The Secret To Loving Your Work with Bruce Daisley | E66

Bruce Daisley joins Steven Bartlett to dissect what makes work enjoyable or miserable in the new remote, Zoom-centric era. He argues that the energy, camaraderie and 'collective effervescence' of being around people is what people miss most, and that loneliness and lack of control drive burnout. The conversation covers the science of creativity (the brain's default mode network and why ideas come in the shower), how to design a healthy 100-person company, and when to quit a job. It closes on the surprising link between childhood trauma and elite achievement, and Daisley's insider view, as a former Twitter executive, on Donald Trump's permanent ban from the platform.

• Bartlett reveals his company Social Chain lost its largest-ever number of employees, by a factor of ten, in the month around his September departure as remote work stripped away community.
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• During lockdown the average person worked roughly an extra 45 minutes a day, on top of a working day that has grown by two hours over the last decade.
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• Researcher Julianne Holt-Lunstad's work suggests loneliness has a health impact equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, worse than obesity.
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• The Great British Medalist study found super-elite athletes (Kelly Holmes, Tom Daley, Andy Murray) shared significant childhood trauma that elite-but-not-champion athletes lacked.
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• As a former Twitter VP who personally knows Jack Dorsey, Daisley says deplatforming Trump weighed heavily on the team and he believes it was the right, carefully-made decision.
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• Daisley says he would have temporarily suspended Trump's account (the Facebook approach) and had Twitter staff open a direct dialogue with Trump's team rather than impose a permanent ban.
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• Daisley predicts Facebook and Google will be broken up within five years, with WhatsApp or Instagram sold off and YouTube likely spun out of Google.
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• A roughly 70-year Yale study cited at the open concludes the secret to longevity and happiness is love and friendship, which Daisley ties directly to work.
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• The World Health Organization formally recognizes burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion and 'depersonalization,' where you stop seeing others as full empathetic individuals.
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• Barack Obama reportedly never chose his own lunch in eight years and Einstein wore the same outfit daily, both to avoid draining mental energy on micro-decisions.
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• In an Oxford rowing study, rowers who rowed in sync as a team had endorphin levels twice as high as those who rowed alone, despite doing equal exercise.
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• Getting strangers off the street to sing ABBA songs together leaves them feeling utterly elated, showing connection itself elevates mood.
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• Neuroscientists describe three cognition systems: the executive attention network (focus), the salience network (awareness of surroundings), and the default network (daydreaming, where creativity sparks).
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• Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin installed a shower in his office and takes up to eight showers a day because disengaging his brain is when ideas arrive.
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• Charles Dickens wrote roughly 15 novels and 200 short stories, writing each morning then walking 10 miles every afternoon to let ideas ferment.
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• Gallup's global workforce survey finds only about 13% of people are engaged at work, while around 22% are actively disengaged and want their employer to fail.
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• When Americans are asked how many people they can turn to in a crisis, the median answer has fallen from about three a couple of decades ago to zero.
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