253: Transforming Old Leadership Styles for Modern Workplace Needs with Brandon Laws

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:02]:

Brandon, you’re so welcome to the Happier at Work podcast. I know we’ve been talking about doing this for a while, so it’s absolute privilege to have you on the show. I’m a huge fan of your podcast. Do you want to let people know a little bit about who you are, what you do, and how you got into doing what you’re doing today?

Brandon Laws [00:00:20]:

Thanks, Aoife. It is my pleasure to be on your your podcast. And we yes. We have been talking for a while about doing this, and it’s so nice to finally be on your show. My name is Brandon Laws. I am, vice president of marketing and product at Zenium HR. We’re like this regional human resource and payroll company. We help, like, small, medium sized organizations with, mostly HR, but payroll processing and benefits administration, like, all the things that people hate doing.

Brandon Laws [00:00:48]:

Like, the the businesses hate the administration of, like, the payroll and the benefits, and then we can wrap around an HR person and and support. So, my career, I’ve grown up through that organization. I started like in an operations role back in 02/2008. And before that I did a short stint in insurance sales, which was, sleepless nights for me and I just not a fit. And before that was college. So I’ve had this really interesting linear career, like where I was able to have these opportunities to grow inside of Zenium. And I love what we do. We always say like, we’re transforming workplaces.

Brandon Laws [00:01:23]:

And so, back in 2012, I started a podcast and I called it Human Resources for Small Business Podcast. There was not a, not a I thought it was Yes. So different. Yeah. So this is I I was a big fan of podcasts. Like, they were starting to kinda come out. Like, the Apple podcast existed.

Aoife O’Brien [00:01:43]:

Long time ago. Yeah.

Brandon Laws [00:01:45]:

Long time. And I listened to a podcast called Econ Talk and some sports podcasts that were out there. And then, I like a real estate I was real into real estate investing type information. I’m not doing it, but I’m like, I was wanting to do it. So, like

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:00]:

other people. Is it like watching Yeah.

Brandon Laws [00:02:02]:

Exactly. Shows

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:03]:

like the, the million dollar homes in New York and things like that?

Brandon Laws [00:02:08]:

It’s like I’m I can’t afford that, but I’m like, I’m I’m interested in the content. Yeah. So it’s it’s one of those things where I’m like, I saw the framework in which they were interviewing, like, these these experts. And I’m like, I could totally take this to the HR industry. Because what I felt with, like, the the business we were in was that for many HR professionals, they probably saw Zenium as a threat in a lot of ways. Like, Oh, we can be your fully outsourced HR department, where I’m like, Actually, we can wrap around you. HR job is very hard. You’ve gotta be it’s like, I’m in a marketing role.

Brandon Laws [00:02:43]:

It’s like, I can’t be good at everything marketing related. There’s websites to build. There’s like, you gotta write code. You’ve gotta do social media. There’s all of these things that we’ve gotta do that I just can’t possibly be good at. So I hire consultants to wrap around me and fill in the gaps. HR is no different. Like, so educational purposes for HR people.

Brandon Laws [00:03:06]:

At some point, I changed it to transforming workplaces, which is the title today. And I’ve been doing this for a very long time. And we have, like, conversations with expert authors and speakers and and HR professionals about various topics about impact in the workplace in a positive way. So it’s it’s one thing that I do in my job, because I have a big job, but it’s my most passionate thing that I do. I love I love having conversations.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:32]:

Yeah. I think, like, a lot of people think I can relate so much to what you’re saying in relation to your, like, marketing. It has this and it has this. I’m realizing that as an entrepreneur. I’m not just the marketer. I’m the everything. You’re everything. I’m the everything person.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:45]:

And within each individual area, if one thing goes wrong so I had an issue with my website last week, which took up days to fix. I mean, days of trying to

Brandon Laws [00:03:54]:

fix Just call your friend Brandon. He he knows how to do it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:03:56]:

Hey, Brandon. It’s my website. But then there’s the marketing, and there’s all of the different aspects that you have. And and within each of the buckets, there’s there’s just booked book more and more buckets on the tasks that go whatever. Yeah. I’m realizing this. So I’m gonna get better at outsourcing this year, all of the stuff that I don’t want to do or can’t do myself.

Brandon Laws [00:04:19]:

I just have time

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:20]:

to do.

Brandon Laws [00:04:21]:

Right. We gotta think about this in our businesses and in our personal lives. It’s like, what am I what do I love to do? What do what am I really good at? And then what what can somebody else do who’s better or just, you know, to free up your time? Because that’s all we have right now is time. Yeah. And, I’m I’m realizing that as I get older and older, I I’ve realized that I need to just shed the things that I’m not good at or I don’t like to.

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:43]:

Yeah. Like, there are some things that we can’t outsource, unfortunately, or fortunately. So A

Brandon Laws [00:04:48]:

%.

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:49]:

Going to the gym, for example, keeping yourself fit, you can’t really outsource that. You know? You can outsource other stuff, though. You can outsource cooking and cleaning and all of that other Yeah. Great stuff that maybe you don’t

Brandon Laws [00:05:01]:

have to do with the too. One thing we know about the workplace too is you cannot outsource, leadership or management. You you you like, leaders and managers inside the organization, like, gotta do the hard work to to take care of their people and to make the workplace what it is. So there yeah. You’re right. There’s Yeah. There there is a lot of things we cannot outsource. We’ve gotta just do the work ourselves.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:23]:

Yeah. That’s such a good point. Because maybe then we’re in organizations we’re guilty of. Let’s bring the consultants in. They’ll they’ll have those difficult conversations. And if anyone’s seen office space, I think I’ve talked about office space Yeah. In this podcast before. It’s like they bring the consultants in to have those difficult conversations instead of having those difficult conversations themselves.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:45]:

For anyone who hasn’t watched Office Space, yeah, it’s one of my cult classic

Brandon Laws [00:05:49]:

Brilliant movie.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:50]:

1999. Definitely go and check it out. But Brandon, what would you say like, what have you learned either as a podcaster? So that’s a very long time to be doing it. Mhmm. Either as a podcaster, what have you learned? Or what are the evolutions that you’ve seen in the workplace or the kinds of things that people are talking about spanning that time?

Brandon Laws [00:06:15]:

Yeah. You’re right. It’s a long time. What I’ve I was thinking about this earlier, and I’ve reflected on it recently where in a lot of ways, like, the HR profession in the workplace has has changed a lot. And in a lot of ways, it hasn’t. So what I mean by that is, like, I think HR professionals’ job, like, of compliance and just the things that make people operations work is not changing. It’s like compliance is getting more, especially in The United States, it’s getting more and more intense, especially when you think about each state and local, depending on where you’re at. Pandemic thrust us in a whole different area too, where you’re like now, like, we’ve got a lot of our consultants who are taking care of their, their companies across different industries, and they have employees all over the place.

Brandon Laws [00:07:02]:

And so now they’re having to, like, learn state and local laws of, you know, federal laws. And so those things aren’t going away. They’re just getting, like, more intense. And then you’ve got this whole other movement of, like, taking care of our people, psychological safety, well-being at work. And in 2012, I was not talking about those things. And I don’t know if that was just a product of where I was at or if that was a product of employers were not ready to have that conversation yet. So there’s, like, there’s two things happening. I think it’s, like, the the administration of just people is not going away.

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:35]:

Yeah. And

Brandon Laws [00:07:36]:

that’s that’s staying put and getting harder and harder as as the legal space gets more complicated. And and then you’ve got this, like, taking care of our people and, fighting for talent. And so people are seeking workplaces where they’re gonna get what they need. You’ve talked about it. You’re on my podcast about these pillars of the human needs and the baseline of psychological safety. Like, those are things that employees are seeking. And that’s the hard that’s the hard work that I’m seeing done. And those are the conversations I’m having about, like and I’m trying to get deep into some of these areas of, like, well, how do we actually do it? Because I think it’s it’s easy to talk about these things, but putting it to practice, especially when you’re an in house solo I mean, I’m I’m talking a lot of small businesses.

Brandon Laws [00:08:28]:

So, like, as a solo HR person inside of a company, it’s it’s hard to do all these things and and especially influence the leaders to do them. So

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:36]:

Well, this this was something I was gonna ask about. So this idea of the admin getting more complex over time and then this new philosophy, let’s say, of taking care of people and employee well-being. Like, to me, they’re two completely different Yep. Task buckets, if you wanna call them that, and probably carried out by two very different people. But if if you are the only person in the organization, if you’re the sole person who’s actually taking care of all this stuff, it’s quite difficult to manage both. Because I can imagine on the one hand, this is becoming so complex. It could take over your entire role. But then how do you find the time on the other hand to make sure that employees are being looked after?

Brandon Laws [00:09:19]:

Right. Yeah. I I think that’s, in any organization, small or large, that’s gonna be the problem is, like, we’ve got all these redundant tasks that need to be taken care of. And is that amount of work going to cloud, the rest of the stuff that we need to do, is probably more important and more strategic in in nature. So, yeah, like, I think as a solo HR person, you’re probably trying to figure out, like, well, am I the one that’s gotta do all this, or should I find a a vendor partner or a technology that can do all this and streamline it, to free myself up to do something that’s bigger and better and is gonna make a bigger impact in the workplace? And I think even, like, you probably I know you’ve worked inside global organizations and talked to a lot of people in global organizations, they’re probably thinking the same thing. They’re probably thinking like the administration of our people operations is getting so intense. How can we create an artificial intelligence bot that can do some of these things that we used to have, you know, coordinator level or generalist level HR professionals do? So that’s how it’s evolving. I think we’re just we’re sort of looking at what’s highest and best use.

Brandon Laws [00:10:25]:

It’s totally an economics game. It’s, you know, we we only have time, and we need to spend time on the most important things, which tends to be, and in my opinion, is this. It’s the the human connection piece. Yeah. It’s up leveling up leveling our people, coaching them, getting them what they need, making sure that, you know, from a well-being perspective that they’re, you know, they’re going through something at home and they’re they’re still coming to work and they may have 80% in the tank, and just being there for them, to help them through whatever that they’re they’re going through to make sure that, hey, we could still be productive and and reach our goals and have opportunities. And that’s the hard work of leaders, I think.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:09]:

Yeah. I think this idea of productivity is an interesting one, and we can get wrapped up so much in the I must be productive all the time. And I I saw something recently that was, like, if you have 80% in the tank and you give 80% that day, then you’ve given a %. Like, there’s no two ways about it. That if you’re not at a %, then you can’t give a %, and so you shouldn’t even try to do that. And, I’ve just recently started reading fierce self compassion, something that’s been on my list for a long time, but I’m learning about what it means to be self compassionate because I think I give myself personally a really hard time if I don’t get stuff done. So it’s kind of learning that, like, it’s okay if if some of these things don’t get done or if it’s okay that these things don’t work out and showing yourself kindness in the way that you would show other people kindness as well.

Brandon Laws [00:12:04]:

I I love that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:05]:

Around it.

Brandon Laws [00:12:06]:

Yeah. I love I love that. I think getting other people to buy into that’s gonna be a lot harder. More for, like, if the contributor level people, if if they want to show up at 80% and that’s a % for them, like, making sure that they they work inside of an environment where that’s okay. Because I think a lot of people are like, well, I just can’t show up at all if if I can’t bring my my best. And I and a lot of yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Brandon Laws [00:12:37]:

I mean, that’s I I love that that philosophy, though. I think that’s where we need to to head as, as a society, as, as a work environment. But getting leaders to buy into that, I think, is the biggest challenge. I don’t know what you think about that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:12:50]:

I think that’s such an interesting one. And you alluded to it earlier is how do we turn what we’re talking about into a reality in organizations? What do you see as the big barriers to any of these initiatives kind of evolving? So workplace well-being, talking about psychological safety, talking about our needs at work, self compassion. Like, what do you see as the big blockers? And this can be from your own experience or from people who’ve been on your podcast. Any insights to share around how do we take this from we’re just talking about it to how we’re living it?

Brandon Laws [00:13:28]:

Well, that’s a big question. I think there’s there’s probably a lot of factors at play. I think, the the beliefs that have run through us forever, in old leadership styles that probably just hasn’t gone away. So, like, what I mean by that is, at one point, I was an entry level employee, and I had managers that I looked up to, and they had a certain leadership philosophy. And some of that you absorb, right, into your own philosophy. Whether it’s like you saw that, okay, they’re a micromanager and that’s not how I wanna be treated. Or like there were, they were not kind at all. And I wanna be a kind.

Brandon Laws [00:14:06]:

So, like, it can work in a way that’s like, I don’t wanna be like that at all. And here’s how I wanna be as a leader when I get to that point. So I think some of the barriers are just this rooted ingrained in us, these old leadership habits that just won’t go away. And I think this new these new leaders, the the millennial group, and then gen z will eventually become leaders. I think the evolution’s happening and we can see it in the workplace As millennials are taking over businesses, they’re they’re owning businesses, they’re executive level positions, and I think they all along, they wanted this. They wanted psychological safety in the workplace. They wanted, you know, kindness and and empathy and emotional like, we’re talking about a lot of this stuff. So I think it’s slowly happening, but getting there is a little hard because that old regime is not it’s still they’re still ingrained in a lot of these workplaces.

Brandon Laws [00:15:02]:

I don’t know if you’ve seen that too, but that, to me, is, like, one of the biggest barriers other than just the day to day work, the firefighting, the urgency of just the the work itself is getting in the way of us focusing on, like, how do we make workplaces better and focus on some of these things that are, you know, softer. They’re more, I guess, fluffy in the eyes of some executive leaders.

Aoife O’Brien [00:15:25]:

Yeah. I think I mean, one of the the first things I will say about that is oftentimes we think that it’s additional time that we need to take to practice these things, but it’s not. It’s it’s really just a change in your behaviors and and how you approach the work that you’re already doing, how you show up differently, and catching yourself in the moment to be like, oh, am I telling someone here or am I coaching? Sometimes it’s just easier and faster to tell someone what to do. But the benefits in the longer term of coaching someone through their own issues means that they’re not gonna keep coming to you and relying on you. They will feel a sense of achievement and self efficacy that they can do things themselves. So I think that’s a big thing. I think you’re so right in terms of the old leadership, and you use three different words, which I I jotted down, which I love, styles, philosophy, and habits. And I think all three encapsulate exactly what it is that we’re dealing with.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:20]:

And it could also be, not that they don’t want that, but they didn’t have that. So role modeling and leadership, I think, is so, so important. And just as you were talking, I was reflecting, like, how did things like well-being come in to the workplace? If I think back, like, my image of workplaces gone by would be something like out of Mad Men where you wouldn’t dream of talking about that kind of thing at work. And how did it start creeping its way in? Or, you know, there has to be some benefit to it of creating well-being at work in order for organizations, excuse me, to start paying attention to this kind of stuff. So I think it’s important to acknowledge that that it’s there are these really strong monetary benefits, not just like, oh, fluffy. Let’s everyone be happier at work. There are monetary benefits to be had, higher profitability. I was talking to someone earlier on the podcast about the, book of book of accounts or I think I can’t can’t remember the exact terminology that was used, but it’s it’s like having your own business and you need to grow that business.

Aoife O’Brien [00:17:31]:

And what if you took these same frameworks and apply them to your relationships with your customers, the same thing Yes. Would apply. You need to look after well-being. You need to look after them as an individual. You need to actually care about them and not just in it for the money.

Brandon Laws [00:17:46]:

Yeah. That’s so profound too. I think back, and when you’re talking and saying some of these things are so basic. And I remember when I was, was I 22 years old and I started reading all these self help books, and one of the books I picked up was How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. And it’s so silly, right? Like, I don’t know if you’ve read it, but there’s so many chapters that are just simple things like smiling or asking questions or getting people what they want. And a lot of times, like, those things translate, you know, as a leader and as a manager to do these things for your people, those make a big impact. And I imagine when we started talking about well-being at work, it was because manager one on one started becoming a more of a thing. I don’t know if that was a thing pre February or, or if I’m sure in some organizations that was pretty common, but we’re talking about one on ones and the impact of, of those.

Brandon Laws [00:18:40]:

And I imagine that a good leader is asking the right questions and then an employee might open up and say, you know, this thing’s going on at home right now. And I might not have the best, I might be 80% like we were talking about earlier. And and then they they might ask another follow-up question about, like, well, tell me more about that. Like, what’s going on? And then there’s the the empathy that you now have for that employee and just, like, the under level of understanding of where we’re at. Like, they we started opening up a little bit more. And I think when employees have that experience, they start talking about it, and then it puts pressure on employers to start acting a certain way. And I just think we’re opening up the conversation because managers and leaders opened up the doors for employees to talk.

Aoife O’Brien [00:19:23]:

I don’t know.

Brandon Laws [00:19:24]:

That was my experience.

Aoife O’Brien [00:19:25]:

Yeah. I hadn’t I hadn’t really thought of it like that. But, yeah, the one on ones that I haven’t you just kinda take it for granted if you’ve come into the workplace since the year February, which I have. But if I if I even think back to well-being at work and what that meant when I still worked at corporate, it was a well-being week that we did once a year.

Brandon Laws [00:19:45]:

A week?

Aoife O’Brien [00:19:46]:

A week one week in the year. And it was usually at a really, like, busy time, and they would pick it. We had busy parts of the month, let’s say. And if if they didn’t get input from people, the people who were organizing the events, because it was various different events over the week, it would fall on a time where it was like, this is not a good time. Like, everyone in the operations team is gonna be super busy. Everyone in the client service team is gonna be super busy. So, like, not a good time to have it this week. But they would bring in various different speakers through our, employee what what’s it called? The employee there’s like a word for it, EPA or something like that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:20:28]:

Basically, our insurance company, had

Brandon Laws [00:20:30]:

Oh, EAP?

Aoife O’Brien [00:20:31]:

EAP. They would bring in, I don’t know how I forgot that name. They would bring in people to speak about various different things related to health. And I think we did a breathing exercise. We did yoga. And the big irony for me always was people just don’t have the time. They just do not have the time to take an hour out of their day to go and to do some yoga practice yoga practice or to go and to do some breathing. Now I did get involved in it because I knew how important it was even then.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:05]:

But for me, it’s it is coming back to this idea of time. Is that something that comes up on your podcast? Like, before we even think about well-being, we have to think about people’s workload and, you know, is that another trend that you’re seeing? Like, we’re busy whenever, basically.

Brandon Laws [00:21:23]:

Oh, yes. In fact, I recorded a podcast the other day about busyness. I’m trying to remember the exact title of the book. But it was just, like, we’re a lot of people are wearing the busyness as a badge of honor. Yes. And that is toxic in my opinion. As you you see leaders running around saying, like, how busy I am. And and, like, when people say, like, how are you doing, Aoife? And you if you responded with, like, I’m so busy, but and you have a smile on your face.

Brandon Laws [00:21:52]:

What how do you think it’s gonna make people feel? So in my opinion, the biggest work we need to do is, like, not only just optimizing our own time and and buying time back in some way, but as leaders and supervisors, managers, people who impact other people, we need to start walking the talk. We need to start doing breathing exercises every, every couple of hours and talking about it openly. Like, or I went on a walk and just sharing that publicly, or, you know, I’m I’m blocking out two hours for deep work and just sharing that we’re doing those things. And then hopefully our employees start to to realize like, oh, this is normal. Like to to to focus or to do breathing exercises or to focus on my mental health. We’re gonna all be more productive because of it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:40]:

Yeah. It it goes back to that idea of being a role model. But also, there there is a term for this called working out loud. And it’s when you share what it is you’re doing. I’m leaving early today because I’m going to watch my daughter play football. I’m leave you know, I’m taking it two hours. I’m blocking my calendar. Do not disturb for two hours because I’m focusing on deep work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:23:04]:

I’m doing this big project and I’m getting into the zone. I’ve gone out for a walk to do better breathing because I was getting really stressed. And I know if I just get out into nature, then it’s going to calm me down. I was that person who was like, I’m really busy. And what I did was I planned everything. So I had weeks and weeks in advance. I’d have my weekends blocked up. This was obviously wasn’t with work but it was with social stuff.

Aoife O’Brien [00:23:30]:

And like the wake up call for for me was a friend said to me, oh, you’re always so busy.

Brandon Laws [00:23:35]:

And I

Aoife O’Brien [00:23:36]:

was like, oh my god. I did not mean to give that impression. Like, I’m so busy that I don’t have time for friends, you know, that I don’t have time to to have a chat or anything like that. That was a huge wake up call for me. And from then, I stopped planning so much stuff and I kept space open. Like, I wanted to have it was probably controlling. I wanted to have everything planned out into the future. And now my partner these days, he’s not a planner.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:04]:

He’s a last minute, which drives me around the bend, I have to say. But, I’m I’m learning to cope. I’m learning to cope with it. But I’m I’m gone almost the opposite now. I’ve gone a bit closer to him. Not that I would be very last minute. Like, I do need to know stuff in advance so that I can plan and and whatnot. But but that whole busyness thing of I’m wearing busyness, like, I’m, you know, I’m so proud to be busy because being busy means I’m super important, and being important

Brandon Laws [00:24:32]:

is Right.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:33]:

Is meaningful to me, and people will think I’m brilliant. And and whatever you associate with being busy and being important, it’s like it’s not. And I think the the the dialogue needs to change on this to be more like, busy means that you either don’t have enough support in your role, in which case you need to ask for more support and need to get more people on your team, Or it means that you can’t handle the work. Or it means that you’re being such a perfectionist and a controlled freak that you’re putting in way longer hours than what you actually should be doing. And you could be spending that time with family or or doing a hobby or doing something else. Sorry. My my TED talk is over now. My rant is over.

Brandon Laws [00:25:17]:

It’s a great TED talk because you’re I I totally align with it. I, I’m notorious for also planning out. I’m sure you you handle this too where you you schedule, like, meetings or or even podcast interviews so far out. And then the the week, you’re looking at your calendar and you see it’s all completely filled with things that you scheduled a long time ago, and you’re like, why did I do that to myself? I’ve recently been a lot better about saying no to things. I’ve also opted out of meetings that are I know I don’t need to be a part of where I can just probably get notes or something after the fact and let other people lead the meetings. I’ve even removed podcast interviews that I don’t need on my calendar anymore. Like, it’s just not a fit, or I just decided to to go a different way with it. And so I’m just try I’m trying to be thoughtful about that.

Brandon Laws [00:26:07]:

And because that’s how we house our time, and now we have these amazing tools to help streamline what we’re doing. Like, I don’t know about you, but with AI and some of these automated tools now, I’m able to do so much more with less. Now in our per like, high producing society, though, that also could mean we find ways to do things faster, but then we’re still gonna fill in the time that we saved with even more productive things. So I worry about that is, like, we get so productive that we’re still just doing more and more and more and more and more work and it’s never gonna stop. What do you think about that? Because that’s I worry about that big time.

Aoife O’Brien [00:26:43]:

Are you are you familiar with Tara McMullen? Mm-mm. She has what’s the name? It’s called oh, I her name will come to me, and she’s just on a huge revamp of her website. I know that. But, again, I’ll put a a link in the show notes. But she’s just she’s a I think she calls herself a philosopher. Like, she’s a brilliant philosopher about all things like this, but she and I love her newsletters. Like, they’re super long, but they’re so engaging and so thought provoking. But one of them was I think it was called the egg beater dilemma.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:16]:

So, hey, you used to beat eggs by hand, and that took however long it took to to whisk eggs or to to make a meringue or whatever. I can’t even remember what it was for. But now we have egg beaters and that saves us a ton of time. And it’s the same with the washing machine. You know, you just wash clothes by hand. Now you have a washing machine to do that for you. Dishwashers as well. So you have all of these time saving things, microwaves.

Brandon Laws [00:27:41]:

Yes. Air fryers now.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:43]:

All of that.

Brandon Laws [00:27:43]:

I love my air fryer.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:44]:

All of these things. Air fryer trend is real. Oh,

Brandon Laws [00:27:48]:

it’s ridiculous. You know you’ve made it when you have an air fryer. No. I’m just kidding.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:53]:

I didn’t have an air fryer for a long time, but I I recently bought one. So I’m loving it, I have to say.

Brandon Laws [00:27:59]:

Good.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:59]:

Now, and so I’ve I’ve made it. That’s my badge of honor. But her whole thing is that we’ve we’ve created all of this additional time, but exactly that, how are we filling it? We’re doing more productive stuff. You know, and let’s maybe break that open a little bit more. And and it’s this idea of the busy work or the busy tasks and the things that make us feel really busy because they make us feel good. Because and, again, Dorey Clark, dropping all the names here. Dorey Clark has a brilliant TED talk. I think it’s a TED talk where she’s talking about this idea of busyness because it feels good to be busy.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:39]:

It feels like we’re being productive. But, actually, if we’re not working on those right things, then it’s kind of pointless. Going back to what we spoke about earlier, it’s better to have that time, the idle time of doing nothing than working on something that’s like, why am I actually doing this? And I’m not saying this from a really preachy way because I fall into this trap all the time where I’m doing stuff, and then I’m like, why am I doing this? Yeah. And I think it’s a case of, again, going back to this idea of intentionality. Let’s be more intentional about the work that we’re actually doing. What are we here to achieve? This brings in the role of leadership to really clarify what are the really important things. And I remember hearing something not so long ago that the word priority is actually a singular. It’s not a plural.

Aoife O’Brien [00:29:30]:

It shouldn’t be used in the plural because by its very definition, it just means one thing. So we can’t have multiple priorities. You need to have just one priority. So if you get one thing done today, what is that one thing? That is your one priority. And you can complete that priority and then have another one, but you can’t have multiple priorities at the same time. Again, I’ve gone I’ve gone off another rant.

Brandon Laws [00:29:56]:

Yeah. Do you wanna do you like vulnerability? Do you do you want me to be vulnerable for you? Because

Aoife O’Brien [00:30:02]:

Go for it.

Brandon Laws [00:30:03]:

One of the thing I I’m this is bringing up a lot of thoughts about where I’m at in my life right now. So, like, I’ve learned to harness a lot of the I’m a technology’s been my thing forever. I’ve always done more with less because of tech and self proclaimed geek. So at my full time job as any of them, I’m finding ways to do things faster, better, things that I used to be manual, like, kinda like this this egg beater, theory that we were talking about. And so I’ve been able to, like, just do so much more. Well, even on my personal side, I I do, some freelance marketing work, and I’ve gotten faster and better, and people have wanted me. And so I’ve come said yes to everything, and I’ve basically created two full time jobs for myself, leaving zero space for reading, for a lot of exercise. And it’s just a product of, like, this need of probably being wanted and this high productive feeling.

Brandon Laws [00:31:04]:

And I I love that feeling. It’s almost like a high of some way. But I used to read 60 books a year and just immerse myself into just different like, I was I’m very curious, but I’m leaving no space for myself with that. And so I’m just I’m I’m sharing that because I’m I’m aware of it, and I hope others can be aware of their tendencies as well because this is a societal problem, I I think. It’s like, financially, especially in The United States, I don’t I don’t know what it’s like where where you’re at, but costs are rising significantly. Mhmm. And so we’re always chasing, like, more money and more productivity, and it’s like, when does it end? We’re not leaving space for the the priorities that you were talking about or or just, the space to think think critically. So anyways, I I share that.

Brandon Laws [00:31:56]:

I’ve got a lot of work to do.

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:58]:

But no. It’s it’s it’s brilliant, and it’s it’s so relatable. And I am sorry to hear that there are a few things that have come up to me come up for me while you’re saying that. And one of them is I’ve just started listening on audio to a book called Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It. And one thing that I don’t know if it explicitly said this, but it was like a kind of a light bulb moment for me that anytime you embark on something new and you reach a specific goal, and then you reach the goal and you’re like, oh, now I can relax because I’ve reached the goal. And I’ve been aware for a long time that it’s not about the goals, it’s about the systems and the habits that you have. But in this book, it was like, it’s o it’s okay if that happens. That’s normal.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:48]:

And here’s a multitude of reasons for that to actually happen. And it was like, oh my god. This guy’s giving me permission to be human and to to Yes. To fall off the wagon as such. So I loved that point from that book. I I it just I’ve only recently started listening to it, and that just really hit home for me is with all good intentions, it’s okay to talk about this stuff. And it’s funny because people say to me, you have it all figured out or you have, you know, you talk about this stuff all the time. Hello.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:19]:

I’m human as well. So And

Brandon Laws [00:33:20]:

we’re human.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:21]:

I am foe. You know, I do mess things up or I do like, fall off the wagon is the only area that I can kinda think of describing it that you try and do something for a while, you succeed at it, and then it’s like it all goes tits up, basically.

Brandon Laws [00:33:37]:

That yeah. And, one thing I’ll just sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off. But, like, the one thing I wanted to share, like, inside of organizations, if we can if we can be human like that and share our faults and the mistakes that we make and we share that publicly, that is a sign of psychologically safe work environment. And other people are likely to do that. And we can actually share more about the mistakes we’re making and probably never make them again. And that’s how we get better, Yeah. To share openly.

Brandon Laws [00:34:04]:

Anyways, finish your thought.

Aoife O’Brien [00:34:05]:

Well, before I go on to that thought, I want to to build on this psychological safety idea that in a lot of places that I’ve worked that hasn’t existed and the opposite of psychological safety is is the gossip and the blame and the why didn’t this get done. And, you know, the stuff that I see on social media, the stuff that friends share with me about how their bosses treat them, like, it’s the complete and utter opposite of psychological safety. And if we can just have permission to be like that and again, psychological safety is something that’s come up so much on the podcast. There are so many previous episodes. In one specific episode, Duanna Blomstrom, she was talking about like, we always think psychological safety has to come from the top. But what if you as an individual decided, I want to create a psychological safe psychologically safe team, I’m gonna start opening up a bit more about what’s going on for me. I’m gonna start sharing my mistakes. I’m gonna start asking people questions.

Aoife O’Brien [00:35:04]:

It’s not gonna happen overnight, but if you start sharing what’s going on, oh, yeah. I tried that and it didn’t work out. And, when I was in your role, I was, you know, I was felt like such an imposter. It was such a scary time. And so if you’re feeling like that, then it’s okay. Just so you know, all of these kinds of things really help people to make them feel like I’m not alone in this and what’s going on for me. The the other point I was gonna make was on another book, and I read 60 books last year but realized that that that was too many. I was like, that’s intense.

Brandon Laws [00:35:39]:

So it’s It is hard to absorb all of that information though.

Aoife O’Brien [00:35:42]:

I’m like, if Chat GPT could read all of these books for me, put it into my brain. No. I I I do enjoy it and I do make time for reading every evening before I go to bed and I make a bit of time on the weekends as well. And I listen on audio, which makes a difference if I’m out for a walk, all of those kinds of things. But one book that I read a number of years ago, and I have it in physical and I have it here with me in Tenerife as well, I’m going to reread it, It’s a book called Enough. And it goes back to your earlier point of when is enough enough. You didn’t probably say that, but you were like, there’s the cost of living crisis. I notice it when I go to the supermarket and you don’t think that you’ve bought that much more.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:22]:

But actually when you have to pay at the checkout, the the numbers are a lot higher than they used to be. And there’s

Brandon Laws [00:36:27]:

pack package inflation as well, like the shrinking packages and the same price.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:32]:

Inflation, I think they

Brandon Laws [00:36:33]:

call it. Yeah.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:33]:

It’s a

Brandon Laws [00:36:34]:

real thing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:36:34]:

What used to be 200 is now a hundred and 50, but you’re still paying the same price or maybe slightly lower. So you think I’m getting a better deal, but, actually, it’s 50%. It’s 25% less, but, actually, it’s, it’s only 10% less price. But, yeah, the book enough and it goes into these various different thing. When is and, you know, when it talks about enough food, it talks about enough money, it talks about enough and this sense of enoughness and feeling enough. And I just want to reread it because it’s so I think it’s so important because you have to decide where does it end, you know, when when will I know? And this also brings to mind as I’m speaking, how I initially got into podcasting. And you were saying 2012, I think it was 2013, I started listening to podcasts. And I was listening to podcasts, and I was listening to Gretchen Rubin’s podcast called Happier.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:25]:

Yeah. Huge fan. And she talks about this concept of, like, say if you’re rich, like, when do you become rich? You keep adding a coin and adding a coin and adding a coin. Where’s the balance between rich and not rich? I was like, oh my god. It’s such an interesting concept. It’s giving me goosebumps now just talking about it. But if you keep adding a coin and a coin and a coin, then it’s much easier to visualize, I think, if it’s a coin. Keep adding a coin.

Aoife O’Brien [00:37:53]:

When when do you reach the level that you’re rich? And when do you have enough money?

Brandon Laws [00:37:59]:

That you’re bringing up a great point. I I often think back to lives in such a, like, perfectionist culture or where we’re striving for perfection, but, like, we often don’t go back and see where we came from. And if you look back in in the time where you it was you were rich if you had a washer and dryer or a microwave or the the color TV, those things are abundant now. And so if you think about we’re actually getting rich as a society, but we never really stop and appreciate some of those things. That’s true. And so we keep building on that because we’re striving for perfect or a perfectly safe culture or And I think that’s In a lot of ways, I like it because we’re building on something before it and we’re getting better. But your point, when is it enough? When can we just chill out? When can we just say that I’m good, I’m rich enough or, I’m happy enough. But Yeah.

Brandon Laws [00:38:56]:

I just don’t think most people operate that way.

Aoife O’Brien [00:38:59]:

Yeah. I think we have a tendency again as a society to compare ourselves to other people and what we see on social media, which very often is the highlight reel. Like, I have this podcast. I talk to amazing people on it. But people don’t they don’t share the behind the scenes of what’s actually going on in my life. I I try to be authentic and vulnerable to a degree, but it’s a level of vulnerability that is professional vulnerability as opposed to, here, let me tell you my life story and let me tell you everything that’s going on. So what we see out there and we compare our inner world with what’s going on on the outside for other people, I think it it makes it hard. But I think what what really helps and again, I’m not great at this.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:42]:

I’m great at talking about it, but I’m not great at practicing it, is gratitude. That really, really helps to say, what am I actually grateful for? Like, what am I grateful for in my life? What am I grateful for? What’s going on for me right now? All of this kind of stuff. It helps us to it helps us to make those other things go away.

Brandon Laws [00:40:04]:

It’s it’s so true. I need to be better about you know, at night, you say the three things that were great today and just appreciate those little things. I do some work for an author speaker who wrote a book called What’s Going Well, and and the whole idea was, like, just ask, you know, your colleagues or your your partner or whomever, like, what’s going well? And then that opens up the door for them to share something that they’re grateful for or something that went well during the day or went well this year or whatever it is. And then so if we just keep focusing on gratitude, I think we we build great cultures, we build good relationships, we internalize that gratitude a little bit more and probably be a little bit more happy because I I do appreciate what you just said about, like, the the the social media and just how toxic that can be of the highlight highlight reel in comparison. It’s it’s very dangerous. There’s a book that I’m I’m listening to, maybe you already have. It’s, The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:03]:

I have, of course, heard of it, and I can’t find it on Spotify. It’s not out on Spotify yet. And Oh. I don’t use Audible, and it’s not on

Brandon Laws [00:41:11]:

Spotify yet. So, yeah, I use Audible. I’m I’m listening to that right now. I’m almost done with it. But just thinking through, like, we we so often wanna control other people and their behaviors and, and are so frustrated by what they’re doing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:25]:

Brandon. If only they

Brandon Laws [00:41:26]:

If only they would change. And we can’t change people. We can we can perhaps guide them and coach them to change, but they’ve gotta change for themselves. And so the whole theory is, like, just let, you know, let them let them do what they’re gonna do. We can’t control them, but let me. Like, I can, I have agency around what I can control in in my life? And so making those decisions and just focusing on what I can control is, probably gonna make us a little more happier.

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:53]:

Yeah. No. I love that. I love that. And that brings us nicely onto the question that I ask everyone who comes on the podcast. What does being happier at work mean to you?

Brandon Laws [00:42:03]:

Being happier at work means belonging. It means being productive, meeting my goals while also doing it with people I really enjoy being around. I’ve been fortunate enough to work inside of an organization for over sixteen years, and I have I can say I have probably three or four best friends inside the organization. And part of the reason I have stayed so long is just the doing doing things and reaching goals and doing it with people you actually enjoy and you care about. That’s a that’s a special kind of organization and and what makes me happy.

Aoife O’Brien [00:42:41]:

Brilliant. I love that. And if people want to reach out, if they want to connect and find out more about what you do, what’s the best way they can do that?

Brandon Laws [00:42:50]:

LinkedIn, I’m pretty active. You’re gonna see a lot of, like, business oriented stuff. Instagram, I’m I’m, like, I’m open. So if you wanna connect with me there, you’ll see both my professional stuff but also a lot of personal stuff too. So so those are good places to reach me. Transform Your Workplace is the podcast, so you can find it on Apple, Amazon Music, Spotify, or if you just Google it, you’ll find it and find my work.

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:14]:

Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time. I so, so enjoyed this conversation. I think it’s so needed that, you know, it’s bringing that humanity. It’s an open conversation about what needs to change, but also a recognition that we’re all human and change is hard, and sometimes we don’t get it right.

Brandon Laws [00:43:32]:

Aoife, it has been such a pleasure to to have me on your show. I appreciate you bringing me on.

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:37]:

Thank you.