Build better relationships at work

**Jeff Berman** (0:01)
The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet, when it comes to their own wealth, most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them. Creative Planning was built to fix exactly that. One integrated team of tax professionals, estate planners, investment specialists, all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together. Proactive tax efficiency, state strategy, investments all under one roof. Creative Planning, where wealth works together. Learn more at creativeplanning.com/masters of scale.
Hey folks, Jeff Berman here. I'm thrilled to share some of the new names who will be joining us at this year's Masters of Scale Summit. This may be our biggest stage yet. Reid Hastings, Meredith Whitaker, Van Jones, Amjad Masad and more will be there with us October 20th through 22nd in San Francisco. If you're building something great or you want to build something great, we want you there with us too. Join us at mastersofscale.com/apply26.
That's mastersofscale.com/apply26.

**Esther Perel** (1:33)
You don't necessarily need to know what people are fighting about because you want to find out what they're fighting for. The subject is irrelevant.

**Jeff Berman** (1:44)
This week on the show, we have therapist, author and podcaster, Esther Perel.
Her coveted advice on relationships is the centerpiece for books, her TED Talks and her podcast, Where Should We Begin? We talk with Esther about cultivating healthy workplaces and how to keep co-founders from having ugly breakups.

**Esther Perel** (2:04)
65% of startups fail because of relationship breakdowns.

**Jeff Berman** (2:09)
Between founders.

**Esther Perel** (2:10)
Yes, founder conflict.

**Jeff Berman** (2:12)
And why we must insist on more human connection at work, even and perhaps especially amid rapid technological shifts.

**Esther Perel** (2:23)
We are flawed people. And what AI is trying to offer us is a flawless reality.
And it prides itself on that. If people are by their very nature imperfect and unpredictable, we need to help them live with that.

**Jeff Berman** (2:41)
Before we get to my conversation with Esther, we gathered some of our production team to try out the conversational card deck she just released. It's a spin-off of Esther's original Where Should We Begin? At Game of Stories. This new edition called Where Should We Begin? At Work is specifically for coworkers.
The first question we pulled out of the deck is, what is your go-to emoji instead of using words? Masha, I can tell you're itching to go first.

**Masha** (3:10)
I actually realized that I only use emojis at work. I don't use them as much with my Gen Z friends. But my go-to emoji at work is the high five.

**Aaron** (3:24)
Hi, my name is Aaron. I think my favorite one is the rock on emoji. Because it's very versatile.

**Leetal** (3:32)
That's a good one.
Hi, my name is Lee Tal. I stand out as a Gen Xer because I use thumbs up, which is so boring. I was told by someone else younger that, do not use thumbs up, that's offensive.

**Masha** (3:46)
It feels a little passive-aggressive.

**Leetal** (3:48)
Yeah, exactly.

**Trish** (3:49)
Oh, really?

**Masha** (3:50)
I'm like, okay, I know you hate me.

**Jeff Berman** (3:54)
These cards are designed to deepen connections between colleagues and, in this case, surface intergenerational misunderstandings in a playful way.

**Leetal** (4:03)
I don't mean anything is passive-aggressive, I swear. Also, Brian on our team, he has made some custom emojis, which I don't even know how to do.

**Trish** (4:12)
We have Johnny, which is Niki's dog, that you can just react to things as Johnny.

**Jeff Berman** (4:17)
How about you, Trish?

**Trish** (4:18)
My favorite is the dancing party dino. Yeah.
Which is not just an emoji, but a dancing dino emoji when something really good has happened.

**Jeff Berman** (4:30)
I'm Jeff Berman, your host. I would say that talking with Esther Perel for this week's episode is most definitely worth a dancing dinosaur emoji.

**Trish** (5:17)
This is Masters of Scale.

**Jeff Berman** (5:23)
Esther, welcome to Masters of Scale.

**Esther Perel** (5:25)
It's a pleasure to be here.

**Jeff Berman** (5:27)
I am so excited to talk to you. I think most of us know you as a relationship wizard who helps people who are in intimate romantic relationships, and your work has expanded into work relationships.
I'm curious, other than sex, what's different about work relationships from personal, intimate romantic relationships?

**Esther Perel** (5:53)
I would say there's a lot of similarities at this moment, but there's also very big differences. I mean, one of the interesting similarities is the crossover that has taken place recently in the last years, where the language of psychology has entered the business world, and we talk about authenticity and trust and vulnerability and psychological safety in the same breath as we're talking about performance indicators. But on the other end, in the romantic sphere, in the personal, intimate space, people are talking about the deal that they didn't sign up for and the hedging their bets. So it's a very interesting thing how the business world has entered the personal space and the psychological personal vocabulary has entered the business space. It's a form of emotional capitalism, is where they both meet.