Podcast
In this episode of Get Reworked, Dr. James Doty, neurosurgeon, author, founder of the Center of Compassion and Altruism Research at Stanford University and founder of Happi.ai joins me to discuss the research behind the creation of his mental health avatar and why companies should learn the science behind why compassion in the workplace benefits everyone.
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"The reality is that there are many corporations which are functioning on an old paradigm, which is motivation through fear. And when that is the paradigm, it leads to several negative aspects. One is it decreases productivity, it decreases creativity, it increases healthcare costs, and it has a negative effect or increases, if you will, human resource costs. So if the corporate entity in and of itself is not a compassionate place, that will dramatically increase problems related to mental health issues," said Jim.
Highlights of the conversation include:
- Why an identified need for self-compassion in part drove the creation of Happi.ai, a mental health avatar.
- The scientific and financial argument for why compassion matters in the workplace.
- How technology can both help and harm our efforts to build connections in the world and the workplace.
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Show Notes
- Dr. James Doty's website
- Happi.ai
- Stanford's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research
- Dr. Doty's latest book, "Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything"
- Dr. Doty's interview on Three Dots
Show Transcript
Note: This conversation has been edited for clarity.
Dr. James Doty: Fundamentally, what makes us happy is human connection, a vision bigger than ourselves, connecting to something that's inspiring. And if the workplace can create that for you, it's fantastic and it benefits the workplace. And again, at very, very low cost.
Siobhan Fagan: That was Dr. James Doty. Jim joined us recently on Three Dots to discuss his new company Happi.ai, a digital platform that uses artificial intelligence combined with a human avatar to treat mental health issues. But our conversation went much much deeper than that.
Aside from being the CEO and founder of Happi, Dr. Doty is a neurosurgeon, an inventor, an entrepreneur, a philanthropist, a bestselling author — most recently of “Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How it Changes Everything” and the founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University.
I’m looking forward to our conversation, so let’s bring him on. Welcome to the show Dr. Doty!
Jim: It is great to be with you. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
The Origins of Happi.ai
Siobhan: I am too. So I'm going to start where I ended, which is with Happi. And I wanted to know what prompted you to create Happi?
Jim: Well, as you probably know from the work I do at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, this is really centered around compassion for self and others. And the reality is, especially in Western society, a lot of people are frankly not compassionate to themselves. In fact, they're hypercritical more so than they are of anyone else.
And when you're hypercritical of yourself, that activates your sympathetic nervous system or flight, fight or freeze response, which not only affects brain function, but it affects your peripheral physiology. And this leads oftentimes for people to become anxious, stressed, depressed. And so by creating tools that can help people deal with these issues, then obviously everyone benefits.
The problem is in our present society, and especially in the face of what has recently happened with the pandemic, we have a large swath of the population very negatively affected by stress, anxiety, depression and there are not enough therapists to take care of them. But the other aspect is that for most people having a short conversation of 10 to 15 minutes — and this does not require a therapist — but simply talking to someone who is empathic, compassionate, and is there to listen in a non-judgmental fashion can have a huge impact. And thus, I created Happi to address that because we know, and surveys have been shown, that actually many of the people affected by these issues would prefer to speak to an avatar rather than a human because of fear of judgment.
And also, believe it or not, many people actually respond just as well to a human-like avatar as to a human. And unlike a real therapist who only works till five in the afternoon and is not available on weekends, Happi is available 24-7.
Siobhan: So it's interesting that you talked about the fear of judgment. We've previously spoken to the head of a VR company that sort of talks about virtual reality training and how that provides the same sort of safety net. So was that the decision to go with the avatar as opposed to just say a faceless chatbot?
Jim: Well, I mean, the data actually is pretty clear and this is not to say a faceless chat bot isn't useful, but there are two aspects of it. Typing off into the universe, you cannot develop any type of emotional connection. And with an avatar, you can actually create an emotional connection very similar as to with a human. So that is very much its advantage.
So that was really the main reason to include the avatar. When you mentioned virtual reality, one of the challenges with that is that, and there, well, there's probably more than one, but one is if you have a large swath of the population, many of which are not wealthy, VR glasses are extraordinarily expensive for many people.
Two is you need fairly high bandwidth to actually get good imaging. So that in some places can also be a significant challenge.
Moving Away From Motivation Through Fear
Siobhan: I appreciate you bringing up the cost point, because even though we are typically talking about in the workplace context, it still is actually out of reach for a lot of organizations to be able to afford those kind of tools. So when we look at Happi and we look at self-compassion and we bring it into the workplace setting, how do you see that working in a workplace? I mean, obviously, our work lives are a huge chunk of our daily lives. They greatly impact our feelings of wellness, well -being, etc. But can you talk a little bit about that relationship?
Jim: Well, I'll preface this by saying the reality is that frankly, there are many corporations which are functioning on an old paradigm, which is motivation through fear. And when that is the paradigm, it leads to several negative aspects. One is it decreases productivity, it decreases creativity, it increases healthcare costs, and it has a negative effect or increases, if you will, human resource costs. So if the corporate entity in and of itself is not a compassionate place, that will dramatically increase problems related to mental health issues.
Conversely, if you actually incorporate these types of principles, and a number of studies have demonstrated this, that it has the opposite effect in terms of engagement, productivity, creativity, decreasing medical care costs and human resource costs. That being said, utilizing these Happi as an example in the workplace, first of all, most people who are stressed and anxious throughout the day are distracted by their jobs or other activities of the day. So they're not focused on the rumination of telling themselves,
I'm not worthy, I don't deserve love, I'm an imposter, et cetera, et cetera. So typically these feelings occur after hours. That being said, as part of what we're building into this product, there can be as follows. One is just a periodic check -in, a random check -in, where there's simply a question, it may ping you and simply say, just want to check in, how are you doing? OK.
Also, if it's a particular stressful time, you can just do also a quick check-in that you actually open up the app.
And then, and this is for the future, what we can potentially do is to monitor your schedule and your emails, and then we determine who or what makes you stressed. And then potentially we ping you before to give you support or ping you after to see how you're doing. So there are different ways you can look at this, but the goal is to give you tools that help you deal with these feelings. And as I said, and I'm equating this to a human interaction, literally just sitting down with somebody and having a conversation where you have somebody who truly listens.
And the reason I say that, and unfortunately, I probably have this habit on occasion, somebody's telling you about, I had this experience and then the person feels compelled to sit there and go, I had a similar experience too. Well, people don't want to hear that. I mean, most people want you to express their feelings. They don't want to be interrupted. They don't need you to tell them you've had a similar experience. They just want to be listened to. The very nature of being listened to decreases their stress and anxiety.
Siobhan: A lot of the stress of the modern world and currently in the workplace for a lot of people is actually a fear of AI and a fear of AI's impact on our workplaces, on our jobs, particularly in creative fields, etc. So how do you rectify those two areas?
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Jim: Well, listen, I certainly appreciate that. And you're, you're absolutely correct. I mean, for creatives, you know, you're having AI make movies, right? Or do artwork or, and sometimes much better than a human can do. So it is very intimidating. I think that whether you or I like it, that's just the way it is. Right. I mean, it is going to happen. We're not going to be able to, to control it.
Hopefully the appropriate safeguards will be there, but it is a legitimate fear. But it's like any technology. I mean, look at social media. Social media can be wonderful, but unfortunately, and I would say because we live in a capitalist society, and unfortunately you can look at the evolution and you can say, well, it was reasonable five or 10 or whatever number of years ago.
But all of social media, it's extractive, right? Their goal is to make money, which is the nature of capitalist society. And unfortunately, the word integrity, value, ethics gets thrown out the window in many cases. As an example, you look at Facebook or some of these others, you know, they have a whole team of neuroscientists and psychologists whose sole goal is to give you drips of dopamine to get you addicted.
And you know, this results in what do they call it? Death scrolling or whatever. And the same with games and stuff like this. So that being said, you can also sit there and say, look, you know, I'm able to connect with relatives. We're able to share conversations and et cetera, et cetera. And there's some great advantages to it. So there's always good and bad with every aspect. Hopefully we have a system that does its best to regulate it without getting totally out of control, but that in this case remains to be seen because I think we're probably heading there, but it is what it is, so we have to deal with it as it is.
The Balancing Act of Technology
Siobhan: I know that you've done work with the US Surgeon General in the past. He had back in 2022 released a unprecedented report about workplace well-being and mental health. And in it, he was sort of bringing up the same points that you were, in that technology can be both a force for good and a force for evil and how we balance those things is critical.
Stepping back and putting on your neurosurgeon and your other hats on, how do you think workplaces, given that many of us are now working in a hybrid manner or remotely, how do we strike that balance between the technology being a good thing, building genuine connections, allowing me to speak to you right now, for example, and being a negative thing where we're left in isolation and seeing this epidemic of loneliness that we see now?
Jim: Yeah, it's very hard and I do not have the solution. As you know, Jonathan Hyde put out this book about taking cell phones away from your children. I think having breaks from social media and from your cell phones as an example, putting it out of sight and turn off the notifications for most of the day unless you have a job that requires you to be on that phone or, you know, for even at home. I mean, I'm sure you may have experienced it. You know, I have two boys in college and one in high school and my wife and I walk in and everybody's on their cell phone. But at a certain time we limit that and we try to do that on weekends.
And it's hard for everybody because I mean nothing is easier — if you remember the old days you'd get a thought you had to go look in the dictionary but now you could just pop your phone open and get immediate results which in some way is incredible but again, once you start doing that then you you know go down this path then you could get distracted. I'm as guilty as anyone. So I think with intention limiting the use of these technologies, knowing what they can do can be very, very helpful.
The Power of Emotion Regulation in the Face of Workplace Stressors
Siobhan: I want to go back to the idea of self-compassion. A lot of your solutions are looking at what we as individuals can do. I'm thinking of the nudge that you might provide people in advance of talking to that person at the workplace who stresses them out, et cetera. So what we personally can do, our agency in helping us manage difficult situations. When we look at it in the workplace, how do you see people doing that where the workplace is the cause of so many stressors? Is it just a matter of us managing as best we can for our personal selves, or how can it sort of expand out?
Jim: Well, one of the challenges in the modern world is that not everybody has the ability to just pick and choose. I want to work at this company. It pays me great that that's where I'm going. I mean, unfortunately, the nature of what's required in modern society to live, which means a house, food, etc. You have to sometimes be in these positions, which are negative workplaces.
And that's really, really hard. One of the things that can be helpful is emotion regulation. And what I mean by that is that typically if you are presented with a stressful situation, most people are very reactive, which activates their sympathetic nervous system and all the negative consequences. Because once that system is activated, it shuts down your executive control area, which is associated with having access to memory prior experiences to give you enough information so you can make a discerning, thoughtful decision on how to react.
And the reason that's shut down is because once you're in survival mode, the goal is to limit choices because that delays and potentially puts you in a situation where you can die, you have to react immediately. So you limit your choices and then you immediately react. Well, that in modern society isn't the best approach. Clearly this is a holdover from when we lived on the Savannah in Africa and the grass moved and we knew it represented a predator. Our sympathetic nervous system was engaged. We ran away and hopefully we survived.
But in the modern world, for many people, it's chronically activated and worsened by situations at work. And so one way is to learn how to emotionally regulate. And I'm not sure if you've read Victor Frankl's book, “Man's Search for Meaning.” He was a psychiatrist who was imprisoned during the Holocaust, a Jewish individual. And he wrote this book that was quite powerful in terms of how he could determine if somebody would survive the concentration camp.
A quote that's attributed to him is between stimulus and response, there is a pause and within that pause lies your freedom. And the point of that statement is most of us are very reactive if a situation comes up, but if being able to control that reaction and just sit for a few seconds doesn't let you jump off into engagement of your sympathetic nervous system, you are now discerning and trying to make a thoughtful decision about how to react. Because it doesn't help if somebody comes up to you and you feel threatened and then you immediately respond to them by getting angry and aggressive towards them, which only results in escalation.
So one of the greatest things you can do is emotionally regulate. And I think that's very, very powerful.
The other thing is that oftentimes in negative interactions with an individual, it has nothing to do with you. Unfortunately, a lot of people carry baggage from their childhood experiences, which then dictates every interaction they have, the jobs they take, how they interact and respond to people, the choices they make in regard to partners. And so they are not able to understand that the actions they're doing are necessarily negative or have nothing to do with the event at hand.
So you have to also then understand that and have, if you will, a gentleness when you react to people based on their actions.
'Literally Just Being Nice to People'
Siobhan: I think that a lot of these techniques clearly would help in one-on-one interactions, which so much of our workplace comes down to. I'm curious, though, how any of these techniques would apply against systemic inequities.
Jim: Well, that's like saying, Jim, you know, I've noticed that there's been a change in the climate. Can you just sort of resolve that issue right on?
Siobhan: It's a genuine question, though. I do question how far you can go with this when it is a systemic issue.
Jim: No, I understand, and this is a problem in many areas, right? Because, you know, mental training or mindfulness types of practices are not the solution to every ill. They can be incredibly helpful and they can help you overcome some challenges.
But if the place you work at is systemically unfair due to sexism, racism, or whatever ism you want, and every day is a torture, and you're not in charge, nor probably will you ever be, well, that is demoralizing and very harmful on an extraordinary number of levels. So what are your choices? If you have to have the job, you're stuck and you're just going to have to live with it and use whatever techniques you can to help yourself, but also connecting with other people who are going through similar challenges.
At least you can bond together with somebody you can identify with who cares and together you can use profanity about the company and how you hate it and all the management are jerks — that in and of itself could be very soothing. But the reality though is if many of the leaders of these companies gain insight into how powerful these practices can be in terms of helping the company then it's a no-brainer. And I think that's really what the challenge is, is how do you demonstrate this? And as I said, a number of studies have demonstrated that as we were talking about earlier, you get increased productivity, increased creativity, you get less expenses in terms of healthcare costs and human resource costs. Why wouldn't you do that? And people are happy and they actually like you and like working there. And it's very cost-effective.
I mean, literally just being nice to people.
And the other aspect is not every company is doing something that let's say we can perceive as we're helping save the world. Let's say you work at a company that makes kidney dialysis machines or cardiac monitors. When I work in this company, we have all these installations, we're saving thousands of lives. It's incredible. I'm so happy to be there, et cetera.
If you're making a widget for something that you can't even identify with or know exactly what it does, you know, it's that in and of itself can be sort of, God, what am I doing? Why am I doing this every day? I don't want to just work for a paycheck. I want to do something useful.
But imagine if the company realizes this and they say, listen, you know, we want you to know our company believes in humanity and we're going to do something to help humanity. Let's as a company figure out, let's say four or five projects that we can engage each of you in. We're going to give you a certain amount of time every month to volunteer, and we're going to bring the company together to help solve this crisis and raise money. And for every dollar you may donate or raise, we'll match it with another dollar.
Well, how inspiring is that, right? And then you look at it a different way. It's not about coming to work. It's about we have a community of people who are dedicated to improving the world. Yes, we have to work, but we're taking what we make from that work to be of benefit to society because fundamentally, what makes us happy is human connection, a vision bigger than ourselves, connecting to something that's inspiring. And if the workplace can create that for you, it's fantastic and it benefits the workplace. And again, at very, very low cost.
The Argument for Compassion in the Workplace
Siobhan: I'm listening to you and I'm reminded of something that came up when you and I spoke earlier. In the last few years, I've spoken to a number of employee experience leaders in their companies who went on a sort of roller coaster ride where it was like during the pandemic, they were like, Yes, pursue these things. This is great. We care about employees. We worry about employee well-being. We worry about employee happiness.
And then in the last year and a half, it's more show us the ROI, show us the return on these investments. And I'm wondering what kind of argument you could provide these people. You've talked about the healthcare costs, et cetera. I mean, are there any resources that you would point people to, to argue for this?
Jim: There's a whole variety of resources and papers published that have looked at this and they're readily available. So yes, the research clearly shows.
I'll give you an example from a few years ago, there was a guy who's, I can't remember his first name, his last name was Carnes, but he worked for a large multinational company based in the Australia area. And they did a 360 review, which I'm sure you're familiar with, right? So he got the assessment and was interested in what they thought of him, right? And so they said, well, to be honest with you, you know, we've been doing this for X number of years and you are the worst boss we have ever interviewed, seen, and no one likes you basically.
And it's funny because he comes home and he tells his wife this. He goes, and again, this would be a typical reaction, You know, this thing happened at work and these jackasses, you know, they said I was the most horrible boss and you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, what do you think of that? I'm thinking of just firing them.
And she looks at him and she says, they're right.
And he goes, Why haven't you told me that?
And she said, I've told it to you repeatedly, but you don't listen.
And so he finally got the message. Over the next two years, he went into a deep self exploration with the help of people and changed completely how he ran the company because the way he was running the company was because of his own fear and anxiety. And he believed that using fear as a motivator would get him what he wanted and it will get you improvement on the short term, but sustainable improvement, it will not get you. And as you know, unfortunately, in the nature of public companies with quarterly requirements and frankly, a selfish motive, they're not interested in long term improvement. They're interested in getting their bonus, knowing that they're not going to necessarily be there that long. So they'll manipulate the system through whatever method to maximize to their own benefit, not necessarily caring what happens in the future.
I won't say that was his motive, but my point is that once he went through this exploration, everything changed. He realized how he interacted with people. He changed that. He was much more thoughtful in terms of interacting with people. I'm sure you've been at meetings where you may have a guy who walks in and he says, You know, it's so great to see you guys. You are the people responsible for our success. I'm so thankful that you're part of this company. And I just wanted to tell you that because you've done such a great job and I'm going to give you a two week vacation or some massive bonus, right?
Versus another person coming and say, look, you guys are barely making. Yeah, we got good numbers. We need to get better. And if you don't get better, you're going to get your ass fired. And we're going to start now implementing things. Let's say we'll monitor your computer, see every keystroke, because we don't trust you because we think you're fooling around and wasting time, right?
Well, how are you going to respond? I mean, who would want to be with that person who doesn't trust you, who diminishes you, doesn't demonstrate any respect for your dignity as a human being? Nobody wants that.
Siobhan: And what kind of results will you have from those employees? Like what kind of product will they deliver you in those circumstances?
Jim: Yeah, and they will start not caring. And again, if you have engaged and employed through kindness and respect, they will work harder than what you can ever pay them because they're fully engaged and they're happy versus sitting there going, well, I don't really care whether I get my thing done. I'm going to do the minimal I have to do to survive here because they're not treating me well.
The Science of Well-being and Happiness
Siobhan: Part of the reason why I gave your extensive bio at the beginning of this episode is because I think so often people think of a lot of these topics like happiness, wellbeing, et cetera, as sort of woo woo. And as you said, you don't do woo woo.
Jim: Exactly. Right. Yeah, I am not interested in woo woo. And you know, it's or I'm interested in science and the science is there. And that's what we should look like or look at. You know, although it is interesting, we've elevated the level of opinion to be equivalent to science sometimes. Right.
My point is that you have to look at the science and you know praying over crystals is not going to improve things.
Siobhan: I think we'll just leave it at that. Praying over crystals isn't going to solve things. I really want to thank you for joining us today. This was a fun conversation.
Jim: Let me preface this though, because I will say, if you believe something enough, you can have a physiologic change, but it's not because of the crystal. It's because of you actually changing how your brain responds to something. So there is nothing outside of you that is doing this. This is inside of you. You can call it what you want, but the reality is you've made that decision. It has nothing to do with a crystal.
Siobhan: We will definitely be linking to your latest book, which goes deep into that topic and about the plasticity of our brains. But thank you again, Dr. Doty, Jim, for joining us. It's been a real pleasure.
Jim: Yes, thank you. You take care. And hopefully our paths will cross again soon.
Siobhan: That would be wonderful.
Until Next Time ...
Siobhan: Thank you for joining me once again on Get Reworked.
If you have a suggestion or a topic for a future conversation, I'm all ears. Please drop me a line at [email protected]. Additionally, if you liked what you heard, please share Get Reworked with anyone you think might benefit from these types of conversations — word of mouth marketing is the best marketing anyone could ask for. You can find more coverage of related topics on reworked.co. Thank you again for exploring the revolution of work with me, and I'll see you next time..
