Tech Is Fueling Our Burnout Epidemic — It’s Also the Way Out

School Doze: Great news out of California: The state just became the first to push back start times for middle and high schools. I’ve been sounding the alarm (sorry!) on this for years. As students get older, the structure of their days gets increasingly out of sync with their sleep needs. And sleep deprivation is a disaster for students. It leads to higher rates of behavioral problems and substance abuse, and diminishes their ability to learn — the reason they’re at school in the first place. As California state senator and author of the bill Anthony J. Portantino tells The New York Times, “Everybody is looking for a magic bullet with education, one that cuts across all demographics, all ethnicities and that actually has a positive, measurable increase in test scores, attendance and graduation rates without costing money. And this is it.” Let’s hope that other states follow — they have nothing to lose but surly, tired teens.

The New NBA MVP: Morpheus. So what’s the N.B.A.’s “dirty little secret that everybody knows about,” as a highly placed league source put it to ESPN? That James Harden’s beard is fake? That Giannis Antetokounmpo is neither Greek nor a freak? (With that name, we Greeks would claim him anyway!). No, it’s... sleep deprivation. It "could be the difference between you having a career game or playing terrible," the Miami Heat’s Hassan Whiteside says. As Baxter Holmes writes, despite stepped-up efforts by the N.B.A., sleep remains an issue in the league. But players are taking matters into their own hands — and beds. Sleep fanatics quoted include LeBron James, C.J. McCollum and Andre Iguodala. In fact, Iguodala is such a fan of sleep and well-being that he’s an investor in Thrive (he had the honor of being our tallest investor — until another sleep fan, Kevin Durant, joined our roster last year). Of course, sleep isn’t just an N.B.A. problem, it’s — as Holmes puts it — “an everybody problem.” But with elite athletes — who are as metric- and performance-driven as anybody — shining a light (but not a blue one!) on the power of sleep, it’s going to accelerate the culture shift away from sleep deprivation being seen as something to brag about. If you really want to “Be Like Mike,” in whatever you do, then Sleep Like LeBron. Read More on Thrive: Four NBA Players On How Sleep Enhances Their Ability on the Court

The Real-Life Social Network: Loved this piece by Judith Shulevitz in The Atlantic on “Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore.” The answer is because of how our working hours — through gig work, on-demand scheduling and just plain overwork — have taken over our lives. And that has huge consequences for the collective parts of our society, damaging both families and communities. “I know this dates me,” Shulevitz writes, “but I’m nostalgic for that atmosphere of repose — the extended family dinners, the spontaneous outings, the neighborly visits.” And you don’t have to wait for legislative reforms — when you’re done reading this (not this item, the whole letter!), call up a friend and make a date. At first, they may assume you’re calling with bad biopsy results — because who just calls friends on the phone anymore — but tell them you’re reclaiming civil society and all they have to do is have coffee with you. Read More on Thrive: 8 Tips to Make More Time for the People Who Matter Most to You

Proof Positive: Two researchers from the O.C. Tanner Institute write in Forbes about new research that shows that positive (“peak”) experiences at work stick with employees twice as long as negative (“valley") experiences. Obviously we all prefer the former to the latter, but the report has implications for how leaders can most efficiently use their focus to motivate employees. Other findings include that employees at companies that scored high on employee experience are 13 times more likely to be very engaged, and three times less likely to burn out. More proof that if you want to raise the bottom line, create more peaks.

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Me with Boundless Mind’s Joe Maloney, Jake Dodd, Dalton Combs and Matt Mayberry

Ending the Global Public Health Crisis Requires the Most Sophisticated Technology — and Now We Have It 

The big news at Thrive Global this week was our acquisition of the neuroscience-based artificial intelligence company Boundless Mind. 

Boundless is the expert in behavior change A.I., and I’ve been obsessed with the company since I first came across them on “60 Minutes” (when they were known as Dopamine Labs). I loved how they were using the same technology designed to hook people to screens to instead unhook us, and help drive us to more healthy habits. I know it sounds paradoxical, but the truth here is paradoxical. We’ll never be able to change behavior at scale if we don’t use all of the tools in our toolkit, including the most cutting-edge technology.

We’re at a crossroads in our relationship with technology — and the rise of A.I. is only accelerating the urgency to put humanity at the center. We will have technology that either augments our humanity or undermines it. We're also at a crossroads when it comes to health: we need to move beyond disease care to a world where we go upstream, with preventive, behavior-based interventions that help people live healthier lives. 

As Dalton Combs, the CEO and co-founder of Boundless and now Thrive Global’s Head of Behavioral Science, put it, “100 years ago most people died from infectious diseases. But today, it’s our behaviors that are killing us.” Seventy-five percent of our health care spending goes toward the treatment of lifestyle-related preventable conditions, like heart disease and diabetes — and when you include mental health, it goes up to 90 percent. That’s why I founded Thrive: to end the stress and burnout epidemic and help individuals and organizations unlock their full potential. 

Together with Boundless, we can bring the best of both data and wisdom — the mind and the heart — combining cutting-edge A.I. and data-driven feedback loops with the power of storytelling and community to truly drive sustainable behavior change. And with Boundless’s technology, we’ll be able to pull the same psychological levers of desire that the fashion and entertainment industries use to empower people to make changes to their lives that are good for their physical and mental well-being.  

As we approach Thrive’s third birthday next month, we are more committed than ever to developing technology that augments our humanity. The Boundless acquisition furthers that foundational commitment and will help us scale healthy behavior change to millions of users around the world. I can’t wait to show you what we build together. Read More on Thrive: Why Thrive Global Is Acquiring Boundless Mind 

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Before You Go

Study of the Week: On Thursday, LeanIn.Org Co-Founder and CEO Rachel Thomas and McKinsey & Company Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Lareina Yee dropped by Thrive HQ to fill us in on the just-released Women in the Workplace 2019 report, produced annually by LeanIn and McKinsey to measure progress on diversity. This year’s report shows progress at the top, but the key finding was about the “broken rung” several steps below, at the first manager level. “We understand that implicit and unconscious bias are part of decisions in the workplace,” Rachel told us, “But when you think about where bias has the most impact, it’s that step up to manager.” At Thrive, we talk a lot about how women pay the highest price for workplaces fueled by burnout. And work-life challenges were the top issue cited by employees this year. When women are underrepresented, they feel more pressure to perform, and that takes a daily toll. “It’s like a double tax on every interaction,” Lareina said. At Thrive, we’re also all about taking action with Microsteps, so we asked what can companies do right now. “On Monday, you should hand out the report and ask team members which experiences they’ve had,” Rachel said. “Then ask a woman, a woman of color, an L.G.B.T.Q. woman, a woman with a disability, ‘What has your experience been?’” The third Microstep was to formalize sponsorship, which companies tout as a value, but don’t follow through on. As Lareina put it, if we fix that broken rung, and day-to-day culture that puts an added burden on the underrepresented women, “instead of a funnel, we’ll have a pipe.”

@thehumanxp / Twitter

Video of the Week: One of my favorite metaphors for our need to unplug and recharge is that we need to find the eye of the hurricane, and act from that place of inner strength. So naturally, my eye was caught by this video — of an actual eye of a hurricane. I’m happy — and relieved — to say that it looks calm and peaceful, and leaves my metaphor blissfully intact!

Book of the Week: Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change by Marc Benioff. Even if I didn’t know who wrote this, I’d guess it from the title. Marc Benioff has indeed been a trailblazer for years about the power — and necessity — for business to lead with values and purpose. And what he’s done with Salesforce is his best argument. He tells the story of their famous “1:1:1” program, in which one percent of the company’s product, employee time and resources are given to charity. To Benioff, business leaders have a responsibility to look beyond shareholders. One example in the book are the homeless Benioff would see while walking to work. And so he did something about it, leading a campaign to pass Proposition C to increase taxes on companies — like Salesforce — to pay for more homeless services. The “new capitalism” he argues for will happen when companies act on behalf of both shareholders and stakeholders, as doing well and doing good converge. “In the years to come,” he writes, “the principles we live by, and how we discuss them and apply them, will be the essential function of any thriving business. Not because acting as responsible corporate citizens is the right thing to do, but because consumers demand it.”

For No Reason: How many times have you asked yourself, “I wonder if flies would bite cows less if you painted the cows like zebras?” Well, you’re in luck — science has finally given you an answer. I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say if you’re a cow, you should hope your owner has some white paint.

Tomoki Kojima / PLOS One