because you have an exciting life story that’s quite a bit different than the average, what I sometimes refer to as living by the script, the people who kind of just do what you’re supposed to do and sometimes, well, that can lead to kind of this subtle, slow mediocrity, I’ll save my judgier sounding statements, but, yeah, tell me a little bit about your story and what made you decide that you wanted to live a life that was full.
Well, I think deep down I’ve always had this inner voice that was telling me you don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. I’ve noticed them when I was doing my master’s so that I was kind of the last step before I was starting my working life, I noticed that, suddenly, everyone around me who’s done with university kind of slowly but surely started hating their life. And they told me like, “Oh, enjoy your uni days, it’s just gonna go downhill after. As soon as you start working, it’s like no more time, you live for the weekend.” You look back on those glorious university student days where you’re like free to hang out with your friends and go partying during the week and, whatever, just make enough money on your side job to get through with no responsibilities whatsoever. And I was just questioning it, like I don’t want to buy this concept that university is kind of like the best time of your life and then for the next, I don’t know, 60 years, it’s just going downhill. You’ve had time and I was like I don’t think it has to be that way so I love to question the status quo and kind of the culture scape, like, yeah, everyone’s kind of living by default and saying that’s the hierarchy, that’s how you do life, like you do your bachelor’s, do your master’s, you get a job at a good company, everyone around me is kind of climbing the corporate ladder or pretty much just the society escalator, that’s how I call it, like do you have bachelor’s, do your master’s, get a job at one of the big five. I studied business back then so, of course, like all of the big consultancy companies. And, yeah, marry your high school sweetheart, build a house, have a family, and you’ve ticked off the kind of grocery shopping list of what it means to live a successful life.
Now, it’s like, great if that’s what makes you happy but I don’t believe that there’s one blueprint for seven or now like eight billion people in the world, that there’s just one way to happiness and it doesn’t seem like people are actually really happy with it. So I was like, oh, I have to figure out what makes me happy and like live a life on my own terms. So, after I handed in my master’s thesis, I took a bucket list year. So, instead of a gap year, I just wrote a bucket list of all the things I’ve always wanted to see and do and I was like I’m going to give myself one year to take up as many things as I possibly can and then I thought I’ve figured out what makes me smile, what brings me joy, and based on that, I get better at deciding what job is for me, what is it that I want to do instead of like diving headfirst into a decently paid job to just do what society tells you to do without actually knowing what I want. Kicked off my bucket list year, turned out to be the best year of my life. I met the Dalai Lama, I hitchhiked Nicaragua in a toilet paper track, I learned how to surf, I danced behind a DJ in a big festival just because I told them, “Can you get me on stage? It’s on my bucket list.” they sent me a ticket. Stuff like that, pretty much anything that I put on this bucket list worked out because it gets addictive and you just get better at figuring things out and make it work and tell people, people want to help, people are sharing, and then, call it divine timing, but I actually found this company in Australia who specialized in bucket list coaching pretty much because I’ve seen my then-boss on a TEDx Talk and got so inspired and I reached out to him after and then, I kid you not, the end of my bucket list year, it was literally the final day of my bucket list year, which is also my birthday and that was the deadline for me to be like, okay, by now, I should have found a job and, yeah, that morning, I went for like a 6 a.m. sunrise surf, I got a message from this TED Talk guy and he basically, without knowing it was my birthday or any of the woo-woo timing, he offered me a position as a remote head of marketing for the bucket list company.
So I pretty much swapped my bucket list year for a whole bucket list life and started working with the company. And, yeah, it was like two years with them and, eventually, I realized as much as I enjoyed remote work life, I feel like my purpose is actually inspiring people to live their life to the fullest and make the most out of it so I took the coaching license that I had with them and focused on team building for remote companies because that was also a challenge that I figured out while working remotely that it’s brilliant to work from anywhere but, sometimes, you feel very lonely.
So that year that you followed your bucket list, what did that teach you about your priorities? Did you think more about what you wanted to do as far as I want to be in bucket list coaching now or was it more about what lifestyle that you feel like you need to have in order to have a happy life?
I absolutely did not think anything about doing that professionally when I kicked off my own bucket list year. It was more about like a very selfish non-selfish way to figure out what I want to do in my life and, throughout the whole process of ticking it off and adding bigger goals to it and coming up with new ideas, it really turned into this lifestyle philosophy to go for what I want, not postponing anything, taking action on the spot, yeah, become more accountable to my own goals and dreams and not just postponing everything to, “Oh, yeah, one day,” but, yeah, become like an action taker in my own life and then, based on that, you just realize how many opportunities open up when you dare to leave your comfort zone, take on challenges, and I felt like it elevated my life in so many ways that I genuinely felt it would be an offence to keep that secret to myself, like having this wisdom of how powerful and beautiful life can be and not share with the world sounded unfair to me, so I was like I want to use the wisdom that I gained with that and the stories that I collected to inspire other people to do the exact same. And, yeah, I think we spend two-thirds of our waking hours at work and statistics got it that pretty much 70 percent or something feel disengaged at work, we have the peak of mental health issues, burnout rates, all of that, so I thought why not start with companies and make sure we create happy individuals who create happy teams who create happy profits, and, yeah, I think this is a very holistic approach to start from within and benefit the community.
So how does your program work?
Now, I do have more than the bucket list concept but I founded The Work Happiness Project, holistic happiness at work, I would say, and my workshops are based on three main pillars that we need to have in balance to really live a truly fulfilled life. And the first one is live fuller. So, in that subcategory, we have the bucket list workshop and a lot of other like workshops based on that. Second one is connect deeper, where the digital detox workshop falls into, the eyeConnect game of like how to make more meaningful connections. And the third pillar is be happier. One workshop that is based on like Buddhist principles but then also another one called The Power of Fun of how to create like more conscious fun time in our lives. And, yeah, overall, it’s all about holistic wellbeing, happiness from within, fill your own cup first, based on that principle, to actually create happier, more productive, more focused, and more creative employees, yeah.
And this is exclusively working with remote teams or do you do some in person, people that have like returned to office and stuff?
Yeah, it’s not necessarily remote. I started off with remote team building because I feel like there’s the biggest need of creating more human connection because we don’t have these coffee kitchen encounters. But now, I’m also heading over to offsite companies, especially now like in Europe, we’re joining remote company retreats for their offsite meetups or they have team retreats in different parts of the world. So I just join as like a team building facilitator, but it doesn’t have to be a remote company.
And as you have observed all these companies that you’ve worked with and did some team building, have you learned over time certain types of team building that are more effective at actually building team cohesion than others?
Yeah, I would say, surely, it depends on the workshop but I’ve also observed patterns in terms of cultures, where is the company based in, how aligned is the company culture actually with their mission and vision and value statement. So I’ve observed differences in that, you can always tell that like, especially when it comes to the bucket list workshops, I would say that North Americans are much more open to share. It’s not generalizable but I feel like it’s more common to have a coach or to have a therapist, so people are used to talk about that so they’re much more open to share their goals and dreams and their struggles and if they’re facing any mental issues to overcome that. So I really love working with Americans when it comes to that. And I think my German, I’m born and raised in Germany, they might be a little bit more reserved but they’re actually really good at executing. When it comes to bucket list, we create an action plan, they go out and do it. You can rely on the Germans for not beating around the bush, they say they’re going to do it and they’re actually do it so that comes in handy for the team building when it comes to accountability buddies within the team.
Overall, it’s more like subjective based on what the team needs the most at the moment, when they lack meaningful connections or it’s kind of like their onboarding phase, they don’t know each other very well, then the before and after survey of connection level just skyrockets for the connection workshop when it’s like a newly formed team and, yeah, when they feel they’ve recently been going through a tough, stressful phase and I come with the bucket list or the fun workshop, then they feel like that’s exactly what they needed the most at this moment. So, yeah, I think it’s not as generalizable, it just depends on what the company culture, what the team needs the most at the moment.
And have you ever entered a work where the environment is so stuffy, you just look and you’re like, “Oh, this is gonna be an exceptional challenge for me,” or, “This is gonna be something really tough to get these people to actually start feeling better about their work lives”?
I won’t drop company names here.
Oh, yeah, of course not.
But recently, I worked with a law firm and I think corporate lawyers are definitely I would say less outgoing when it comes to focusing on enjoying life and make the most out of it, just simply because I think there’s not too much time for them to actually go out and live life and tell them about all the salsa classes they could potentially take and, I don’t know, trying out new restaurants during waking hours. Yeah, I don’t know if it was that but I felt like they were probably, compared to other companies. less expressive and creative and maybe they need it the most.
Well, yeah, I know, like different companies are in different places right now and some companies are trying to go back to the old work culture before the pandemic and others are like more in line of saying like, “Look at this disengagement, let’s get everyone engaged and get everyone happy and that could be better.”
Yeah. And I also wanted to say that like bucket list is not all about like quit your job, hike Machu Picchu, do a skydive, it’s really more about what is a life worth living for you based on 12 different areas of our lives and we identify different factors and different goals and dreams for each category. So it’s not just like an adventure or sporty challenges or something big, big, it can also just be like go to the restaurant you’ve always wanting to go to or do kindness for others, make a compliment to a stranger, it’s more eye opening about the philosophy of kind of change the way you think, step out of your routine, and get fascinated about life again.
So it doesn’t have to be the stereotypical bucket list that everyone thinks of every time they think of bucket lists, like, “Oh, there’s the book with 100 places you need to see before you die.”
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And it’s so subjective and that’s the beauty of having this as a team building workshop because, so we go into like a 12-step acronym, my bucket list, and every letter represents one category and it’s all based on a wheel of life. Every letter comes with 50 suggestions, so they can pick individually what’s personally meaningful to them. So, let’s say one T is take lessons and it can be anything from learning how to DJ, beekeeping, salsa, Spanish, the guitar, whatever, it’s super, super subjective so, yeah, it really depends on what is personally meaningful to you and not just one fits all solution based on a hundred things you should have done and maybe that’s absolutely not what you enjoy but it sounds good on an adventure list.
Yeah, and that’s another thing because it’s like more outward. When I think of the stereotypical bucket list, I actually think of Instagram because that’s — I think sometimes some people’s motivation is what’s going to look the best on Instagram and going on to Coursera and learning a new skill doesn’t necessarily make a great social media post, maybe on LinkedIn when you get the certification.
And, finally, it’s better because that’s one of the two conditions that I mention in the workshop and saying like, number one, write it as if you weren’t allowed to tell a single person. In the end, it’s good to tell others because then they can actually help you to facilitate it and connect you to people who might have, I don’t know, a bull riding farm.
If you look back at the timeline of your life, what would pop up in front of your inner eye and would just give you this little like, you know, it’s like I can’t believe I did that and just this inner smile moment and not this like external validation moment.
Yeah, so like what you want to do for your own internal validation, like if you don’t tell anyone, what are you enjoying just for the sake of doing it.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And then do you keep that bucket list mentality in your own life and how you live it?
Absolutely, yeah. I’m now a certified bucket list there for — I mean, I started my year five years ago and then joined the company four years ago and I still got my bucket list, just rewrote it actually last Saturday, I still work with the blueprint for myself and it kind of shifted a bit in terms of I don’t walk around like a wild untamed puppy and be like bucket list, bucket list, bucket list, but I do have sub bucket list for different areas in my life and now I have my Bali bucket list but I also have it’s like my summer in Europe bucket list or my future husband bucket list, it’s different lists for different occasions and people so, yeah, it really became a lifestyle now and turned more into like a no-brainer to be like, “I wanna do it, I’m gonna do.” Luckily, it stems from a very intrinsic motivation, now it kind of happens naturally that I just activate my friends and inspire them and we go on like, we call them like bucket list days, bucket list weekend getaways and we just write a list of all the things we want to do and then we tick it off. And it can be anything, go to this restaurant to get the fluffiest pancakes in town then jump off the waterfall or, recently, I had a yes day with my best friend so we had to say yes to everything for a whole day.
Oh, nice.
Depends on what you say yes to but it doesn’t cost a thing, you know? It’s more about change your mindset for a day and do something you normally never do and it doesn’t cost a thing but it’s priceless of what you get out of it.
And this mentality of, “I’m just gonna do it,” and it seems like do it as opposed to overthink it or question myself.
Yeah.
I’m assuming that this mentality was an important aspect of your journey and your ability to build a successful business through The Work Happiness Project and everything else that you’re doing.
I mean, believe me, it was like a just do it roller coaster that I signed up for. Just do it, it’s smooth, run to the top. It always is a journey, kind of start a business with the mindset of like this is a fantastic idea, everyone’s going to love it and I’ll be rich in three months. And then you face reality and you come across challenges and you figure it out as you go but I always say when you have an intrinsic motivation and a powerful why of why you’re doing it, what motivates you, luckily, that turns into an infinite source of energy that you just don’t want to give up because you feel your message is too meaningful to share with the world to just let it die and start a mediocre corporate job that pays the bills but that doesn’t spark you from inside.
So it’s that spark, it’s that knowing your connection to your mission that keeps you going, even when some of the tougher things happen in which we all have it, maybe a client’s being tough or maybe you have some sort of technological glitch or something just goes wrong. And I also want to give my audience a chance to find out how to get a hold of you, if anyone need your services within their company because the entrepreneurial lifestyle maybe not be for everyone, maybe some people want that steady corporate job, but just want to have it be a little bit more fun.
Yeah, and like 100 percent, and I love working with awesome, remote or any company, mostly I work with remote companies, and there are so many companies that are like if I wasn’t doing my own thing already, I’d love to work for a company like that. Just you mentioned like, DoIt, Oyster, Hubspot, GitLab or a bunch of other companies that I’m a freaking groupie for their company culture and they have so many cool activities and employee benefits that actually gets you excited about working for a company and a company that wants to see you win in life. So, if that was my mission to spread it with as many companies as I can, 100 percent, there’s nothing wrong about working for corporate but make sure they just have a positive, healthy work environment that’s, yeah, they want you to win and activate your best self.
And what would be the way to get a hold of you if someone’s interested in your company?
Yeah, sorry, that was the question. We sidetracked. Well, ironically, connect with me online. Follow me for the details and follow me on Instagram. But yeah, ideally, reach out on LinkedIn, Nini Fritz, or check my homepage, theworkhappinessproject.com. And if anyone’s interested in getting the eyeConnect icebreaker game to create more meaningful connections also on a personal level so that is for any individual as well, check eyeconnectgame.com and get your box of meaningful connections. And, yeah, this is the way to get in touch and Connect Stronger than Wi-Fi.
All right, and one final question. So you mentioned about 70 percent of people being disengaged at work. Let’s say we’re having —
Yeah, 69 percent.
Sixty-nine percent? Yeah. Let’s say we’re having the same exact conversation on December 31st, 2029, at the end of this decade. Do you think that number is significantly better with everything going on now or do you think we’ll find a new way to screw it up and be just as unhappy?
I am optimistic. I am optimistic that there is a significant transformation happening at the moment. I think it might also be due to the fact that the millennials and Gen Z is now starting to work and they have like different needs than know the baby boomer generation, like instead of just caring about safety and climbing up the corporate ladder, they come with different values. They want to express themselves, they want to make an impact, say, kind of believe more in sustainability, thinking of our future planet. And, yeah, the values have shifted and if you want to retain top talent in your company, you have to offer them benefits, you have to order them an uplifting culture where they can express themselves. So I think companies realized that if they kind of want to keep up with top companies, they have to invest in their company culture and that starts with creating happy employees to also create more of loyalty to the company.
So I’m optimistic that, by the end of the decade, there’s much more focus on mental wellbeing at work Share on Xand, yeah, I think we’re getting more transparent when it comes to meditate before a meeting or have a mental health first aid at a company so it’s not a taboo topic anymore to express that, every now and then, you might feel overwhelmed and I think this is a very beautiful first step into the right direction of lowering the number of disengaged workers and create a happier and more fulfilled work environment.
Well, I hope that comes to pass as well. I hope that we can find a way, because 70 percent of the population just waiting on the weekend or waiting on retirement does not seem like a good way to go about things and it seems like a lot does get lost. When someone’s not happy, they’re not really going to be at their best.
Absolutely, yeah.
Well, Nini, I’d like to thank you so much for joining us today on Action’s Antidotes, telling us your story about living this bucket list lifestyle and not just the stereotypical bucket list lifestyle but it is the way that you can actually go for something as opposed to the way a lot of us kind of hold ourselves back and hesitate.
Yeah. Thank you. It’s beautiful being a guest on your podcast, glad we connected.
For sure, and I’d like to also thank everyone out there listening to Action’s Antidotes. Hopefully, you were inspired by some of these conversations and you continue to come back and be inspired on Action’s Antidotes.
Whoo! Thank you to all our listeners.
Yes. Thank you so much.
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About Nini Fritz
Nini is the founder of the Remote Teambuilding company “The Work Happiness Project”. Her mission is to humanise the digital work environment and boost remote team bonds by bringing more meaningful connections and personal fulfilment to the virtual office.
When she’s not connecting teams online, she loves to connect people offline with her Digital Detox icebreaker game “eyeConnect – stronger than wifi”.
A conversation-sparking question game in six colourful connection levels that is meant to make real people more interesting than social media. And created for everyone who prefers smiles over likes 🙂
She now lives the coconut-slurping remote life from the beaches of Bali and helps global teams like Meta, Dell and Google to make connections stronger than wifi and live their best Bucket List lives.