About Dr. Tracy Brower, PhD, MM, MCRW:
Dr. Tracy Brower is a PhD sociologist studying work-life fulfillment and happiness. She is the author of a new book, The Secrets to Happiness at Work as well as her previous book, Bring Work to Life. She is the Vice President of Workplace Insight for Steelcase and a contributor to Forbes.com and Fast Company. Tracy’s work has been translated into 17 languages and she is an award-winning speaker with over 25 years of experience working with global clients to achieve business results.
Tracy is on the board of the United Way of Greater Ottawa County and on the executive council of the Design Museum Everywhere. In addition, she is an executive advisor to Like|Minded, Coda Societies and to the MSU Master Industrial Mathematics Program. Tracy’s work has been featured in TEDx, The Wall Street Journal, Work-Life Balance in the 21st Century (book), Globe and Mail (Canada), InsideHR (Australia), HR Director (UK), T3N (Germany), Real Estate Review Journal, Fortune.com, Inc. Magazine, HBR (France) and more. Tracy holds a PhD in Sociology, a Master of Management in Organizational Culture, and a Master of Corporate Real Estate with a workplace specialization.
Episode Notes:
Dr. Laura welcomes sociologist, author, and thought leader Tracy Brower to the show to talk about happiness and work, and why those two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. There is an incredible amount of research on happiness, as Tracy discovered when writing her latest book, The Secrets to Happiness at Work. She shares why she was compelled to write it and some of what she learned along the way.
Tracy acknowledges that a lot of times we hear that “happiness is fluffy.” On the contrary, she has found that happiness, and joy, are the drivers of physical and mental health, cognitive capability, and business benefits. She and Dr. Laura explore the ways in which work and life spill over into each other and how happiness in either one will tend to increase happiness in the other. Community, common goals, and our relationship to work are all places where happiness can be cultivated. Tracy’s insights on joy in work are more relevant than ever in our post-pandemic society.
“The other thing we can do in terms of creating the conditions for happiness at work is looking for opportunities to grow, to learn, to stretch. When we’re doing things that challenge us, it’s extraordinarily correlated with happiness.” Tracy Brower
Resources:
- Tracy Brower website
- Tracy Brower on LinkedIn
- “The Secrets to Happiness at Work” by Tracy Brower
- “Bring Work to Life by Bringing Life to Work” by Tracy Brower
- “Spark” by John J. Ratey MD
- “Friends” by Robin Dunbar
Learn more about Dr. Laura on her website: https://drlaura.live
For more resources, look into Dr. Laura’s organizations:
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