Rebellious Thoughts #66 - 🤘 Hi, etc.

I once had a guy who approached me on LinkedIn and his message started with:

“Hi, etc.”

He went straight to his pitch.

I thought “rude”, and then I paused… and realised how fucking brilliant it was!!!!

Think how much time is wasted in useless chit-chat: “hey I hope you are awesome, how is 2025 treating you? Gosh, it’s already February can you believe it? Anyway, just a short note…”

The dude was straight. Etc was enough to cover all the niceties required - we both know what they are… hahahaha

Hahaha sorry I did the same - come on let’s go, no time to waste on chit-chat.

Imagine if we could set a global wellbeing standard companies were incentivised to achieve?
A framework describing the requirements a business has to complete to show a genuine attempt at providing the best environment for humans to work in.

I carefully chose the word “attempt” because even with the greatest frameworks in place, it’s impossible to guarantee an imperfect group of humans (a business) will be able to ensure the wellbeing of themselves and others!

So all we can do is attempt to achieve the goal, which is of course a million times better than doing nothing and just passing the legal requirements!

But I digress…stay with me…that was just a little side note.

There is of course law and regulation, which are different across the world, that forces a company to provide its people with a certain standard, basic elements like leave and weekend and super and and… but we now know that there’s a bit more to wellbeing than basic corporate rights.

I know I know, It’s impossible to guarantee the wellbeing of people in an organisation… but what if at the very least a global standard existed? 

A certification that said “this company takes wellbeing seriously and as a minimum does XYZ to ensure it”

Similar to B-Corp for Sustainability but WCorp for Wellbeing -
when you are applying for a job or assessing to partner with a company and you see the W you know they take wellbeing seriously and some standards are adhered to.

Or a bit like an ISO9001 I guess, but for wellbeing.

Taking wellbeing seriously doesn’t ensure people are well, we all know it is far more complex than that.

I imagine a redefinition of Maslow hierarchies but in the corporate context, a framework that’s similar to Maslow helps you get to “corporate self-actualisation” by ensuring the preceding elements of the hierarchy are taken care of.

Now this does not mean there won’t be restructures, roles made redundant, conflicts that are difficult to resolve, pressure from investors and shareholders, rules and regulations we can’t control, and more…

A W company doesn’t mean a company without the usual troubles and challenges.

Inevitably those things will continue to happen and will inevitably still have an impact in the wellbeing of people in the business. Commercial pressures don’t go away, BUT, they can definitely be managed with a wellbeing framework in place.

Here is your challenge for the week!

Write back to me and tell me:

1) What are your wellbeing top 5? What 5 things a business can do for you to say “yep these guys take wellbeing seriously”. What would make a company worthy of its wellbeing certification?

2) What do you feel when you join that W company? Or when you partner with one?What happens when you leave a W company?

3) What is it like to work there?
Trust? Safety? Dialogue? Transparency? Choice? Fall backs? Opportunities? Training? Growth? Family? Health? Sport? Nutrition?

Of course, whatever you tell me you think is the ideal… my question back to you would be:
Why don’t you implement it in your team or business as soon as you can?
And if you are already - absolute LEGEND!

Yew!

Love

Gus

P.S. Hey!!! sooo many of you replied to my email last week!! It was crazy!! and you all sent so nice vibes!! Thank you all!! I’m still going through the messages and trying to reply to all of them haha. let’s keep it going ;)

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