Could living a happy and healthy long life really be as simple as:
FOOD + LOVE = LONGEVITY
And how does this influence how we show up at work?
Our mental capacity is hugely influenced by what we put in our bodies, but many of us don’t know enough about it to really know what our brain and our body needs to feel optimal.
Can we do more to educate and make the right foods available for staff at work?
At Macquarie Group they offer freshly cooked meals to staff, it was a JOY to forget my leftover dinner from the night before and HAVING TO buy my meal at work. I noticed the healthy options far outweighed options that your body didn’t really need (e.g. fries, fried chicken or burgers).
But food is only one part of this equation…LOVE is the other…
“Kindness is free, but priceless to receive” – Raktivist
Kindness is love at work and can take many forms in the workplace. I believe we all need to give and receive a lot more of it in order to thrive at work (particularly during times of change), some examples might be:
- Giving a colleague a compliment on a job well done
- Saying thank you
- Opening a door for someone
- Holding the lift for someone rushing to catch it
- Helping a colleague with a task they’re struggling with
- Showing genuine interest in someone
- Asking someone how they are doing with the patience to listen
- Being curious by asking someone about their point of view (rather than assuming what it is)
- Creating space for both 1:1 and group conversations about our joyful and less or not joyful experiences, how we feel, what we need, who we are as a person, rather than the tasks at hand
Kindness is also…
When there’s friction or you notice people undermining you or others, reach out and open up the dialogue by asking open questions without judgment but from a place of pure curiosity, seeking to understand the other…
We all know the saying that kindness is free, and so is curiosity…what if we approached our work colleagues, our peers, our staff and our leaders with a little bit more kindness and curiosity rather than with our assumptions and judgement…how would it change the way we show up to work?
https://simonsinek.com/podcast-episodes/live-a-long-happy-life-with-mark-hyman/
