- Kirsty Hulse burned out as the head of a marketing company.
- She now coaches people on how to find joy in their work.
- Hulse advises integrating play and finding the places where you do your best thinking.
Staring out the window might not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about boosting productivity.
Kirsty Hulse, a motivational speaker and workplace coach, thinks it can actually help us find joy and creativity in our work.
The author of "Don't Swear at Work: The Rule Breakers' Guide to Workplace Brilliance" said she often tells people that gazing into space is a valuable use of their time.
"People always laugh," she told Business Insider. "Isn't it radical that that's funny? We're so conditioned to think that thinking isn't valuable, that it's funny even as a concept."
There's a limit, of course, but if your brain is encouraging you to look out the window for a while, it's wise to take heed, Hulse said.
"Your brain is like a snow globe. If you shake up a snow globe, it's so noisy, and then it will start to slowly settle — and we need a settled snow globe in order to be able to solve problems."
Burned-out girlboss
Hulse's first business was a large marketing agency, which she started aged 26.
From the outside, she was immensely successful, landing huge clients such as Virgin Atlantic and IBM, opening offices in London and San Francisco, and expanding her team.
However, in her late 20s she started experiencing severe chest pains. After some tests, doctors concluded her heart was fine, but she was having panic attacks.
Hulse, a millennial, grew up in the "girlboss" era, when hard work and success were prioritized over everything else.
"I thought I was handling it," she said. "I was strong in resilience and all those things that women are conditioned to be, but my body was giving me all of these subtle cues."
Hulse realized she needed a change, so she pivoted to learning everything she could about the neuroscience of success and work and what makes us productive beings.
Now, she's a confidence coach who trains people at top companies, including LinkedIn, Amazon, and Spotify, to be more confident and how workplaces should be structured to bring out the best in people.
Here's her top advice:
1. Don't ignore your emotions
Hulse said many workplaces are still operating like they did in the 1950s, when emotions weren't as welcome.
She said that prioritizing intellectual rigour over our own personalities is not how humans naturally operate, leaving many people feeling like they're not themselves at work, or developing impostor syndrome.
"If we feel as though we have to have some kind of personality transplant and suddenly be this serious, robust professional, it gets in our head," Hulse said. "We're emotional beings. We make emotional decisions, emotional choices."
In the era of AI, Hulse thinks soft skills will help workers stand out.
2. Find out what play looks like for you
Hulse said the opposite of play isn't work; it's depression. Play is a need "as much as food and water."
She often asks what people liked doing for fun when they were little, like running in the forest or playing board games. "Then I ask them the question 'how can you connect that more to your work?' There's nearly always actually a clear path," Hulse said.
It could be an hour a week spent taking a pottery class, painting, playing the guitar, taking a yoga class, or going for a run. "Something that you love that truly fuels your creativity and fulfillment."
3. Work out where you do your best thinking
Instead of worrying about the perception of working hard or being performatively busy, Hulse recommends working out where you do your best thinking: "We're paid for our thoughts, we're paid for our thinking."
Hulse said people often tell her the best place is in the shower, which may be because "innovation is neurologically quiet." Staring out the window has a similar effect.
"We are coming up with cool stuff all the time, but when your brain is going fast and you're doing tasks and you're ticking things off your to-do list, you will never be able to hear your innovative ideas," she said.
"It's not that we have our best ideas in the shower, it's that that's the only time you can hear them."
