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What happens when someone comes close to death and then returns to everyday life, including work? For some, the experience can be transformative. Near-death experiences (NDEs) are deeply personal experiences that some people report after a close brush with death. These experiences can include sensations such as floating above ones body, reviewing moments from ones life, encountering spiritual beings and feeling a profound sense of unity and love. Although NDEs have been studied since the 1970s, we know relatively little about how they affect people after the event. Research suggests people who have near-death experiences may feel increased empathy, spiritual growth, a sense of purpose, and even change how they approach their jobs. Our recent study explored how near-death experiences impact peoples return to work. We interviewed 14 working adults who had a near-death experience as a result of medical crises such as a heart attack or accidents such as a car crash. What we found challenges conventional ideas about success, motivation, and workplace culture. Doing meaningful work One of the most common changes expressed by the participants in our study was a desire to do work that felt meaningful and aligned with their newfound purpose in life. After their near-death experience, many wanted to spend time doing work that mattered to them and made a positive difference. I was not interested in doing nonsense. . . . I just was not gonna waste my time on nonsense, one participant told us. Her perspective shifted dramatically after her heart began beating abnormally for 20 minutes and she lost consciousness. Others described similar shifts. Many participants changed their careers by focusing on different work priorities, switching jobs or even starting their own companies. One participant described quitting a high-earning job after being headhunted. She started her own business, which allowed her to use her own NDE to support individuals through the end-of-life process. As one participant put it: I like to say that when I woke up in that hospital bed, I had a knowing that the character I was playing was no longer working for me and I had to change characters, and changing that character meant changing that job. Rethinking motivation Another significant shift reported by participants was a reprioritization of their values, which, in turn, shifted their attitudes towards work and their careers. After experiencing a near-death experience, many lost interest in external measures of success such as salary, fancy titles, and prestige. Across the studys participants, all reported no longer being motivated by extrinsic factors, such as money or receiving recognition for work. Instead, they focused on internal alignment and authenticity. Rather than being driven by external rewards, participants were motivated by personal growth and making a positive difference. In some workplaces, employee motivation is driven by extrinsic incentives such as bonuses, promotions or external recognition. However, after their NDEs, participants reported being driven by their own internal benchmarks or purpose. As one of our interviewees said: The motivation that was there came from this very strange, deep place that I wanted to all of a sudden make a huge impact, you know, in every part of my life. . . . Its hard to come out of this experience and not feel theres a reason why youre here, and you hate to say it, but you feel you have this special gift now. And its like why and how am I going to apply this? So, with work, I approach it that way as well. Relational transformations We also found that near-death experiences transformed how people interacted with and related to others at work. This is consistent with previous research that shows distinct personality and attitude changes reported by survivors of NDEs. Specifically, NDEs shift individual outlooks on life and can serve as catalysts for transformation, influencing how people relate to others. Before their near-death experience, many participants viewed workplace relationships as task-oriented and transactional. But afterward, those same relationships became more meaningful to them. Colleagues, clients and customers were no longer viewed as just business contacts. Instead, several participants spoke of their service and sales interactions as small acts of relationship-building rather than simply being economic exchanges. One participant said: My relationships across the board are deeper, are more connected with people, 100%. . . . I was a decent salesman before but this is, like, bringing spirituality into a quote-unquote sales position, which blows my mind. Lessons for the rest of us What does this mean for those of us who havent had a near-death experience? The participants in our study said their near-death experiences reoriented them to what really matters in life. The after-effects challenge traditional organizational values that celebrate hyper-productivity at the expense of meaning and high-quality relationships. As previous studies suggest, workers engaged in meaningful work eventually manifest greater productivity and accomplishment as opposed to burnout as a result of overwork. As interest in workplace well-being continues to riseparticularly in the wake of COVID-19 and the great resignationNDE survivors may be ahead of the curve. The after-effects of a near-death experience align with what workers tend to want from their jobs. Workers generally want to satisfy three fundamental needs: economic security, meaningful work and high-quality relationships. Our results suggest that NDE after-effects result in reductions in the importance of satisfying the drive for economic security and elevate the significance of meaningful work and authentic relationships. The stories of near-death experience survivors offer a kind of blueprint for reimagining how we work. For employees, that might mean re-evaluating what success looks like or exploring roles that align more closely with personal values. For employers, it might involve fostering workplace cultures that prioritize connection, purpose and well-being. One participant offers a lasting reminder for all of us seeking more meaning in our life and jobs: Its about relationships, not achivements. Akierah Binns is a PhD management candidate at the University of Guelph. Jamie Gruman is a professor of organizational behaviour at the University of Guelph. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. Recently, I shared the tools that power my mornings. Now let’s explore what I rely on from lunch to bedtime. Below youll see sites, apps, and gadgets that carry me from noon to night. From a niche workshop platform to my quirky ‘invisible’ clock, these are the tech companions that help me wrap up a fruitful day. 2 p.m.: Lunch and thinking break I often abandon screens for my midday pause. Other times I use apps like these: Healthy Minds: Short audio pieces help guide me through mindfulness practices. I like the 5-10 minute active lessons that work well for a walking meditation. The app is free and well designed. If Im feeling anxious, I sometimes use the Headspace meditation app, which I also use for focus music when working. Libby: is my beloved source of free library audiobooks. I listen when Im walking to lunch or commuting. Resy and OpenTable: Handy for quick lunch reservations. Too Good To Go: Its fun to try heavily discounted local restaurant food, though the quality varies. I used MealPal for a while for local lunch deals when I wasnt as often bringing lunch from home. The Infatuation: Helpful lists of tasty new local restaurants. 1 to 3 p.m.: Preparing to teach After lunch, I develop teaching plans, prepare to lead workshops, or work on other school-related projects for my job as Director of Teaching and Learning at the CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Craft: My go-to for creating visually engaging digital handouts. Its easy to use and works wonderfully on mobile or desktop. [Why Craft is so useful.] Text Blaze: When Im typing a lot, keyboard shortcuts help. I use snippets for signatures, AI prompts, addresses, and commonly typed phrases. Raycast also works well for these shortcuts. Tangible notes: I like writing notes away from my laptop periodically to get my eyes off the screen and to change my brain mode. I alternate between: I use a Rocketbook reusable notebook for lists and reminders. A $20 VersaTiles memo board is great for jotting passing thoughts. A giant whiteboard helps me draw connections. My reMarkable Paper Pro tablet hosts notes I will return to repeatedly. Arc Browser: I create custom spaces for specific classes or projects, with bookmarks and account settings tailored to that context. Kahoot, Padlet, and Slido: I rely on this trio of teaching tools to power activities that promote active learning in classes or workshopsrather than passive listening. Here are more of my favorite apps for teaching. Protecting my afternoon focus Raycast Focus Mode: Blocks email and distractions during short, focused, deep work sprints. Time Out: I set this app to remind me to give my eyes a screen break every 15 minutes. It pulses over the screen to nudge me to look out the window. Paper book: I sometimes take a short midafternoon reading break to relax, breathe, recharge my brain, and detach from my screen. Heres the book stack Im dipping into this month, reflecting a mix of my interests. 3 to 5 p.m.: Meetings I try to schedule meetings for late afternoon. When theyre fruitful, its great to conclude the day with collaboration. Granola: My favorite new app for transcribing and summarizing meetings. Its three best features: 1. Since it records locally on my laptop, theres no awkward bot joining the Zoom. 2. I can incorporate my own notes during the meeting, which get blended into the AI-powered summary. 3. Granola can draft helpful follow-up emails or Slack messages, or I can query it afterward about a meeting topic. Butter: My favorite tool for leading live online workshops, including live demos for Wonder Tools paid subscribers. Its thoughtfully designed for facilitators and teachers. It lets me easily incorporate interactive elements, from polls to collaborative brainstorming. If a meeting has to be hosted on Zoom or another platform, I can use Butter Scenes for interaction. Camera tools: Camo lets me modify my camera to zoom in, adjust lighting, or add an overlay during video calls. Prezi Video and Mmhmm enable lower-thirds, annotations, and overlay visuals I occasionally use for presentations. Sony UX570 voice recorder is my reliable $80 hardware backup for recording audio. I like that it doesn’t require an open laptop or running phone. I often transcribe the audio files with MacWhisper. 6 p.m.: After work Evening and nghttime tools help with relaxation, family time, and better sleep: Snipd: This smart podcast app lets me triple-tap my AirPods to save highlights to Readwise, which syncs to my digital notebook. (Recent favorite: Shell Game by Evan Ratliff. Season 1 is terrific, about AI voice clones.) Nex: I love playing the sports and workout games on this family video game system. Theyre all active games played with your body, not your thumbs, and theres no violence. I play solo or with my wife and daughters. Its like a next-generation Nintendo Wii, which we also still playespecially tennis, skiing, and the Wii Fit balance games. We also enjoy these family tabletop games. 11 p.m.: Bedtime Glocusent rechargeable reading light: This little $13 light clips onto any book or magazine for nighttime reading. One battery charge lasts for months. Yogasleep Dohm white noise machine: This $50 gadget masks random night sounds in noisy New York City, making it easier to sleep. Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones: I bought my WH-1000XM3 pair seven years ago, and still rely on them for listening to music before bed and focus sounds while working. Im planning to buy a new XM6 model when theyre released this summer. Peakeep invisible alarm clock: I turn off the display on this $12 bedside clock so its hidden at night. I can tap the top to see the time if I need to. I mainly use it for its gentle morning alarm, so I can keep my tempting phone out of my bedroom. This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.
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The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. At the Exceptional Women Alliance, we enable high-level women to mentor each other to achieve personal and professional happiness through sisterhood. As the nonprofit organizations founder, chair, and CEO, I am honored to interview and share insights from thought leaders who are part of our peer-to-peer mentoring program. This month, Im pleased to introduce Roslyn Schneider, MD, a physician, and driver of person centeredness in healthcare, medical education, and the biopharmaceutical industry. She has practiced medicine as a pulmonologist, launched blockbuster medicines while at biopharmaceutical companies, and worked with companies and coalitions to embed patient and community involvement across the medical product development and commercialization lifecycle. Here is some of what we talked about. Q: What inspired you to focus on human-centered design in healthcare, research, and medical product development? Roslyn Schneider, MD: My personal and family encounters with our healthcare system, clinical practice during the height of the AIDS epidemic, and seeing the value of partnerships with patients as lived experience experts, have been my greatest influences. As a child I was misdiagnosed, in large part, because physicians dismissed concerns from my parents who were immigrants with little formal education, but who knew there was something wrong. As an adult, I practiced and taught at a New York City hospital in the 1980s and 90s when we had limited treatments for HIV infection. People who were in the prime of their lives were dying, battling a poorly understood, devastating illness, and the community challenged the pace of medication development and access. I saw the power of their advocacy and activism with businesses, health authorities, and researchers, at the intersection with medical practice and science. That power resulted in transformation of a uniformly fatal illness, to a chronic illness in much of the world today, and it forever changed how medical products are developed, approved, and accessed. These experiences were front and center for me, as my teams have partnered with patients and patient organizations in an intentional, iterative manner, from the early stages of development and at key points in its lifecycle, for as long as a particular product is available. Q: What’s the role of physician and community engagement in precision medicine? Schneider: During my four decades since graduating medical school, medicine has become increasingly precise. Deliberately engaging with patients who are lived experience experts, will help us ensure that these treatments are not only precise, but personal. Precision therapies, whether in clinical trials or commercially available, are specifically aimed toward genetic or other targets. We must be careful not to fall so in love with the science, that we dont consider how participation in the clinical research or use of these products may or may not fit with peoples health goals and life goals. Maintaining community relationships, active listening to understand care gaps and preferences, co-creation, and prioritizing outcomes that matter most to patients are critical as we develop all types of medicines and medical technologies. Q: You’ve been a leader in and a consultant for small, medium, and large-sized global companies. Where is the industry compared to its patient-centric goals, and what might we expect in the next decade? Schneider: Its tempting to be satisfied with how much more patient engagement there is in medical product development now compared with earlier days, but we are not yet where we need to be. In periods of resource constraints and economic pressures, companies might, shortsightedly, consider reducing their engagement with patients as partners to achieve savings. Theres a regression of thinking that this is somehow non-essential to successful outcomes for patients and for businesses. That happens despite the financial models of the value of patient engagement, and many real-life examples of shortened business timelines, reduction of costly, avoidable amendments to clinical research protocols, and more favorable product labeling, and more effective patient support programs. Data from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development are consistent with what I hear from professionals and patients in relevant working groups I participate in. Data show that most companies today are piloting or sometimes implementing patient-centered elements in clinical development, yet the minority are doing so routinely. Patients are waiting is an outdated slogan. I have confidence that lived experience experts and professionals across the globe will continue to find innovative ways to embed patient engagement into standard processes and utilize metrics that will resonate with stakeholders and decision makers at the grassroots level, the executive suite, and in the boardroom. Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO ofThe Exceptional Women Alliance.
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