Why Leaders Feel Lonely at Work — And What to Do About It

Leadership can be isolating—even when you're constantly surrounded by people. 

In this episode of Relationships at Work, host Russel Lolacher speaks with licensed psychologist, executive coach, and TEDx speaker Dr. Adam Dorsay, author of Super Psyched: Unleash the Power of the Four Types of Connection and Live the Life You Love.

They explore why loneliness in leadership is so common, how disconnection silently affects workplace culture, and what organizations can do to foster genuine human connection at work.

Dr. Dorsay brings insights from neuroscience, psychology, and his own work with executives and tech professionals to break down the four types of connection—and how self-connection forms the foundation for psychological safety, belonging, and trust on teams.

🔍 In this episode:

• Why being surrounded by coworkers doesn’t prevent loneliness
• How vulnerability (not oversharing) creates real intimacy at work
• What leaders can do to build stronger, human-centered workplaces
• The danger of ignoring connection as a cultural value
• Why quiet quitting and disengagement are often symptoms of disconnection
• The science behind awe, self-compassion, and relationship-building

Whether you're a senior executive, team lead, or just trying to feel more seen and supported at work, this episode will help you understand why connection is more than a buzzword—it's a business-critical skill.

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: On the show today, we have Dr. Adam Dorsay, and here is why he is awesome. He's a licensed psychologist, keynote speaker, two time, two time TEDx speaker, certified executive coach, a resiliency expert who's created company programs for organizations like Facebook and Digital Ocean. He's a fellow podcaster hosting the Sharecare award-winning psychology podcast called Super Psyched, and he's an award-winning author.

He's got a new book. Super psyched, unleash the power of the four types of connection and live the life you love. The man also loves alliteration apparently, and he is here. Hello Adam.

Adam Dorsay: Russel, it's great to be with you, man. And I gotta tell you, you are amazing. What a voice. And one of the best intros I've heard.

Russel Lolacher: Very kind sir. I will, I'll try to keep the questions not too hard hitting. I'll be you. You've sucked up the perfect amount, so I...

Adam Dorsay: I trust.

Russel Lolacher: Appreciate that immensely.

Adam Dorsay: I trust.

Russel Lolacher: Before we get into this really interesting topic of leadership, loneliness, and connection, I have to ask the question I ask all my guests, Adam, which is, what is your best or worst employee experience?

Adam Dorsay: Well, here's a funny one for you. I had a boss who I referred to as, not my mentor, but my tormentor. It's rather funny to add that his successor was literally my mentor, but this guy was my tormentor. Imagine Devil Wears Prada, just a dude and just mean. He told me at the time that I was, it was an afterschool learning program I was working for, and he told me that when I ran this place and I was taking it over from a previous instructor, that I would lose at minimum 50% of the student population and I would struggle to bring it back to where it had been previously.

Well, not only did I not lose a single student, but I actually brought it up by 17. I brought it up by about 60% and the only thing he could say, and it was very instructive to me, was, Adam, you didn't perform as poorly as I imagined. That was one of, that was maybe the kindest thing he said to me during our time together. So from that, I learned and I studied a lot about positive psychology and how we really do better when we are properly shepherded. So immediately his successor takes over and props me up and gives me a sense of who I could be. And with the former boss, I was constantly playing defense and not taking any risks. And with my mentor, who was a fellow by the name of Martin, who I just think about every day, he allowed me to take chances. He allowed me to be more of a Steph Curry, so to speak. He allowed me to take shots and miss and know that the next shot I took, maybe I'd hit it. And so I think about Martin, who was legitimately the best boss I ever had. And I miss him every day. He, sadly, has passed and I write about him extensively in my book and I think about him all the time. Not a single day goes by that I don't think about Martin, but it just really speaks to the power of words. The notion of sticks and stones may break my bones, but you know, names or words will never hurt me.

That's not true. Words can really heal, words can really harm, and I had two bosses, one after the other who showed me firsthand what could happen if I was under the tutelage of somebody truly great.

Russel Lolacher: Do you think... I never think, I try to, I always try to think leaders aren't trying to be horrible even when they are. Like was he, his approach trying to be like ass backwards motivation? Was it that I don't think you'll reach this, so I'm going to be, I'm gonna give him the opposite and try to motivate him to prove me wrong.

Was that his thinking?

Adam Dorsay: I never sat him on the couch. 'cause that would've been inappropriate for a whole host of reasons. But here's the thing, it's my contention that he came upon this. Honestly, he was not a bad person. He was very misguided as so many are, and he believed the idea of don't give him an inch, he'll ask for a mile and feed him crumbs and maybe you'll get a whole bunch of good stuff.

I believe that was what he believed. Martin on the other hand, really believed in just, he was, if you're familiar, I don't know if Johnny Appleseed made his way to Canada, but he was a guy. Okay, cool. He was more of a Johnny Appleseed. He was a guy who just said, let's spread good stuff more good stuff will happen and Martin acted as a template for, it was really funny, Martin, you and I were talking offline about Conan and Norm MacDonald and David Letterman had famously a top 10 list and Martin sat us down and said, listen. Tomorrow we will be meeting and I'm going to give you my top 10 list of the things I expect from the people who report from me. And I wanna see your top 10 list of the things you expect from your boss.

Russel Lolacher: Beautiful.

Adam Dorsay: Whoa. Totally mind blowing, and and I was really a little, kind of tentative as I was writing out my top 10 list. 'cause I didn't wanna, say something that might ruffle his feathers. But Martin was he was the kind of guy who was so strong in every which way that he did not have a fragile ego. He really believed in his people. He led with trust. He saw people for their strengths. He didn't expect somebody who was a strong.

Strong with analytics, but poor with people. To become great with people, he would really just say, you know what? We're gonna keep you as the Spock on the Starship. And for the person who was really good with people, well, we're going to grow, we'll grow you where you're strong.

Russel Lolacher: I love that. Love that. Because unfortunately, that's an anomaly, not the regular sort of life we live in the leadership ecosystem.

But we're working to change that, Adam. This is why we do what we do. So let's...

Adam Dorsay: A hundred percent.

Russel Lolacher: I'm to be positive. Look at me silver lining it it.

Adam Dorsay: A hundred percent Russel. And, and just to follow, just to even, just to go where you were kind of going, beginning to go is there's no question in my mind that I'm better for having both experiences. And so I'm grateful for both. I can't say I was grateful in the moment that I was working for the other guy, but I learned a ton and, and I'm all the more grateful for having had Martin because I learned five x or more, let's say a hundred x or more, what I learned from the other guy, but I definitely learned from the other guy.

Russel Lolacher: Well, I think there's a few things we can take from Martin, from your demonstration of that. And I think one of the things is what we're gonna talk about today, which is really connection and avoiding leadership loneliness

Adam Dorsay: Good point.

Russel Lolacher: We get into these positions. We are put in leadership positions a lot of the time, 'cause to the point we've been talking about, ill prepared, untrained, feeling like we're an other when we have to take over a team. There's a lot of challenges that new leaders have to deal with. And before we really dig into this, I need to sort of set the table, which I really enjoy doing on the show, which is I want you, Adam, to define what you even mean when you talk about loneliness and you talk about connection.

Adam Dorsay: So it's a really great question, Russel, because the word connection, if you look it up in any authoritative dictionary, will basically describe the linkage of two things. And when people say, I'm really longing for connection, that's not what they're talking about. So part of my job when I wrote this book on connection, and it was the byproduct of the fact that so many people on my podcast and virtually everyone in my office kept talking about this word, this nebulous term called connection, which the opposite of which disconnection is described extensively in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which is our Bible for diagnoses in mental health. Most of the diagnoses have some element, disconnection involved with them.

A hallmark of depression is disconnecting from the present because we're ruminating about the past. That is one of the attributes of depression. And an attribute of anxiety could be not connecting with the present because we're worrying about the future. An attribute of trauma is dissociation or perhaps to personalization and serious mental illness like psychosis is a break from reality itself.

So at the heart of everything we don't want is disconnection. It seemed logical to me that we should really do a deep dive into what does connection mean because we're not looking at the word connection when somebody says, I'm looking for more connection in my life. The linkage of two things.

Funny enough, when I looked for an authoritative American Psychological Association, definition of the word connection, it didn't exist. There's no word for connection. That's an oddity. The best definition I found was through Psych Central, which was a, it was a kind of a, maybe hit about 10% of what I believe people meant.

So what I did was I actually rallied 10 licensed mental health professionals to help me come up with a working definition of the word connection. That was the starting point. What does this even mean and how could it be a salve against loneliness? And what is loneliness in and of itself? So connection, according to me and the other, nearly 10 other people. The working definition was something that causes you to come alive. It's vitality, it is life force. It's an emotional response and it's a full body response. It I'm just gonna ask you, Russel.

Russel Lolacher: Sure.

Adam Dorsay: I remember hearing Stairway to Heaven for the very first time in my life. Nobody needed to explain to me that this was a good song, like my body knew it.

Can you think of a time that you really came alive? It could have been music, could have been going to a place, could have been meeting a person, seeing a live performance. What was, what brought you, what's something that really brought you alive?

Russel Lolacher: Well, funny, Adam. 'cause I mean, the minute you saw a Stairway To Heaven, I'm like, I was at a sock hop in Grade 11 or something or other. I can't believe I said the word 'sock hop'.

Adam Dorsay: Sock off. Wow.

Russel Lolacher: It was like some, and I, this is really making me very Canadian. MuchMusic. Dance Party was a big thing back in high school where they would, these touring DJs would do this music, but you hit that right song and you're like at a concert or something and you're just like, yes, like this is this...

You come alive because you feel that connection, for lack of a better term because it hits back to a memory or it hit back to.. it's hitting that. Rhythm that certain tempos of songs hit that make you feel something. There's a science to that as much better than I do. So I think for me, maybe I'm not picking one thing, but I am.

Because you blame you because you brought up music. That's where my brain's going right now. I completely get that feeling right now.

Adam Dorsay: Life force. So in that moment, I'm guessing you felt almost like in some ways connected to the force, connected to the planet, connected to the universe, and one of the things that happens is we are born alone, and according to most thinkers, we die alone. And we can go through life feeling very much alone.

And it doesn't matter if you're in the most populated place in the world, you can be in Tokyo and still feel very lonely. People might say, well, you're surrounded by people. Well, being surrounded by people does not necessarily mean that you feel a connection. You could be in a relationship with a gorgeous individual and still feel very much alone because you don't feel attuned to in, in any way, shape, or form, or just so clearly the presence of another is not sufficient.

Now, paradoxically, you might also be able to describe a time that you were out in nature walking alone and somehow felt connected. In the midst of solitude. Now I want to contradict loneliness from solitude. Solitude is something we choose. Loneliness is something none of us would choose. Loneliness is that feeling that no one gets me. I feel so alone in this life. I don't feel anybody else grokking with me, getting me, understanding me, feeling me. And there's this fancy highfalutin term that I absolutely adore that comes from a guy by the name of Dan Siegel, a neuropsychiatrist out of UCLA. It's called interpersonal neurobiology. And the bottom line is it's feeling felt.

Do you feel felt? And so when somebody says, Hey man, you feel me? That's what we're talking about. Do you feel felt? And when you're in the company of somebody, you could feel very much alone. If you don't feel felt. You and I, the second you and I started talking, I mean, we were talking about Norm MacDonald.

We were talking about really cool experiences that we've had. You and I just immediately just I mean there was just like, there was an alive repartee as if we were George and Jerry at a deli for Seinfeld. It was amazing. And that's not a guarantee. You're not gonna feel that with everybody you talk to, but that is what we mean by connection.

And its opposite is definitely feeling disconnected or lonely. I. One of the things we know about loneliness, by the way, is it's no joke. England has hired a Health Minister who is the Minister of Loneliness, trying to help people realize how they could feel more connected. Our own Surgeon General from the last administration who I loved very much his name was Vivek Murthy.

He said that, Dr. Vivek Murthy said, that loneliness is, and he substantiated this with research that came out of Utah that is, is dangerous to our physical health as 15 cigarettes per day. The Cambridge study, which you're probably familiar with has shown that feeling connected with other people, feeling a strong connection is probably going to be one of the most healthful things that we could possibly have.

It's a bigger, in, in its opposite, is a bigger predictor of mortality than almost any cardiological measure.

Russel Lolacher: How have you seen it pervasive in the workplace? Because, I mean, you've gone into organizations and certainly helped them with their challenges. So what are we trying to fix, here?

Adam Dorsay: Man, that is such a great question and so intuitive on your part. So one of the things that can happen at work is that people don't know how to craft a conversation, A and B, how to craft a conversation that is also appropriate for work. So they've got two things going against them. Let's say that they're in the techie area.

So maybe, once again, analysis is their thing, but people might be something that they aren't particularly organically skilled at. And what people need to, in order to feel more connected with wherever they work, is to feel connected to their boss and to feel connected to their colleagues. It's more predictive of job happiness than where they work. Who they work with and who they work for is far more predictive. They will be interacting with these people actually for on average more hours than they'll speaking to their significant others. Approximately 90,000 hours of our lives will be spent at work. So having good connections at work is going to improve performance at work, affiliation, less like far lower likelihood of quiet, quitting, attrition, and other things.

So companies have, some very smart companies have, taken note and tried to find ways to make people feel a stronger affiliation to their place of work. And yet, what do I hear about in my office all the time? I mean, the top two things are love and work. I hear about struggling with my significant other and struggling with my work, generally my boss, oftentimes people will tell me, stories about bosses that, I mean horrible bosses, which is a great movie.

And I'm sure you've seen it starring Jason Bateman and some others. I mean, some of these things that, that, that transpire in that movie seem otherworldly. And yet I hear about such horrors in my office that make me almost jump outta my chair. And I so badly wish that I could just, a part of me, my knee jerk is to shake those bosses by their lapels. But of course I've, but I would love to basically be able to have a conversation, metaphorically speaking, not physically and literally, but I would love to be able to, just give a workshop, a long-term workshop for the bosses who believe, kind of like that boss I was describing, believe that they will get the most outta their employees by being jerks.

That's not how it works. That is not how humans work. I don't care what, there, there have been some lionized coaches in sports, so I'm not going to name but there have been who, who are jerky. They tend to be college coaches. They tend to have. Very short lifespans with their athletes versus, I'm just going to use a great coach by comparison, who's been on my own podcast.

I had the blessing of interviewing Steve Kerr, who I consider one of the kindest man I've ever spoken to in my entire life, who cited the four core values of joy, competition, mindfulness, and compassion as being his core values that leads teams to victories unless they of course play the Toronto Raptors, dammit, in 2019. Which I'm still sore about that Kawhi Leonard last bouncing, I'm sure everybody in Canada rejoiced. But irrespective of that moment Steve Ring has Steve Ring. Steve Kerr has nine rings, nine rings, proof that nice guys can win. And not only that, but his players love playing for him.

Some people say it's better to be fear than to be liked. I disagree. I say it's better to be respected and liked. Let's not bring fear into it. Fear does not bring out the best in people.

Russel Lolacher: But I'm guessing this is a spectrum because when we talk connection, people might think networking. People might think, oh, we're friends on Facebook, or we're best friends drinking after work, right? So when it comes from somebody that's lonely in their organization, what are they looking for when it comes to connection?

Because it's not a light switch. It's not, you're now connected. You're not connected. It feels like there's a bit more to it.

Adam Dorsay: There are such grades of connection. I love what Lori Santos out of the Yale Happiness Lab says. She says that social media and hitting a thumbs up and a like, is basically the Nutrasweet of connection. And I agree a million percent. It's not it's nothing. It has no halflife. It's, it mildly meaningful, but very much not versus even just having a connection with somebody, what I'm gonna call a micro connection, with somebody at line, at a grocery store, or even the person who's checking you out. I don't know if you have Trader Joe's up there in Canada, but it's one of the great food store chains. It's fantastic. And for some reason, like they, whatever they figured out, they figured it out.

They know how to do things well. I actually even interview the guy who I interviewed on my podcast on how to flirt well is a Trader Joe's employee. And, having a micro connection even with the person who's checking you out can have a halflife far greater than a, like on a social media. Too many people say, I'm too busy for friendships.

And one of the things that Esther Perel reminds us, who she's one of the great... if you're not familiar with her work, I mean get familiar with her work. Like I'm saying this to the listeners, not to you Russel, but to those who aren't familiar with Esther Perel, she is a giant. And I'm not talking about her height.

I'm talking about her intellectual prowess and her contribution to our knowledge of what relationships are. She says that it wasn't very long ago that we used to live in villages and now we expect our significant other to play all of the role of all of the people in the village. We need friends, no significant other can fill all of those roles. My wife, I was mentioning basketball I'm new to I'm, I have a long history of football and baseball. I'm new to basketball only since my children came into the world. And it's absolutely by far my favorite sport now. Like just, there's nothing I would rather watch, I mean I hold Chase Center as like a temple.

But my wife isn't gonna watch it with me and I wouldn't want her to watch it with me because she won't care. And you can feel, I'm sure you've sat with somebody who was just super not into something you were super into.

Russel Lolacher: It happens to movies all the time.

Adam Dorsay: Exactly. And you can feel it. You can feel it. And, my father, who's a super opera fan, like part of his connection, I call it a connection formula.

Part of his connection formula is going to long, long operas. I can totally do a two or three hour opera, no problem and enjoy it, but put me in a six hour Wagnerian opera and it's going to be a very expensive place for me to sleep. And my father probably wouldn't wanna drag me there. He'd be far better dragging or bringing at joyfully somebody who's into that kind of thing.

So I want to have a great marriage, and I do, I have a, I mean, 23 years in, and I still feel like in my first week of dating her, she's a just she's a needle in a haystack. I don't know how I found her every day with her. She knows. How much I adore her. I do believe that what we appreciate appreciates and she is, she's just sparkling.

I absolutely adore her and I'm not gonna watch basketball with her, nor will I watch Lord of the Rings with her. She does not like Lord of the Rings. I adore Lord of the Rings. There I need other people to do things with in my life, and thankfully I have those people. Similarly, she would not take me to, a an improv dance workshop.

I would want to stay in the car in fetal position the entire time. And that would be far better than probably doing an improv dance workshop. At some point I hope to grow into that. But, she's also into all day, bluegrass musics, festivals. I can do two hours of that. But all day out in the cold. No, thanks. So she has friends for that too. So we both have friends. And it really is key to our marriage that we know, the things that we're gonna be really into we're going to The Sphere next month to see dead and company. And we're both gonna be just absolutely out of our minds, stoked to be there.

We have our things that we do together that are just phenomenal.

Russel Lolacher: I think it's important to recognize that connection is something we can have outside of work to bring into work, but it also shows as a contrast too, of well, I can have amazing connection outside of work, but I can't seem to have connection inside of work. So it can also be a measuring stick of what you're not doing or not getting versus what you are getting. I wanna turn back to something you talk about in your book, which is really, and it's something I talk about a lot on the show, which is around the relationship with self, and you mentioned about self connection being super, super important and that maybe the lack of self connection could contribute to loneliness.

Is that true?

Adam Dorsay: Can you imagine how bad it feels if you don't know who you are or what you're feeling? There is a term, another highfalutin term in psychology called alexathymia, and I'll break it down so you can say it at your next, a cocktail party. You got it. So Alexathymia A, the absence of. Lexi, words. Thymia, feeling. The inability to put our feelings into words.

This is something that many of us experience. I know I'm feeling something, but I don't know what it is, and I just know it doesn't feel good. And that is a form of loneliness from ourself. Why do we end up in perhaps less than optimal relationships? Well, because we don't know who we are, we don't know what we're looking for.

I said that at the nucleus of connection, and I consider it kind of almost a if you can imagine an archery target with four circles. How we connect with ourselves is the bullseye. It is the connection that informs all the other connections. It's not self-absorbed to need to know who you are and to connect with yourself anymore than it would be to say, you know what, before I go on that long bike ride, I need to go to the bathroom.

I need to go pee before I go on that, 50 mile ride, what happens 10 miles into the ride when you, all you're gonna be thinking about is needing to go pee. You need to take care of yourself first. As, as stupid as that sounds and as base as that sounds. But we need to take care of ourselves first before we take care of the other connections. And the fourth realm is connecting with something greater. Now, connecting with something greater to, to the religious folk means, connecting with their religion.

But even in Orthodox Atheist would acknowledge that if they are in a beautiful space, they will feel awe. They might see the sunset, they might see a beautiful tree. They might be someplace like Banff at Lake Louise. You can tell I'm making this very Canada-centric 'cause I absolutely adore your country and have spent time there.

Some people might prefer a very different look, but you're probably gonna experience some modicum of awe. Let's throw out a bunch of different looking places of Stonehenge, Grand Canyon, the Caribbean. There are just a whole bunch of places that are awe inspiring. What we know about awe, by the way, which is the fourth layer that's kind of connecting to something greater.

Even the most hardcore, ardent or atheist will feel that experience. The cool thing about awe, which has been put under the microscope, I get really geeky around this, is that awe actually makes us into better people. We are far more pro-social. We're less likely to be self-absorbed. If you put somebody into a neuro imaging situation, like some type of a brain scan while they're experiencing awe, the same receptors in the brain, light up that light up when we have.

Psilocybin in our systems, which is the psychoactive chemical in magic mushrooms. So for, and you don't need to take any illegal substances that could be dangerous in order to feel that feeling of prosocial awe. And I say prosocial awe, because awe does make us far more social.

Russel Lolacher: But we don't always start from the same place, Adam. So what I'm thinking is I hear what you're talking about...

Adam Dorsay: Sure.

Russel Lolacher: The four areas to focus on. Totally get that. But there are a lot of people that might need to do some work on themselves to be open to those kind of connections. Past trauma can certainly inform them. Diversity, where they were raised.

How do we make it personal to us based on our own struggles and challenges to even be ready to be able to connect?

Adam Dorsay: We are all in our own starting place. In as much as a marathon runner and I, let's say I was training for a marathon, I would not be in the same place as a seasoned marathon runner. I'd need to start where I was and I wouldn't want to look at the person next to me and to compare myself to them.

I'd wanna say, where am I today and where do I hope to be tomorrow? And where was I yesterday? So some of us come in with, we all come in with varying baselines. We all come in with varying individual differences. There are, in as much as we have similarities between humans, all 8 billion of us are very different.

All of us have subjective realities. Can't understand how somebody wouldn't like chocolate, but there are people on this planet who thinks chocolate is disgusting. To me it's, unfathomable, and yet I need to recognize that is also a truth. But to your point, some of us come in with neuro differences. Some of us come in with traumas and various diagnoses that may hinder our abilities to connect. That doesn't mean that we don't want to connect. It just might mean that our formula for connection at this given time might be different. So go to a dance party. Some people are just rocking out.

Just the music couldn't be loud enough. They couldn't be having a more full body experience. Other people are saying, I hate this music. Other people are saying, it's too loud. Other people are saying, I want to be here with all of these people, but I wanna wear headphones. And so some people who have kind of stim, related issues. Might wanna be wearing headphones, but still might wanna be there. Some people might say, no, my God, I'm an introvert. Being around all of these people is terrifying. I'm about to have a panic attack. So what we need to do is be patient with ourselves and figure out what it is that we like and not hold ourselves up to the standards of someone else.

It was really funny. It's funny that I'm quoting this individual, but he said something so brilliant. I can't not quote him, but Rob Lowe said to his son as he was dropping him off in college, I believe this is not apocryphal, I believe this is what he said. Don't judge your insides with someone else's outside.

Russel Lolacher: All right.

Adam Dorsay: And how people are, showing up. I mean, I remember as I was mentioning, walking through high school, I think about, I come from the the Breakfast Club generation, which just apparently had its 40th anniversary. And that line from Simple Minds, vanity and security. It just like walking through the halls of high school, I was positive that everyone had it more together than I did.

And only at my 20th high school reunion did I find out that everyone was in their own thing. Everyone had something, someone had an alcoholic father. Somebody's mom was abusing them. Just fill in the blank. Everybody was walking around with their own burdens. That Buddhist notion of be kind, for everyone is i, I'm saying it poorly, but is carrying a burden of their own. Everyone has something. Nobody has nothing. And, and we tend to imagine that we are the only ones and we feel shame as a result. And I'm so grateful to people like Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer who are promoting awareness around what is one of the selves, and that is self-compassion.

Self-compassion, which is talking to ourselves like an inner, like fostering an inner Ted Lasso voice. Turns out like saying, Hey buddy, to yourself. You're struggling right now. You got this hang in there. Or do you need a little time out? You need a little break? And there are three basic roads and of course there are entire, weekend workshops devoted to what I'm going to just say very quickly, but speaking to yourself the way a friend would speak to you. We need to cultivate that voice. And that was what Martin did so well as my boss. Recognizing that all of us are struggling, that life brings with it some form of pain to everyone.

That everyone, that we're not alone in this, we're part of the human experience. And the third way is being mindful, which sounds really woo, but it's basically being aware of what's going on while it's going on, not making it bigger or smaller than it is. Just saying, okay, wow, yeah, I'm noticing that I'm feeling a little bit anxious here as I go to this rave.

Do I want to go and do I want my.... do I, what is this anxiety telling me? In some cases, it means I'm about to have a panic attack. I shouldn't go. In some cases it means I need to still push through and go beyond the anxiety and and expose myself to this thing. So it's highly variable.

But the important things that we respect ourselves as we go through our attempts to connect.

Russel Lolacher: But connection involves more than one person and I, so that's why I'm transitioning from understanding. We've doing the work, we're absolutely doing the work, and we're understanding us. We're understanding and defining what connection means to us based on numerous things you've mentioned here, we're also talking about vulnerability, authenticity.

You talk about that quite a bit in your book. I can think of some leaders that the minute we start going down that path, they'll be like, but I'll lose credibility in the workplace if I'm too vulnerable, if I'm too, too heart centric too, authentic, I guess. Bringing full self, so I have to bring that barrier.

What do you say to somebody that like that's looking for connection, but it also is trying to be not too familiar, not too friendly with making it look unprofessional?

Adam Dorsay: So I would say that actually connection does not necessarily involve two people. As I was saying before, it really can involve just us talking to us and that really informs all of the others. There's this great, internal family systems couple therapist who came up with a concept called intimacy from the inside out and her basic premise, and she's been on my podcast to do speech from my book, and she's fabulous.

She talks about the idea that we can only be as kind to the other as we were kind to ourself. So I would actually say, really solidifying a relationship with ourselves before we get out there. That's one of the reasons why in the major, in Major League Baseball, one of, one of the things, and I'm sh I, I've never seen the stats on this, but if every home team player who's about to show up at bat uses this, it must work.

But everybody has a different walk-on song. So the lead off hitter shows up and he's playing a country western song. The next guy shows up with a reggaeton. The next guy kind of shows up with, hip hop and the fourth guy shows up with some kind of, classic rock. Each of them needs to have their soundtrack, and I'm using this as a metaphor and an external reality.

Each of us needs to walk through life with the soundtrack that matters to us and brings out our best before we start talking to other people at work. So when we wake up in the morning, each of us has a different, suiting up routine. I listen to... i, I've had different songs for my pump up songs, but right now I'm kind of, really vibing to Lil Nas X and Industry Baby.

I just love that song. Just just gets me pumped. But I don't doubt that, there will be another song that shows up for me pretty soon because I love music so much. But each of us needs to do that before and then and each of us has different levels of comfort with how much self-disclosure we engage in at work.

I've made a decision, I was trained in the psychoanalytic tradition initially to not self-disclose anything,

And I was working with some gang affiliated youth, and I remember I came to a cross on the roads and it was like, huh. There was a moment where one of the guys said something so incredibly funny and I could give the Tabla Rasa, I could give kind of the still face. Or I could be real.

And I remember choosing signing on to be real. And I never looked back because I noticed that what happened was the rapport that I developed. First of all, it's who I am. Like, it's this whole Tabla Rosa thing was not, I mean, my, my nickname is enthusiasm. I mean, come on, how long was this? I'm glad I was trained in it.

I'm glad I learned that I could do it, but this is not how I roll. And secondly, I learned that some self-disclosure, judicious use of self-disclosure when it's in the client's best interest can be very therapeutic. And I also know some therapists and I respect them, who choose not to do that. So it's really a personal choice similarly, in any place of work, but I would ask people to engage in what's, what we refer to in my biz as cognitive flexibility. Try to stretch yourself. A colleague of mine who says, he says, I'm not a shrink, i'm a stretch. And I agree. I'm a stretch. I'm more the stretch than a shrink. I don't know. I don't, I think shrinking, shrink actually probably has its roots from like witch doctors and shrinking heads from some type of tribes that some, whatever, that white people at some point decided was like something that we could call psychotherapy, and it, to me it's, it seems pejorative. But but I am a stretch and I do believe in that within this lifetime, it's all opportunities for growth. Some people say AFGO, another f-ing growth opportunity, but.

Let's engage in those let's actually embrace the growth opportunities. Let's see if there's more that we can bring to ourselves, and if there are more skills that we can bring to the fore as we aim to be courageous at work. And sometimes that means being more self-disclosive or more interpersonal at work, whatever it might mean. But see if we can grow more of ourselves rather than just be static.

Russel Lolacher: Is there something we should be looking for as leaders in our own teams to, I guess maybe note loneliness of the team? I mean, doing the work, but not everybody knows that approach or is focusing on themselves as well, and they're coming to work lonely. Even in a team of 5, 10, 15, 20, they're feeling like an other. As a leader, how do you connect with those people who are struggling?

Adam Dorsay: It really depends. And I know that's not a really great que one. Some people would prefer just to say to the group, Hey, I see y'all. Sometimes it means pulling somebody aside and say, let's go grab a, let's go grab a coffee. Let's go for a walk and talk, whatever it might be. What's up? Let's talk about what's up.

And it might take a little time for the rather timid person who's reporting to the boss to actually disclose anything, because they might worry that their job might be on the line. Vulnerability is terrifying. But one of the antidote, antidotes to vulnerability is intimacy. And it was really funny just today I was speaking to an intimacy expert and he, I'm just gonna share this with you.

'cause it was so interesting what he said. He said vulnerability. Is or intimacy? Is vulnerability met? Well, I'm just, I need to look that up. Intimacy is vulnerability met. Well, and one of the things that you and I both know is that Russel, come on in the green room. When you and I were talking,

For the sake of your listeners, if you and I just kind of, this stayed well, it seems to me, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, people would say next, and I don't wanna listen to this damn podcast. This is stupid. There's no vitality here. But each of us was a little vulnerable in some way in our green room conversation. And as a net result, you and I are having a far more dynamic conversation. I know that you're a cool person.

Seriously. I do. I have evidence to support this notion that you are actually a cool individual and hopefully it's reciprocal. But there seemed unless I'm completely fooling myself, it seems like there is some reciprocity in that notion.

Russel Lolacher: We're good, Adam. We're good.

Adam Dorsay: I wasn't too concerned. But what I'm driving at is, it doesn't matter what the context of the relationship is. There needs to be some kind of leaning toward each other and I love that idea of vulnerability met well, intimacy does not mean some type of eroticism. It means that we can be more frank with each other. Eroticism means eroticism. Intimacy does not. You can have a very intimate but very non-erotic relationship.

It was really funny, I was listening to Conan and Jordan engaging in a conversation and Jordan actually got something, right? I dunno if you're familiar with their dynamic, but Jordan and Conan is just like one of the funniest diads in history. You couldn't, you can't write this stuff and it's not even written.

It's just who they are. But Jordan said that he and Conan have a very intimate relationship. And Conan said, what are you talking about? We don't have an intimate relationship. I had, he and I understood what Conan was talking about. And in common parlance, we think of that as an erotic or a romantic relationship in the traditional place that it's kind of usually done with a significant other.

But actually having an intimate relationship could mean that you are actually able to utter certain things to this individual that you wouldn't be able to someone else. A private conversation that is being willing to share something, it's vulnerability met well, whereas eroticism, that's a whole other issue and probably should not be happening in the workplace.

Russel Lolacher: Is there a role beyond us as leaders and our teams in addressing loneliness from an organizational standpoint? I'm thinking executive hr, I don't know, C-suite, middle managers... Is there a way to, or what would you recommend for a culture that would foster a little less loneliness and a lot more connection?

Adam Dorsay: Yeah, I would recommend conversation starters and icebreakers that are big talk questions. One of my great guests was a woman by the name of Kalina Silverman, and she was a Northwestern student and she was just so tired of small talk and if you were a fly on the wall in most work situations, it's a lot of small talk.

Safe talk about tech, about politics, sports, nothing real. And I would not immediately go in with like big questions like big existential questions. What do you want to do before you die? That's a very good question, by the way, I. But might not be the greatest question to ask as kind of an opener. You'd want, probably wanna build up to that.

But there are ways to titrate your questions so that they begin to increase in intensity over time so that you can go beyond. I have no problem about talking about tech. I have no problem talking about sports. As you can tell. I love talking about sports and I love talking about tech and I don't love talking about politics too much.

But that's just me. Although I know some people who just love it. But I don't think that people necessarily become much closer as a result of doing those things. But talking about things we really love. Talking about, like when you and I talked about having an experience that caused us to come alive those are the types of things I would want to talk about.

Someone brilliant once said, it would be my, it would be my recommendation that people find ways to increase the levels of aliveness in their questions. We all have to start somewhere Hey, where are you from? What brought you to town?

I was just outta town and had that type of conversation with people, and in some cases it built, in some cases it didn't. It's almost dogs meeting each other at the park and get, sniffing each other out and, gotta start with the small questions. But eventually if there's a there there, we're going to want to engage in that vulnerability met well. Let's talk about something a little bit bigger. Again it's a step-by-step approach. It's not usually done in a massive leap. Tell me all of your long lost secrets, like that would be a terrible thing to ask in a work environment.

Russel Lolacher: So let's wrap it up with the last question I kind of want to know is from a, so say I'm a leader and I'm feeling lonely, or I am seeing other people that are lonely. What do you feel are the first or any baby steps to start that process for ourselves or for others to start going down that path of building connection?

What would you recommend somebody to even just start tomorrow if they didn't know where to?

Adam Dorsay: One of the things that can be really useful, especially given that some people are more introverted on the spectrum and others are more extroverted, introverts need time to think. I'm so grateful to Susan Cain, who's really brought so much of, the intelligence towards how to support introverts.

In the United States, extroversion seems to weigh more than introversion, but in certain countries like Japan, where I formerly lived introversion king. Certainly Scandinavian college countries and other places as well, but introverts need time to think about what they will share. So one thing that a leader might do is say, we're going to be meeting next week. Nobody, you can on answering this question, but here's a question that I want you guys to think about. Tell us about a time in nature, I'm not making this one up. Tell us about a time in nature where you just we're having a blast. That's a pretty easy one to answer. It's not super self-disclosing. Could be a very short answer, it could be somebody says, I was out in the redwoods and it was beautiful and I heard the sounds of birds. Someone else might say something really way more intense. I've just been to a funeral and it caused, being out in nature really caused me to feel more alive and recognize the preciousness of life. But we're far more likely to feel connected to each other if we have more data than just what the other people are wearing in the limited, the limited information that's being imparted. I mean, that's part of one of the reasons why, somebody might, some people you know have tattoos for very personal reasons and don't wanna be asked about them. But I think that many people when they get tattoos, want those tattoos, especially if they're visible while wearing clothing, say on someone's fingers. Some people may have them, may want them to be seen, and I've never, whenever I've been able to see someone's tattoo, by the way, in a clinical situation, I've always asked, Hey, I see the tattoo. What does it mean to you? And they never once have, has anyone ever said I decline? They've always wanted to share. Whether it was, a mistake oh, I really regret having had, having gotten this tattoo versus this tattoo means the world to me and it informs so many of my decisions.

And it's a, so, but having more data about each other, uh, that will not be used against the other person. But it's only used to connect and to feel more affiliated. Well, that's a good thing. And it's not guaranteed. Of course, once it's out there, it could be used against the person. But I'm gonna stick with what I learned this morning, and that is is vulnerability met well.

Russel Lolacher: That is Dr. Adam Dorsay. He is a licensed psychologist, keynote speaker, two time TEDx speaker, executive coach, and he's got himself a new book, Super Psyched, Unleash The Power Of The Four Types Of Connections And Live The Life You Love. Thank you so much for being here, Adam.

Adam Dorsay: Russel, it was a blast.