4 lessons in empathy from Ted Lasso with Mark Mohammadpour, CEO of Chasing the Sun

In this episode, Mark Mohammadpour, CEO of Chasing the Sun, joins host Jason Mudd to discuss four lessons of empathy taken from the hit TV series “Ted Lasso.” Mark refers to four lessons we can learn from the series and tips for implementing these lessons into your work and work environment. 

Tune in to learn more!

Watch the episode here

5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:

1. Four lessons of empathy from Ted Lasso
2. What toxic positivity is
3. How to implement empathetic practices for employees
4. How to implement empathetic practices for clients
5. How to change your actions to suit your employees and clients better

Resources

• Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR podcast
• Find out more about Axia Public Relations
• Find Mark Mohammadpour on Twitter
• Connect and learn more about Mark Mohammadpour on LinkedIn 
• Visit Chasing the Sun for more information. 
• Contact Mark at mark@chasingthesunpdx.com. 
• Lessons in Empathy from ‘Ted Lasso’
• Microsoft virtual meeting data
• The Predictive Index personality test

Additional Resources from Axia Public Relations:

• The value of listening and empathy in PR

Highlights

[03:43] Lesson 1: Communicate the understanding of another person's emotions

• Keely, the PR manager in “Ted Lasso,” struggled to tell her boss that she was leaving her job, something many of us struggle with.
• Higgins, an admin within the club’s organization, gave Keely this piece of advice: “A good mentor hopes you'll move on; a great mentor knows you'll move on.”
• How your boss reacts or how you react as the boss to this news will determine the future of this relationship. 

Mark: “As leaders, we know that our good employees are going to move on. How we respond to it is what's most important.”

• Leave with grace. 

Mark: “The way that you are communicating that you're leaving is going to have an impact on not only a direct manager but the rest of the organization.”

• However, don’t lose the thirst for learning even as a senior-level professional. 

[10:01] Lesson 2: Recognize the emotions in another person

• The coach gave a tough speech to the players in the locker room. 
• PR pros need to be mentally and physically strong in order to lead. 
• Constant virtual meetings increase stress and anxiety, which impairs our mental strength and makes it harder to be empathetic.  
• Due to Parkinson’s law, you can cut meetings in half, which will also cut down on meeting fatigue.

[14:14] Lesson 3: Stay out of judgment

• The previous owner of the soccer team in “Ted Lasso” didn’t know much about Ted but challenged him to a game of darts, thinking Ted would lose. Ted ended up winning.
• People make judgments within approximately 27 seconds.
• As PR pros, we need to try to not judge clients right away, as you don’t know the stresses or circumstances they are under. Get to know them first. 

Jason: “It's hard to have empathy when you're tired. Understand where your employees or clients are coming from.”

Jason: “It's all about taking care of yourself so you can take care of others, and the way you take care of others is showing love and empathy for them and understanding their situation.”

[18:09] Lesson 4: Take perspective

• In “Ted Lasso” there are two teammates who don’t really like each other. Iin one scene one of them is in the locker room crying due to a serious family issue, and the room is quiet and full of players and staff. The other player, who doesn’t like the crying player, realizes how sad their teammate is, recognizes they just need a hug, and gives it to them.
• As PR pros, our job is to solve problems, but sometimes we don’t take that beat to recognize what’s going on in the room.
• Toxic positivity is the idea that we are constantly trying to put Band-Aids over how people are feeling because we care, but it could have the reverse impact.
• Sometimes it's important to establish “Who do you want me to be in this conversation?”
• A listener
• A problem-solver
• Advice
• Personality tests can help you identify issues you might have when conducting empathy.

Jason: “Some of the smartest things people can do is stop thinking about how to best communicate and figure out how their audience best prefers to be communicated to, and then shift their style or their technology, their tools, their process, and go do that.”

[27:17] Mark’s wellness services

• Works with agencies and teams to create transparency across the organization to reduce stress and anxiety
• Also works with HR teams to strategically communicate existing benefits to employees 

About Mark Mohammadpour

Mark Mohammadpour is the founder and chief well-being officer at Chasing the Sun. After spending his public relations career as an executive at several well-known PR agencies and losing and keeping off 150 pounds over the last decade, Mark launched Chasing the Sun to empower PR professionals to prioritize their well-being so they can shine in the family room and the board room.

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Transcript

- Hello, and welcome to On Top of PR. I'm your host, Jason Mudd, and today we're talking about four lessons in empathy from "Ted Lasso" with Mark Mohammadpour. Welcome to the show, Mark. We're so glad you're here.

- Jason, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.

- Well, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad to be here personally. Mark, I'll just tell our audience that we actually just met a couple days ago at a Public Relations Society of America conference in Scottsdale. And we had already had you kind of lined up to speak at the show actually, based on seeing an article that you wrote for PRSA. And so it was great to get to know you and spend a little bit of time with you in Scottsdale. And here we are. I don't know about you, but I just got back from that trip yesterday, and I think you did too. And here we are recording an episode together. So Mark, thank you for joining us. Let me just kind of share your short bio, and then I'll let you, we'll just get into this Q&A, which I think is going to be a really exciting conversation here. So, Mark is the owner and chief well-being officer at Chasing The Sun – after spending his public relations career as an executive at some of the top global PR agencies and after losing and keeping off 150 pounds over the last decade, congratulations.

- Thank you.

- Mark launched Chasing the Sun to empower public relations leaders to prioritize their well-being as well as their employees’ well-being so that they might shine in the family room in addition to the boardroom. Mark, thank you for being here. So what caught my attention was your article in PRSA's strategy and tactics publication because I'm a "Ted Lasso" fan and really enjoy that show. And I love your sweater you've got here. For those that are tuning into the videocast as opposed to the audio only, it looks like Mark's wearing a "Ted Lasso" team sweater there. I don't remember the name of the team, but you're wearing the sweater. So what is it?

- It's AFC Richmond. It's the team name.

- OK right, right, yeah. So anyway, yeah, I've really enjoyed watching that show. It's cute. It's a little too vulgar to show to my kids, but they like soccer and I think they would've liked it also. But anyway, so the headline, the "Ted Lasso" thing really caught my eye and we're always, I think as PR professionals, I don't think it's possible for us to talk about empathy too much or too often. And I think that's one area we could be improving upon is just writing with empathy and communicating with empathy and using empathy as a way to draw in and relate to our audience. You know, one of the biggest mistakes I see in PR – and then I'll get off my soapbox – is that we focus on sending and distributing company-focused communications instead of audience communications. And one of the most powerful ways to be audience-focused is to …  not only make them the subject of your communication but then doing so by focusing on empathy and your storytelling, and empathy and how you communicate and relate to them. And so I hope our audience will not only tune into this episode, Mark and learn from it, but I hope they'll share it with their colleagues and peers so that they might help them not only lead with empathy but have empathy in their own communication. So Mark, how does that sound for setting the table of high expectations for our short time together?

- That sounds great. Let's get going.

- OK, let's get going. So the four lessons and empathy from "Ted Lasso" – let's start with the first one.

- So I pulled this – the four different types – from other sources, and I've looked at the types and applied them to "Ted Lasso," but even more important for us: How does it apply to us as PR professionals? So the first is communicating the understanding of another person's emotions. And when I was thinking about this and I was looking at "Ted Lasso" and thinking about our own industry, we have gone through such significant change, Jason, and redefining what we do but also our relationship with our employees. Whether you are an in-house or agency side, we are all examining … the relationships that we have. And as such, employees are looking to new jobs and new opportunities as we have had to adjust in our society. Keely, a character on the show, the PR manager, is nervous to tell her boss, the owner of the club – which, first of all, I love that the PR manager reports directly to the owner. I feel like that should happen in the case of all organizations, but Keely is nervous to tell her boss that she's leaving. She's worried about what her boss is going to say. And we all experience this. We experience this as we are about to tell our bosses and our managers that we're leaving. At the same time, that moment that we communicate this change and their reaction is going to impact the future of that relationship forever. We've seen it. If we tell our boss or manager that we're leaving and they might say, "Oh my gosh, you're really letting me down. I can't believe he did this to me." The impact that has is going to be very different than when [they] say, "Thank you for letting me know. I respect and understand your decision, and I look forward to working with [you] in the future." Something that's very professional and very caring-

- Right.

- Because we are nervous about telling our managers about this. Keely had that exact same issue, and she spoke with Higgins, who was an administrator in the organization. And I don't, I'm trying [not] to give too many spoilers, but his advice is essentially a good mentor hopes you'll move on; a great mentor knows you'll move on. Essentially the note, the idea that as leaders, we know that our good employees are going to move on. How we respond to it is what's most important. And that's something I think really applies to our industry today.

- Well, you know what? You're reminding me of the show because it's been a while since I've seen it and I love it so much and you're explaining it well. I don't think we have to worry about spoilers because you know, the communications is certainly not the focus of the plot but surely, you know, mentioned Keely having this conversation. You know, maybe that's a spoiler that people might think she's leaving or whatever, but at the end of the day, you know we're not revealing any major plot secrets – at least I don't think we are. But we do this thing for our show On Top of PR where we take a quotable, something you said during the interview and we turn that quotable into social media posts and things like that. I think that quote from Higgins would make a really good social media post, you know, and a quotable here even though it's you quoting Higgins, obviously, but no, I love that. And that yes, a mentor realizes that people are going to leave the nest and you want to kind of encourage that. And I can tell you that there are people who have worked for us, who have interned for me, even interned for me before I started this agency who then come back as a client, you know later and it's based on the way, obviously, that you treat them. And if you really loved an employee and you valued an employee, then you want to keep that relationship open. I would imagine you're the expert here, so that they might come back to you like a boomerang. So they're like, man, the grass is not greener or hey, I'm glad I got this experience. But now that I worked in that industry, I want to get back to the industry I used to be in. And man, so-and-so was a great leader or a great mentor to me, and I want to be under that mentoring again.

- Absolutely. And the message is also delivered to new professionals. When I speak with college students to new professionals all the time, one of the things I talk to them about is making sure that you're leaving with grace. That the way that you are communicating that you're leaving is going to have an impact on not only a direct manager but the rest of the organization. And that's really key. That is so important today when we sometimes have this perspective that we can just come up and leave and go to the next and leave everything else behind us. I want to make sure that we are leaving a good legacy. And it's that last moment, those last couple weeks that are really going to have an impact on that relationship going forward. So it's not just leaders. It's also a message that I'm sharing to college students and new professionals.

- You know, raise a good point. One piece of advice that I've heard someone else give that I've borrowed to young professionals, or entry-level professionals I should say – that's the more politically correct term or more empathetic term – is this idea that you want to go work where you're going to get the most training, right, where you're going to get the most education and the most, kind of – they're going to take you under their wing, and they're going to help you through your career. And I've had people say, gosh, I've been in college for four years, haven't I learned enough? And I'm like, the learning's just beginning. And you know, the most successful people in this world in my opinion are lifetime learners. And I know people are really smart and really talented, but they don't have an interest in learning more and continuing to learn, and I think that really impacts their career and their success. They may be successful, their company may be growing, their career might be expanding, but imagine how much more it could grow and how much more impact they could have on the industry and on their own brand if they were constantly learning. So for those that might be tuning in that are you know, entry-level professionals or even senior-level professionals, “don't lose that thirst for learning” would be one of the lessons of leadership and growth and development from Jason Mudd. So Mark, what is the second tip for lessons in empathy from "Ted Lasso"?

- Yeah, so we talk about communicating the understanding of emotion. Now let's talk about recognizing the emotions in another person. This is really about reading the room, virtual or in person or otherwise. And-

- Right.

- There are a number of great scenes from "Ted Lasso." There's a great post-game speech that Ted gives after a very difficult loss that is impacting the future of the club and just reading the room and very, very sad faces. And he delivers a great speech that really is impactful about really reading the room and understanding where they're at. To me, we have to be mentally and physically strong as PR professionals in order to lead. And when I think about what we need to do to be mentally and physically strong, we need to make sure that we're taking care of ourselves. And we can talk all day about what that means, but really I want to focus in on is meetings. We're in a lot of meetings, Jason, and when I give workshops and host discussions, I always ask, “On average, how many meetings are we in?” And a lot of people are, say, 10 a week, 15 a week, 20 a week. And then I ask, especially in the last couple years in this hybrid, remote-work era, how many are on video? And the number is still significant. There's recent data from Microsoft, Jason, that shows that the more back-to-back video calls we're on without a break, our stress and anxiety levels spike significantly. And I think when we do that, we're not at our best physically, we're not at our best mentally. And I think the opportunity for us to read the virtual room and understand the emotions in others, it impacts us, and we need to be mentally, physically strong in order to do that and to be more empathetic.

- Mark, I totally agree with you. I would like you to make sure that you send me, because I heard you say that at the conference. So send me a link, please, to that report so we can include it in the episode notes, then the people who are tuning in here as they tune in, they can hit our episode notes and then have a link to go to this resource. They probably want to take it to their leadership team, they probably want to share it with their boss or their colleagues. I know I would, for sure. And before we jump into our break, I want to just throw out a little hack or tip that I picked up years ago, and that is when you begin to feel meeting-fatigue, either propose to your leader or your supervisor or as the leader, what we did years ago is we took all of our meetings, all of our standing meetings, and we cut their time in half. So we said this 90-minute meeting is now 45-minute meeting. This … one-hour meeting is now going to be 30 minutes moving forward. And everyone loved that. It was very popular, and you know, what is it? Parkinson's law, the more time you have for something the more it expands, right? And so suddenly we went from meetings that were you know, really long and drawn out, even though they were only an hour, right? Because people felt like we had a whole hour to, suddenly, they were 30 minutes, so people were talking faster, getting through things faster, interrupting less, and all of a sudden those meetings went well. So that's just kind of a little pro tip that I would highly recognize or highly recommend. In fact, somebody at the conference was talking to me about that, and I said, here's what we did and maybe it'll work for you. So with that, we're going to take a quick break and come back on the other side with more On Top of PR.

- [Narrator] You're listening to On Top of PR with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted adviser to some of America's most-admired and fastest-growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social, and web strategies for national companies. And now, back to the show.

- Well welcome back to On Top of PR, I'm your host, Jason Mudd, and we're continuing to talk about four lessons in empathy from "Ted Lasso." We're joined by Mark, who's doing an outstanding job sharing these. For our loyal audience, you may have noticed we don't normally break right in the middle of the listicle, but today we were on top of it and able to do that, so I'm kind of proud of that, kind of excited about this topic and continuing. So with that, Mark, welcome back. And the third lesson from "Ted Lasso" is?

- Staying out of judgment. This is difficult for us when we are meeting somebody for the first time or ruling about something new, we can learn it, we can make judgments very quickly. In fact, recent research by Dollar Shave Club, who is doing a dating-related study, said that people make judgments within 27 seconds. And depending on the source, that can be even shorter, can be a little bit longer. But the reality is that we make judgments very, very quickly. And this happened in "Ted Lasso." Ted Lasso is an American football coach who has moved to England to coach soccer. And there's so many jokes related to that as far as an American coming over and coaching a completely different sport to a completely different country. And the previous owner of the club didn't really know enough about Ted and challenged him to a game of darts. And Ted actually knew how to play darts very, very well. And in front of an entire crowd at a bar won. And that was in part because the owner thought that he knew everything he needed to know to be able to win. And this happens a lot with us, and it's important for us as PR professionals to make sure that we're taking a beat when we are connecting with somebody, when we're meeting with our directs, when we're meeting with our clients and our stakeholders, and really getting a sense as far as where they're at. And that comes with a little bit of research. And especially if you're working with companies and you're meeting with clients, making sure that we're aware of the news that's going on with them, maybe related to finance, maybe related to other factors that might be impacting how they're feeling at the moment because not all of us are perhaps doing earned media work as part of our work with our clients. Some of us might be doing other things. And so just keeping a beat on that I think is really, really important. And especially in this time, Jason, when we're working remotely. We have been invited to each other's homes, you know, literally and figuratively. And I think that has given us a sense of vulnerability that we haven't had before.

- Right.

- And a lot of us have adjusted well, but it's also acknowledging that it's still an adjustment, is always going to be an adjustment for us. And the more that we can give ourselves a beat or two and really get to know people as much as possible before we make judgments, the better. And so that's the third type of empathy.

- Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. The other thing I would say is it's hard to have empathy when you're tired, and I've learned that this week from my trip. I was socializing way too late and then flew back to my local time and hardly got any sleep that night, the night before, with the flight. And now I've noticed for the last couple days I've been a little short with people in a way that I haven't been short with people in a while. And I think it's just because of the lack of sleep. So it's all about; I think you’ve got to take care of yourself first, right, before you can take care of others. And I was just reminding a friend of mine about that earlier this morning. And so yeah, I mean I think all this really makes sense and it's all about, you know, taking care of yourself so you can take care of others, and the way you take care of others is showing, you know, love and empathy for them and understanding their situation. And like you said, I can tell you, yeah, it's uncomfortable and perhaps uneasy for some people to let you into their home, especially when you're a superior in their organization or something like that. And you know, can literally see someone is clearly working from their bedroom because there's their bed right behind you. And so you start to get to know a lot more about a person, both which can be, like you said, make them feel vulnerable and perhaps make it feel a little bit awkward as well. So that's a good tip. Mark, what's the fourth and final tip for our audience today?

- The last one is about perspective-taking, and there's a great scene in "Ted Lasso" where there are two players on the team who don't really like each other. And there's a scene in the locker room where one is crying because of a very serious family issue that has taken place. And the room is quiet, full of players and staff, and the other player who doesn't, they don't like each other, but the other player recognizes how sad they are and they just need a hug, and they walk up and they need a hug. They know what they need at that exact time. For us as PR professionals, we are always trying to solve problems. That's who we are, right? We're trusted advisers – we're here to solve problems and sometimes, again, we don't take that beat to really recognize what's going on in the room, virtual otherwise. And this happens when we're engaging with people who might be having a bad day. And we might say, because we want to help them out quickly. And Jason, if you're having a tough day, I say, Jason, just be appreciative for what you have. You have a great life, you have a company, you have a great house, great family. They might be saying Mark, that's not what I need right now. I just need you to listen to me. And that's a form of what's called toxic positivity. The idea that we are constantly just trying to help put Band-Aids over how people are feeling because we care, but it's going to actually … have the reverse impact. And this kind of comes back to reading the room, and so the idea is really looking at the perspective of others and really getting a sense of what they need. And sometimes that's peace and quiet, sometimes that's questions, but it it's ultimately trying to be where they're at, and that's the fourth one.

- And what did you call that? Toxic what?

- Toxic positivity.

- Yeah, toxic. I remember you talking about that at the conference. Can you give maybe a couple more examples of what toxic positivity is?

- It's also the idea that... That you... What's that phrase I'm trying to think of it? It's just very positive, like good vibes only. If we're having a conversation, Mark, I just only want good vibes only, I don't want to hear it. It might be working with a client or a colleague and they might be sick or their kids might be sick. And it might be saying, you know, we need to just appreciate what we have right now. Or if there's a family member who died or is very, very sick, it's saying, well, we should just appreciate the time that we had with them. That doesn't necessarily help us-

- Right.

- Right now. Good intentions.

- Right.

- But it's taking a step back and saying, OK, this is where they're in the moment. They don't need to hear those types of things.

- Hmm-mm, yeah.

- Let's be able to say, "This sucks. I'm really sorry to hear. What can I do?” Or proactively do something for them, get them food or-

- Right.

- Or something, but it's how we respond that's going to have an impact.

- Yeah, I picked up a tip from somebody, and I often will say, you know, who do you want me to be in this conversation, right? And I don't mean that to sound insensitive, I mean that to sound in a way where it's just like, do you need me to be a listener? Do you need me to do a problem solver? Do you need me to give you advice, do you want advice? You know, and that kind of thing. And so I've learned that specifically with my daughter because I've missed the cues, I haven't read the room, well, you said earlier that we're problem solvers. And when people ask me, what do I do for a living or what is PR? I explain them my personal definition of PR is being a great problem solver, a creative problem solver, and then communicating about that. And that's a unique view of what PR is, but I can get so task-focused according to my personality profile that I will not be at all people-focused, and that's not what I want to do ever, right? But I am very task-focused so my profile says, “I'll run people over to get the task done.” Then once the task is done, I'll be like, “Hey, how are you guys doing?” And then they're in the wake of the storm that I created, you know, running to into battle, if you will. So I have to be very conscious of that. And there's ways that I cope with that and ways that I can manage that, that are unique to me, and I think we all as PR people have to do that. And if you haven't done a personality assessment, I would definitely recommend to our audience that they do one. I personally like Predictive Index, and I can certainly introduce our audience to the person that I work with there who's a great coach and adviser, but I think if you don't do personality, you know, assessments for yourself and your team, you're really missing a strategic opportunity to be very reflective. And most people that do the personality profiles through our company, they're like, first of all, I'm spooked that you knew that much about me so quickly with such an easy process. But two, at least for me, it was very validating to say, OK, this is me, right? This is my behavior at work. And then the ability to there's little tips in there of how you like to be managed and how you like to be encouraged. And I learned that there are people on my team, Mark, and you appreciate this, that I was giving them public praise in public settings about their work. And then come to find out from reading their personality profile, they hate being recognized or brought attention to publicly and that I should just do private recognition for them. And so I went to someone, I said, hey, this is what your personality says, but I constantly give you praise in front of teams and intentionally do it in meetings. She's like, yeah, I hate it when you do that. Like it's really awkward to me. I go home crying sometimes, because I'm so embarrassed by it. So it had the opposite effect I ever thought it would have until I looked at this profile and I was able to discover that. So I'm sure you have similar experiences, Mark.

- Absolutely. And I think this is a part of the opportunity that we have, Jason, as leaders to work with our existing employees, but also discuss with prospective employees about how we can work together. And what you had talked about was incredible good intentions to be able to praise people but it's all part of again, how they're going to respond. And I talk a lot with companies about those unwritten rules and those unwritten ways in which we operate and work together. And especially in this hybrid model, this remote model, we may not really see each other in person. And so being able to have these dialogues in advance – and that's everything from how you like to receive praise or how you like to give praise to how we're going to work together day in and day out. What are our PTO calendars policies look like? Why do meetings need to be scheduled like you said? You're reducing those times from 90 minutes to 30 minutes, that's great. How much are we communicating, how we're operating together with prospective employees, and how we're differentiating ourselves as agencies and companies to other companies? And this is all a part of it. This is all about, we're helping read the room and helping to differentiate ourselves at the end of the day because really we're hiring people who want to join managers and companies. And we're also leaving companies and managers because of those individuals, and it's about the relationships and everything leading up to them.

- Very true. One more tip I'll share with our audience is that, you know, whether you're a supervisor or a leader, a manager or you're in a client service role, I think some of the smartest things people can do is stop thinking about how do I best communicate and figure out how does my audience best prefer to be communicated to, and then shift your style or your technology, your tools, your process, your go to do that. There was a time where a young professional or an entry-level professional in our organization, I overheard him talking to a client saying, you know, well, hey, I prefer to email, so I'll just email that to you. And I was like, err, I'm like, no. Like, you need to ask your client, how do you prefer to receive your information? And I'll pivot to send it to you the way you want to receive it. At the time, my motivation was not empathy. My motivation was “They're the client; take care of them,” right, which is still the same way. They're your employee, they're your coworker, they're your target audience, take care of them, right? And so that's just kind of my little interjection there of a tip that I would highly recommend is ask people, how do you prefer to receive information? How do you learn best? Let me accommodate your needs. So that's my tip there. Mark, I'm just going to say that after we had a dinner together at the conference, someone who is a client of yours, who I have a high respect for, was really just singing your praises and how much they benefited from working with you, both kind of a combination of being a career adviser but also the health and wellness and kind of keeping them focused on their mental well-being as well as their physical shape and I guess, diet, and exercise and things like that. I think you're offering a very unique service. So maybe just kind of describe a little bit of what that relationship looks like.

- Oh, that's very kind to hear that, and thank you for sharing that. When I launched the company, like when I launched Chasing the Sun a couple years ago, I started with one-on-one and group coaching, and I still offer that for a select number of clients. But most of my work was working with agency teams, in-house teams on various workshops and programs. And ultimately my goal is to really help drive transparency across the organization because ultimately I'm trying to help reduce stress and anxiety and help give people time to prioritize what they need to do. I think a lot of this comes down to interactive, real-time discussions, everything from how to prioritize your well-being as an individual, to what's the makeup of our team and how we are prioritizing our well-being as an organization. And that's what the opportunity to present earlier this week on in Scottsdale to how we're going to take paid time off because we do not take enough paid time off. There's data that suggests that we leave a whole week of PTO on the books every year, which has significant of mental, physical, and financial impact on ourselves and our companies. And also working with HR teams and internal communications teams on strategically communicating the existing benefits that are already available to your employees. When I speak with employees and employees a lot, and I always try to include call to actions to the existing benefits that those companies have, there's constantly questions from employees for more information about those benefits or links to URLs for more details. And so it shows me that there's an opportunity to partner as a consultant with those companies on how to strategically communicate that. So it's just been a wonderful journey over the last few years working with organizations to prioritize their well-being. And it's just the start of where Chasing the Sun is headed.

- Well, that's great. I really enjoyed this conversation, our other conversation as well. I've taken some good notes as we've talked today, especially just identifying this toxic positivity that I think people, as you mentioned, are very well-intended when they say it, right, but they may be lacking empathy or consideration for who their audience is and reading the room like we talked about. You know, do I think it's always fun when you can take a piece of pop culture and interweave it into an important message like this. So, Mark, if our audience wants to get connected with you, I see obviously you're on LinkedIn and you're also on Twitter at Mark M-O-H, and then you've got a page for our audience to go to, chasingthesunpdx.com/ontopofpr. Mark, what will they find on that page?

- They're going to find a quick recap of what we talked about, the four different types of empathy and video links to some of the "Ted Lasso" things that we talked about, more details on my services, all the references to the various data points we talked about and opportunity to connect with me or can email me at mark, M-A-R-K, @chasingthesunpdx.com.

- Perfect. And so we'll create a great episode notes with all these links in it that will be helpful to our audience to kind of navigate the resources we've talked about here, connect with Mark, connect with the articles you shared. And maybe we can put a link for those that are PRSA members to the article that we first connected with. And then it was a pleasure to meet you at the conference, see you speak at the conference, and now have a relationship with you. And as we were talking about during the break, maybe we'll see you back on the show soon to talk about something else that I think will be a great topic that our audience will be very interested in. So with that Mark, we say thank you. We say thank you to our audience for tuning in. I feel like it's my role here at Axia Public Relations to help my team, our clients, and you, our audience, stay on top of PR. I think we've done that well today, and we've had fun doing it. Like I said, Mark's a great guy, and I've heard great things about his coaching and consulting practice. So if this is something you're interested in that we talked about today, please, I encourage you to reach out to Mark, get to know him a little bit. I think you'll be glad you did. And I'm glad you tuned in. I hope you are too. And as I mentioned earlier, if you've benefited from this episode, please share it with a colleague or a peer so that they might benefit from it as well. With that, this is Jason Mudd, helping you stay on top of PR and signing off. Be well.

- [Narrator] This has been On top of PR with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and check out past shows at ontopofpr.com.

Sponsored by:

• On Top of PR is produced by Axia Public Relations, named by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies. Axia is an expert PR firm for national brands.
• On Top of PR is sponsored by ReviewMaxer, the platform for monitoring, improving, and promoting online customer reviews.

About your host Jason Mudd

On Top of PR host, Jason Mudd, is a trusted adviser and dynamic strategist for some of America’s most admired brands and fastest-growing companies. Since 1994, he’s worked with American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon. He founded Axia Public Relations in July 2002. Forbes named Axia as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.

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