Sue Stockdale talks to Nic Marks, statistician and founder & CEO, Friday Pulse about the work he has done on measuring happiness, why it’s important to businesses, governments and countries, as well as individuals and how COVID impacted happiness.

Described by one client as a “statistician with a soul”, Nic has been working in the field of happiness and wellbeing for over 25 years. In 2010 Nic gave a TED talk on his previous work in public policy, which has now been watched over 2.3million times. Named as one of the Top Ten Original Thinkers by the Institute of Director’s Director Magazine, Nic’s work was hailed as one of Forbes Magazine’s Seven Most Powerful Ideas in 2011.

* Free tool to reflect on individual happiness https://fridayone.com

* The weekly people check-up for companies https://fridaypulse.com

* Find out more about Nic Marks at https://nicmarks.org

* Connect with Nic on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksnic/

Key quotes in this podcast:

[01.40] Our happiness is very driven by all sorts of social connectedness and relationships and the quality of them.

[02.33] We tend to measure what's easy to count, not whats most important.

[07.00] If we want to create a future which is good for citizens in the future, then we have to look at how we create that.

[10.52] When we feel good, we do good work, but it's very close to our mood.

[11.55] I think of happiness like having different wavelengths. There's very long ones, over years and decades and we have good periods of our life, and then there's very, very rapid ones, five moods in the morning.

[12.23] We talk about five big drivers to happiness at work. They are Connect, Be Fair, Empower, Challenge, Inspire.

[16.20] We definitely find that some organizations worry about opening a Pandora's box of emotions. And the thing is they're there already, if they're not in the light, they're festering and are causing problems.

[16.47] We're not trying to shame team leaders. We're basically trying to help them have better conversations with their teams.

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