We don’t want to jinx it — we reallllllllly don’t — but it seems like the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes are working. Year-over-year inflation for October was down to 7.7%, lower than expected and a significant breather from June’s 9.1% figure.

Investors were thrilled, giving the S&P 500 its best day in years. With slowing inflation, consumers should have more disposable income for holiday shopping, travel, and everyday essentials.

So hats off to Fed Chair Jerome Powell, for he’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny. (Please don’t celebrate by printing a couple trillion dollars.)

Big Feelings: Why emotions belong in the workplace.

Tech Stack: Apps that power the Liz and Mollie brand.

Psychologist: Forcing positivity has a negative cost.

Three billion. That’s how many soccer fans worldwide are expected to watch FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™, hosting games almost every day from the November 20 kickoff to the December 18 final.

If you own a sports bar or restaurant, you can bet that your customers will want to watch those games all month with a bunch of fellow fans — a beer in hand and flags painted across their faces — instead of sitting home alone on the couch. If any sports event is meant to be experienced in a crowd, it’s FIFA World Cup™.

And DIRECTV for BUSINESS will bring it to your establishment in crystal-clear HD.

England vs. USA … Netherlands vs. Ecuador… Argentina vs. Mexico. All FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ matches air live on FOX and FS1 with DIRECTV for BUSINESS. So, make your customers’ dreams come true and don’t miss any of the excitement yourself.

You probably can’t fit all 3 billion FIFA World Cup™ fans into your bar or restaurant, but with DIRECTV for BUSINESS, you’ll be that much closer to scoring your business goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaals.

More likely than not, you’ve once had a bad enough day at the office for your emotions to bleed through into your meetings. Or maybe you’ve heard an employee sobbing from their cubicle. Awkward, right?

Traditionally, Americans have been expected to leave their feelings at the office door. But with anxiety and depression skyrocketing in a post-COVID-19 world — and the majority of U.S. workers feeling daily stress, according to Gallup — it’s important for businesses to destigmatize mental health issues.

That’s why Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy (known to their 525,000 Instagram followers as simply Liz and Mollie) wrote Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay. They’ve also led workshops and given talks on company culture at Google, NPR, LinkedIn, Spotify, and more. The duo answered b.’s questions together by email.

b.: Between inflation, cutbacks, and the Great Resignation, how can workers navigate their emotions during this strange economic time?

Liz and Mollie: We’ve heard from many teams and leaders that they’re contending with high levels of uncertainty. When people talk about uncertainty, it’s often really about the anxiety it produces. As a leader, it’s important to know that people’s tolerance for uncertainty varies …

We created a short uncertainty assessment to help people evaluate their tolerance. There are three types of people: uncertainty seekers, uncertainty balancers, and uncertainty avoiders. Understanding your tendency — and the tendencies of those around you — can help you make better decisions … and allow others to communicate with you more effectively.

b: As a culture, where do you think we are now in terms of accepting emotions in the workplace?

Liz and Mollie: The pandemic has made it more socially acceptable to talk about feelings because we’ve shattered the divide between work and home. Employees at even the most buttoned-up corporations now tell us: “Yes, I’m bringing my emotions to work — and so are my [direct] reports.”

When we lead workshops, many participants say that they find it frustrating and demotivating when their organizations or leaders don’t acknowledge this shift that has taken place. We’ve written about how leaders can no longer continue to act like things are business as usual.  

People want their leaders to be authentic and vulnerable. Though of course, there’s a balance between sharing too little and oversharing.

b.: What inspired you to tackle this topic in Big Feelings?

Liz and Mollie: We pitched a book about dealing with difficult emotions to our editors at Penguin in January 2020, pre-pandemic. And they essentially said, “It’s kind of a depressing book. What’s the audience for this?” Then the pandemic hit in March, and … Penguin came back and said, “You know that book about really hard stuff? We think we're ready to buy.”

Big Feelings is available in bookstores now.

• “For our newsletter, we use ConvertKit.”
• “For our assessments, we use Typeform.”
• “Mollie loves Readwise for tracking notes she’s taken on her Kindle.”
• “For her illustrations, Liz uses a Wacom tablet and Adobe Illustrator.”
• “And we both use Calendly!”

(Source: Shutterstock)

Dr. Eden King is a Rice University professor of psychology and former president of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

When you woke up this morning and looked out the window, was it warm and sunny or cold and gray? How was your mood? Chances are, the two were linked; our moods tend to improve with the weather.

But what if the weather is crummy — or you’re facing stressful job conditions like time pressure or safety hazards — and you need to act happy for work anyway?

Positive and Negative Moods Aren’t So Simple

Research indicates that our feelings can be broken down into positive and negative affect. When you are high in positive affect, you might feel enthusiastic, energetic, proud, and attentive. When you are high in negative affect, you might feel distressed or disengaged and experience anger, fear, or guilt.

So, positive affect leads to positive outcomes and negative affect leads to negative ones, right? Not necessarily. There are two important caveats:

• Positive feelings tend to broaden attention whereas negative ones narrow it. So, for tasks that require brainstorming and visioning, positive affect may be helpful. But for tasks that require focus and critical analysis, negative affect may actually help more.
• Sometimes people act as if they’re in a good mood when they are actually in a bad one. In fact, certain jobs (like sales or customer service positions) require this. People who have to hide or fake their feelings at work report more emotional exhaustion and psychological strain, and less job satisfaction and commitment. 

Managing Employees, Managing Emotions

Workers are going to feel all kinds of feelings. Though it’s generally a good idea to maximize the positive ones, it’s also okay (and even productive) to have negative ones in some situations.

Mandating superficial cheerfulness can ironically foster inner turmoil, creating the opposite effect on office morale than intended. It can be very helpful to reduce the amount of fake-feeling that is required on any given day — for your workers’ well-being and your company’s.

With the holidays coming up and plenty of cheer to go around soon, we’re preparing ourselves by taking it easy this weekend. But we’re still cracking open a St. Agrestis Phony Negroni.

This Brooklyn-based amaro maker uses their mastery of botanicals to recreate the classic gin and Campari cocktail — with its expected autumnal bitterness. Yet, it completely lacks alcohol. A light carbonation gives added bite to its juniper, citrus, and floral notes.

Written by Carolyn Neuhausen and Aaron Goldfarb. Comic by John McNamee.

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