Leadership Wellbeing for Flourishing at Work | Caitlin Krause
A conversation with Caitlin Krause, founder of MindWise and author of "Digital Wellbeing," reveals why the future of leadership isn't about defending against technology—it's about dancing with it.
Phygital Wellbeing Redefined: From Defense to Empowerment
Forget everything you've heard about digital detox weekends. Caitlin Krause, a globally recognized expert in digital wellbeing, argues that our relationship with technology doesn't need fixing—it needs reframing.
"Our lives are 'phygital'—physically and digitally layered," Krause explains, coining a term that captures the reality of modern existence. We're not just humans who occasionally use technology; we're beings whose physical well-being, emotional states, and social connections are continuously interwoven with digital tools.
The old narrative positioned digital as the enemy—something to monitor, boundary, and defend against. But Krause's research reveals a different path: "How can we change that so we realize humans are empowered to use technology in more mindful ways? It's not going away, and we've seen what's possible when humans align with technology rather than resist it."
This shift from digital detox to digital empowerment becomes crucial as artificial intelligence reshapes how we work, create, and lead. The question isn't how to escape our digital lives—it's how to thrive within them.
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MAGICademy Podcast (00:00)
How do we match our intention with our attention? We're just this tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny thing in this beautiful planet surrounded by a massive cosmos. We don't even know where it ends and where it starts. All we have in life is a series of now moments. And we can waste a lot of time ruminating about...
or kind of being overly concerned and fearful about the future. How do I just drop into this now moment? The opposite of anger is not actually happiness, it's wonder. Imaginative leader and designer sees beyond their separate self to collective we.
Jiani (00:42)
Welcome to MAGICademy Podcast! Today our guest is Caitlin!
Caitlin Krause (00:48)
So great to be here. Hi, everybody.
Jiani (00:50)
So good
to have you second time around. Part two. Yes. Yes. Wonderful. And Caitlin is a founder of MindWise and also a globally recognized expert, keynote speaker, and designer to help teams and leaders to leverage the power of well-being, imagination, and wonder to supercharge
Caitlin Krause (00:54)
Exactly. Yeah, this is our part two. Cheers.
Jiani (01:17)
team performance and leadership in the future of work. And in her recent book, Digital Wellbeing, proposed and presents a framework about well-being because a lot of times when we're thinking about well-being, it's this like fluffy concept, well-being, meditation and chanting and sitting and be mindful.
However, no one has ever really looked into what exactly does well-being include. a framework helping us to understand what each element of well-being would include and mean, and also in the effort of guiding teams and leaders to leverage this solid framework.
to help them develop leadership, culture, and team collaborative environment. She believes in a life to embrace creative constraints, embrace moments of wonder and awe in alignment with ultimately our purpose, our passion, and the magic of being
also bringing your power ring today. hopefully conversation will be supercharged for our audience. And the goal of this conversation is to find out exactly what is a potential index framework for future leaders as it relates to mindfulness and wellbeing.
And how can leaders and teams leverage the knowledge of this framework to build a co-flourishing team dynamic into the future? So life can be fun, work can be fun, and work can be play.
Caitlin Krause (02:51)
I love this introduction. Thank you for framing things so well, Jiani You know I'm back for a second time because I love talking with you and the way that we both have.
Jiani (03:02)
Thank you.
Caitlin Krause (03:04)
the values of infusing the word behind you magic, know, infusing wonder into business practices, into making productivity rise, but also doing it with invitation, with a sense of well being and play. And as you gave me this beautiful introduction, I looked and I have a lot of sketch materials around me, you art supplies. I work in digital and also physical. So I wanted to start with just,
game
that involves something I sometimes play in workshops, just a little quick exercise. What's this?
Yeah, exactly. This is Pac-Man. And, you know, when I started working with well-being, what I found is a lot of people with this topic, they felt really sad. They kind of felt like, you know, what's Pac-Man's being? He's basically hungry, right? Like he feels like he's always missing something. And I think part of the story and some of the allegories of storytelling is that
Jiani (03:57)
Mmm.
Caitlin Krause (04:05)
you have to be in the beginning week or missing something or you have to hit a wall. People who approach the word well-being often feel like maybe they have to experience a burnout before it actually matters to them. And I wanted to honor that and honor that there's a lot of stress and anxiety, a lot of isolation and loneliness. And I wanted to also bring to the table a new
dialogue and a new way of changing the narrative about well-being so that people don't have to feel guilty or shame or as if they need to be broken. So sometimes I just hold that up or I talk about it with students and say, know, what do we actually want? We want unity. We want completion. We're all on a quest, you know, for wholeness.
Jiani (04:54)
You
Caitlin Krause (05:05)
And sometimes the journey toward wholeness, you know, if it's a love story, it's finding love. it's sometimes the work we do in business, it's tackling our challenges and solving problems. You know, we all really like that quest. And it's nice to let people know that they are already enough, you know, that they have safety, that they have freedom to create, that they have new ideas and creative
creative
imagination at their fingertips. So when you were introducing me, I thought this is so beautiful because it also gives me a window to reframe for people what well-being means and why I'm a creative working with leaders in the field.
Jiani (05:49)
I resonate with that. think it's so easy for us to fall into the trap mindset of thinking of lack and maybe even what drives human evolution is unfortunately the sense of feeling lack and we need to like, it's not enough, we just need to keep going and the system...
Caitlin Krause (06:06)
Yeah. More, more, more.
Jiani (06:11)
One
more and the system is very good at creating the sense of being lack and insufficient and everybody's just trying to bridge that infinite gap to be somewhere. And I appreciate what you're just saying. It's like we are already where we need to be. It's the present moment. It's okay. We're never in lacking. We're already whole. And all we need to do is just to see it and to embrace it and to
to be aware of it and not just cognitively but also emotionally and embodying that sense of coldness. And so that actually guides us to the first question. The second question, let's start with the first question, is, this first question is actually inspired by one of your keynote a while back. So the question is, beep, beep, beep.
In front of you lands a spaceship and out walks a friendly alien. If you were to use one word, one sound or one movement to invite this alien to play, what would that be?
Caitlin Krause (07:00)
Hahaha
you
my
gosh. Well, I would definitely use movement. I'm a kinesthetic person. so I think, I think if it's an alien, the word might be like, what do mean by that word? So I love that I haven't thought about this. I'm going to greet the alien like this. Like that. So if I go like this, what I'm thinking is,
Jiani (07:21)
You
Caitlin Krause (07:37)
It's gonna know that I'm not harmful, you know? Like I'm kinda like hands up, hands out. Definitely gonna smile.
You know, and I know part of the book has to do with emotional intelligence and how we communicate our emotions. So I cite Lisa Feldman Barrett's research and sometimes, you know, we can't always just judge by the way that faces are framed, but this alien, if I'm taking the question seriously, it's gonna see me going like this and maybe it'll wanna start dancing or maybe it will engage with me or maybe it will see me as open the more our
body
states are open. It conveys, it also would help me somatically to then put my psychology in my frame into, yeah, into an open mindset, because I want to be curious about this alien. it's, if it's made it all the way to me, then it has to have done a good job. Like maybe it has some things to teach us and some, some wisdom that we could interact with. So I mean,
Jiani (08:21)
in the open state.
That's beautiful.
Caitlin Krause (08:41)
That's my short answer. Then we start communicating. Have you seen the movie Arrival? I really love that movie. yeah, so I keep thinking about the language and how it takes patience and nuance, but it's fascinating to me to think about that.
Jiani (08:48)
⁓ yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, and also I think
that would tap into the future questions because some people may think, how do you determine if the alien is friendly with that intention? And how can we not put us in a vulnerable state, but also in a very open state so that like the being of in the non-duality and always agile and always adaptive. So I think some of the questions will tap into that. It's kind of the
Caitlin Krause (09:03)
Hmm.
Jiani (09:22)
The job that leaders have to face nowadays is to figure out what the situation is and jazz with it and without hurting themselves or the teams, but also be open to the maximum possibilities. So it's a very interesting space to explore. Before we go there, so digital wellbeing, can you tell us like why digital wellbeing and how does that relate to leadership?
Caitlin Krause (09:29)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure. And just to kind of double click on what we were saying earlier, it doesn't mean to be passive. Like when we were saying in the beginning, just be and being is enough. There's a paradox. We're always playing with this concept with digital wellbeing and what we were saying about being enough.
It also means staying curious and it also means being hungry, but not going about it from a place of shame and anxiety, going about that quest from a spirit of abundance and wonder and awe.
So this this whole book and I have I have the book with me. So people see me looking down. It's because, you know, that we're talking about some concepts that are in a book that took me a year to write. It's based on research in my career and a lot of different frameworks. And what I'm talking about is a quality of thriving and flourishing in digital well-being where humans have better relationships.
And
the relationship can be one that you have with technology itself. So the relationship that we have with our patterns, our habits, how we use devices, and also kind of emotionally how we think about our digital identities and the way that we show up in the world. Because I've sensed in the world that there's a lot of kind of broken relationships, feeling like devices own us or dopamine's
spikes are happening, you know, and people will say, I need to go on a digital detox weekend. We'll talk about that later. But that's, that's one way of looking at digital well-being, reframing that relationship and changing it and shifting it into something that can be beautiful, taking back agency. And the other
intention is the relationship of human to human and human to nature that is mediated by technology. Because tech is not the end game. You know, in my world, tech lets me connect with my family that's far away. It lets me get work done with my teams in ways that, you know, is really elevated and more imaginative than it would be if we were all sitting in an office space physically all day.
So a lot of digital technology has opened up new freedoms, and now it's about the intention. How do we match our intention with our quality of attention practices? So that is the whole approach to digital wellbeing. And I think in the past, the narratives that I've seen a lot in media is that digital is negative, digital is bad, and humans need to
monitor that and set up lot of boundaries. So people talk about it in a kind of a language that says, how are you defending your own time against the digital? And what I wanted to bring up in this book, and also in a lot of conversations is, how can we change that so that we realize that humans are empowered to use technology in more mindful ways, because it's not going away. And we've seen dialogue about
our children, the next generation, how are we approaching the future of leadership and work and what we're getting done, especially with AI in mind in ways that allow humans to thrive in the best way we can, aligning with technology. So that's my leadership goal to be that voice and give people back more power.
Jiani (13:42)
I love that. And another follow up question is why do you decide to see digital wellbeing as the overall theme rather than subdividing that into a potential subtopic under wellbeing? And so what's the design and thinking and reasoning behind that approach?
Caitlin Krause (13:58)
Yeah.
I love this.
And by the way, as I'm describing, feel free if you want to interrupt me at all, because I think this kind of leads us into, if people are following along, page 20 of this book talks about six dimensions of wellbeing. I realized I couldn't talk about digital wellbeing without talking about wellbeing. And what I'm saying is that...
well-being and digital, as you said, should be seen as a fusion and not siloed. Because if we treat digital as one separate category, then we're not seeing our lives right now as layered. Like our life is layered with technology and people are doing everything from wearing smart watches to, you know, gathering their bio data to communicating constantly, getting alerts. And so to not treat
treat
it holistically felt to me intuitively a disadvantage to actually changing the system. So I looked in this book and found there's some dimensions of wellness and well-being that I love. So, you one example is the six dimensions that I cite in the book on page 20 that separate it into intellectual, occupational, spiritual well-being, social well-being, emotional and physical.
And then what I did is look at all of those qualities and then.
look at them through a layer, through a lens of digital, because digital applies to all of those, even physical. If we think about our lives, I often say our lives are phygital
because right now at a computer, I'm paying attention to the way my posture is. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm still physically in my primary avatar of my human body. And then if I augment with any
technology, whether it's wearing Ray-Ban smart glasses, you know, with augmented reality fields, it's all happening on a layer on top of my physical well-being. And if I factor in
emotional factors, social factors, there are different ways that digital can augment those types of experiences. And it can it can animate how I do my job. So that would be occupational wellness. And when I'm using digital, say to embody a different avatar or to have an overview effect.
meditation, then my spiritual well-being is amplified. So I really wanted to give it, I guess the word is context. Our lives have a context. And so it's not as easy maybe to just check off boxes and say, well, well-being needs met here. It's more about, well, how does our body feel? And how does that framework?
fit the context of our lifestyle with our goals in mind. So I started explaining some of the history of why people even address the word well-being in general, because I don't think people were talking about wellness and well-being, let's say in the 1950s. It became a topic as industry rose and humans were able to...
I think assess quality of life and life standards at a higher level and say, well, what's the actual outcome? You know, is our outcome. And you and I could have a side topic. What is happiness? You know, what is joy? What's the goal in life to have total thriving? And it goes way beyond financial. know, financial is important.
Jiani (17:30)
Yeah.
Caitlin Krause (17:41)
but as you and I know, yeah, it's not everything. So, well-being is really a qualitative index that now a lot of countries are looking at and prioritizing when it comes to measuring how humans both self-assess their life and also plan their goal setting.
Jiani (17:42)
It's a foundation, I feel like. Yeah.
Beautiful. So since we're talking about the topic about leadership and digital wellbeing, if you were to envision the index for the future leaders, in teams, what would the index include? And the people can be, the leaders can be anybody and could be someone building a startup team, starting their ventures. could be someone.
leading the innovation initiative in the existing corporation structure. And it can be anybody working in any teams that leading the teams dynamically at any time to fulfill the needs of the moment. So if you were to look at leadership through that lens, what would go into the leadership well-being index at a core level and also at a comprehensive level?
Caitlin Krause (18:40)
you
Wonderful. This is such a beautiful question because the index is actually the foundation that lets...
thriving take place. If you have certain qualities that have been prioritized, that's intentional and then that allows the system to thrive. And what happens right now is we're in complex systems where we have cooperative teams where you're exactly right. A leader doesn't have to be in the position of always having authority. There are different people on a team that are supporting each other.
and
truly resilient systems, if we even look to nature as one of our metaphors, they involve co-sensing and having different parts of leadership step up in a system to support when another part needs it. So in the book, one of the points that I make is the research that Harvard's Amy Edmondson has made about psychological safety. And one of the index parameters would be, your team and your organization
Small or large any size have psychological safety where it encourages failure there's some kind of model there where people are encouraged to take risks and There's an iterative pattern because then both both leaders and people who are on a team together Don't have to be positioning like what did you expect? How can I please you they're thinking about the best outcome and often?
leaving ego at the door, you know? So, so how does that happen in a way? Then it shows, okay, more well-being can take place because people feel safe then. They feel as if, of course, they're going to be accountable to having high standards. But if you're on a team together, I think everybody knows what it, what it's felt like at certain times to be with a team where you're at the edges and you're exploring and you're taking risks together without any, any fear.
And yet there's still something at stake because you want the best outcome together. So I make that point in the book, which leads me toward the topic of imagination because associated with wellbeing index of the future, I have it closely tied to imagination because that's the sweet spot of human ingenuity. So as we look at in history, when have we ever made a creative connection or when have we ever...
felt ourselves enriched and elevated, it's usually when we feel as if our imagination is being accessed. So I talk about, and I think it's a good consideration when we think about indexes for thriving, how much is that quality of imagination coupled with things like getting enough sleep, having enough water, getting exercise and good nutrition, that all goes into wellbeing.
frameworks that would be the basic level of an index and having access to quality education and healthcare and shelter. And then what does it mean to, for example, in my imagination index in the book, say, the imaginative leader and designer sees beyond their separate self to collective we, you how do you have different exercises and empathy?
Second quality,
understands and embraces the fun factor. Fun and play can motivate everything. A third one builds designs that are beyond simulation. So not just a learning and task practice that replicates physical reality, there's something more at stake and a world of wonder to lead us there. So how can we go beyond simulating physical realities into things that might have better design practices? So
Jiani (22:22)
Hmm.
Caitlin Krause (22:47)
how do you have one of the qualities is celebrating non-attachment. Non-attachment is really hard and it's hard for me too because as humans we're kind of programmed. Yeah, we're programmed because we, yeah, and we recognize patterns. Our brain is really predictive. So it's actually predicting itself into the next situation. We like surprise, but sometimes surprise, you know, that.
Jiani (22:50)
Mm.
Are we attached? Safe. We feel safe.
Caitlin Krause (23:13)
that encourages our brain to become plastic and adaptive. This is why infusing some levels of immersive training can be really healthy for a human because we can encourage detachment from time and space and fixed identity and encourage our brain to be more plastic, which then makes us more creative and potentially hopefully more understanding of other people and the larger goal. So.
Jiani (23:41)
I love that.
Is that something, is that related to childlike wonder? Like when we were little kids, our brain is naturally plastic with a lot of like plasticity and we adapt situations, we treat situations as like new situations and we always in this play and wonder state. Are you indicating that sort of?
Caitlin Krause (24:01)
I think it does. I mean, I'm pretty sure maybe on the first podcast, we talked about the levels of wonder because I've, I've proposed that there are five different levels. And the first one is that childlike open state of wonder. And the second state is an empathy where we're, wondering about other perspectives in the world. Cause we start to understand that there are people beyond us that have their own identities and their own perspective.
And then third level of wonder would be surfing wonder, like riding the waves of imagination that lead us into a new understanding and you just kind of let your mind take off and go on that creative path. The fourth level would be staring at planet Earth, like having an overview effect, a wonder and awe experience of.
It can actually be at a spiritual level of awe, know, just kind of dropping away from self-consciousness and recognizing a lot of physical boundaries that we make as humans don't have to be the way that things progress. We start to feel more of a global oneness and maybe a connection to the universe. A lot of people describe this in spiritual ways, but it's attached to wonder and awe. And then the...
Jiani (25:15)
That's beautiful.
Caitlin Krause (25:16)
The fifth one is really the wonder of the gestalt where everything drops away. I wrote a book called Designing Wonder. I love Jiani that you're talking about wonder because a lot of people say it fires equal in amplitude to anger in the brain, but it's the other end of the spectrum. So the opposite of anger is not actually happiness, it's wonder.
Jiani (25:24)
Yes.
Caitlin Krause (25:47)
It's like, can we, how can we?
look at wonder and recognize it as yes, the innocence and play of children and also the wisdom that we could have as adults, like we can keep wonder in our life as a practice.
Jiani (26:02)
That's beautiful. And also let's kind of tie it back to the leadership. So in the future, the world will become more and more unpredictable and technologies will continue to thrive as it is already. And how would, so in the, in the index of for leadership wellbeing, also mentioned the ability to be mindful.
Caitlin Krause (26:22)
Mm.
Jiani (26:27)
And the mindful, what I see is the ability for us to pay attention and be aware. And you have this like three step A's to help people to be more aware and more mindful. can you explain what that process looked like and how can leaders leverage that knowledge to help themselves be more mindful when they're leading in different situations?
Caitlin Krause (26:46)
Sure.
So I got a little sidetracked by wonder, but the rest of the index, the keys to having better wellbeing through attaching the detachment, but also the imagination would be to make sure to give agency to other people.
to recognize humanity in yourself and others, to safely embrace challenges and also know when to relax and rest. So how do people give themselves permission to rest as part of the wellbeing index for leaders? And everybody can be a leader because we're all leading our own life design.
Yeah, and the last two are to allow participants in design to exit mindfully. So how can non-addictive algorithms in our leadership allow for people, you we used to use the words like grind, like you have to grind your way through to reach success. And how can we come in and out of those?
those kind of cycles because there is a cycle. I love rigor. love things being high pressure sometimes. And what I want is not to have cortisol spikes in my body and go into panic mode and feel like things are never done or never good enough. Because it leads us into this state of depletion and our bodies remember that.
And the last part is creating social connection. There's a lot of evidence that the more we create opportunities for social connection, you know, and this can happen in digital gaming environments. You know, I know a lot of I've been involved in game design and wonderful elements in play that can encourage people to be together and feel that sense of belonging and connection. So what does that mean when our neural network can be fueled by synchrony, meaning that our digital helps us to have
heart coherence with other people and feel less loneliness and feel a lot of people want to know that they matter. So back to your question, which is beautiful about the three A's. Mindfulness is between the notes of all of this. Mindfulness is, I'd say, a movement, has a lot of history associated with Buddhism, and then
In America, especially John Cabot Zinn in the 1970s and early 1980s started to work with different people that were experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. So PTSD people, he was saying, let's work with mindfulness techniques, which is a practice of awareness in the present moment without judgment, you know, on purpose. So how do we increase our awareness? And
I started practicing mindfulness decades ago as part of my own work practice and also spiritual practice. I knew that when I was teaching, when I was leading groups and when I was going about my creative practice and writing, I could get into a better flow state if I just started by acknowledging emotion, letting it go, and kind of witnessing.
the patterns of what will come up in your mind. know, so some people call it monkey mind because it has a certain way of just taking you on a ride. So as I was practicing mindfulness, I thought, wow, this is a secret superpower. It's making me better at my job, more people. I didn't have to announce it. I would just show up and be so open and adaptive that people noticed. So I coined the three A's as anchors to remember practices in mindfulness being
Jiani (29:59)
Mm.
home.
Caitlin Krause (30:25)
aware. So the first day is just being aware of my emotional state, my body state, the sensations, things happening around me, how can I detach from things if I'm not first aware. And then the second part is advancing, which means I am growing. I'm like a tree. Now I'm seeking sunlight. I'm I'm a person who is not static. Nobody's static.
You know, we're on a journey and we get to choose our path. We can choose whether or not we carry self doubt or carry the stories that other people told us. can, we can write our own. And that's, that's a lesson in mindfulness. The second A of advancing means, you know, let go of those limiting beliefs, be able to embrace growth mindset, you know, so, so that advancing is that, that detachment from.
anything you would see as limiting. And then the third A
is authenticity. Because as soon as you decide, you know, to just, just be aware and be nonjudgmental about it, you know, we're all humans, we're all in this ride together. So when I, when I show up and I'm less focused on perfection and more focused on how can I be available in this moment to what's coming up, then I start to realize, this is life.
Like right now, anybody listening, this is right now. This is the now moment. Like you could get goosebumps just realizing all we have in life is a series of now moments. And we can, we can waste a lot of time ruminating about the past or kind of being overly concerned and fearful about the future. And you know, that's, that's kind of the, it's the challenge of being human that a lot of our life is spent.
doing that. And for me, the continual opportunity, which is a practice is to, I love that you just took a deep breath because it is, is to take a deep breath, you know, not prescriptively, but invitationally, we get to like say, Hey, how do I, how do I just drop into this now moment? And like John Kabat-Zinn says, like, how do you recognize the moment by moment?
Jiani (32:22)
Bye.
Hmm.
Caitlin Krause (32:47)
awareness that is the emergent, beautiful unfolding of your life. Yeah.
Jiani (32:56)
That's beautiful.
Caitlin Krause (32:56)
Thanks. So that's, that's why mindfulness is an ingredient that's part of what I practice and do, because it adds flavor. is, it is the heart. is the, yeah, it adds the intention underneath digital wellbeing and the practices, you know? Yeah, it starts with the...
Jiani (33:18)
Yeah. And I think the intention,
yeah, I think the intention ties back into psychological safety and the foundation of feel safe to exist because we create the safe space for us to acknowledge every single feeling, thoughts that we are experiencing in our avatar in this world as of now.
And of course it's going to be different diversity of it. If it's just pure happiness or get bored, think because of all this other shades, 50 shades of whatever that is that makes life more interesting. And, and, and for leaders to cultivate this sense of, of mindfulness for not only for themselves, but also for the team as they tackle.
Caitlin Krause (33:56)
Yes.
Jiani (34:09)
challenges as they come, they're gonna for sure come. Of course, we actually need to thrive on challenges because that's a beautiful ingredients that help us to not only be aware, but also advance and stay authentic to kind of progress together. And this resilience, yeah.
Caitlin Krause (34:22)
Yeah.
And this is resilience training. This is, this is why it
sounds very theoretical, but part of my work is doing things like working with the air force, leading their resilience training, because when, when people step in and realize, these are qualities that can be part of their superpower, then they're more able, you know, sometimes it's a LinkedIn group, or sometimes it's a project team. When I come in from the outside and bring some of these active practices,
that are using that philosophy. You know, I think people at first are, might think, it's, as you said at the beginning, it's a soft subject, it's wellbeing. But then it's like, no, actually this is a skill to being better at agility in this age of AI. And when we frame it through a digital lens, people are all also up-skilling their digital abilities at the same time.
Jiani (35:19)
That's beautiful. Yeah. And also you talk about the idea of agility and I connect that with the idea of being non-attached. And also in your book, you're talking about the overview effect where as we observe the planet earth from the space, we get like a sense of massiveness and oneness where, we understand we're just this tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny,
Caitlin Krause (35:45)
I'm in a school.
Jiani (35:46)
thing in this like
beautiful planets that surrounded by a massive massive cosmos and whatever that that is and we don't even know where it ends and where it starts and we're just in the middle of this massiveness and in your book you're talking about that helps us to get a sense of awe and and makes everything seem so small every challenges it's just this pixel it's just like
Caitlin Krause (35:50)
Yeah.
Well,
Jiani (36:12)
playing with this pixel.
Caitlin Krause (36:12)
and imagine this is all design framework. Part of the reason the book exists is so people can go back to it and think about these learnings and realize it.
and everything you're saying is hinging on the word experience.
So what I like to invite is the book to be kind of, you know, not a manual, but it's a training to go back to where you always have it with you in a bunch of stories and examples and frameworks. And then I'm also inviting people to co-participate in workshops or in engagements where they come in and they have that overview effect experience.
or they meet in a team together and they're designing in 3D. Because for me, when I see somebody else have that experience, then it codifies in their body. I think imaginatively we can experience something through reading a book. That's why I think ideas come alive in a book. And if I say to you, imagine your greatest moments of wonder and joy, usually something happened.
Usually you're engaging with something. So I wanted to offer these practices also as engagements where people can have activations and they can, you know, either in live time with me or through different things I'm building. So stay tuned, you know, people can have these experiences. Yeah.
Jiani (37:39)
Yeah, I'm actually very curious if we
were to build this retreat experiences into the virtual realities and where we get this embodied sense of all. also in your book, you mentioned about the power of music, the power of sound, the power of movement, which we don't usually get in the
Caitlin Krause (37:47)
Yes.
Jiani (38:03)
day-to-day life purposefully. How would you design, how would you design an experience in that virtual space that actually helps leaders and teams to
experience well-being that can potentially, they can potentially bring that sense of well-being into the real world as they build solutions and product to solve problems.
Caitlin Krause (38:25)
So there are two answers. One would be that in here there are design frameworks, which we could go to about some of the building priorities. let's think about places and spaces that have that quality of meaning and that quality of play inside of them.
And just imagine the safety and the curiosity and also the structure that lets people surrender, inhabit something magical and thrive and show up with all of their questions and interactions and feel as if it recognizes them.
maybe as a human, maybe beyond human, because sometimes our containers, you know, we're larger than what we might have assumed about ourselves and others. So I'm framing that and I'm also closing my eyes because anyone who's listening who's curious, I wanted to build an invitation that can be a way to interact with digital.
and have wonder and have wellbeing as part of that and bring you into a state of recognizing the brightness of this now moment. So.
people will say to me, do I need to have a headset? No, you don't need to have a VR headset. So this is something that's going to be very accessible and open to everybody. And we'll have elements of music and movement and meditation and give people in business and for personal use a chance to connect with those elements, learn more and feel supported along the way. Because a lot of people have meditation practices and they might not have combined them with
creativity and wonder. So maybe when we put this out, we could put in the comments because I can't say all of the details yet, but we could maybe put in the comments a link where people could sign up or find out more because there will be certain gatherings where you can taste it and feel it and learn more about it. How does that sound? I'm so excited.
Jiani (40:26)
Yeah, I would like to taste it. Yeah, yeah, I think also the
when you're when you're talking about one one way to design this experience is to put us in situations where all is kind of a natural feeling. I would first wanted to try to see the planet Earth from afar. I would like to step into the space and look at our beautiful home.
as this little blue dot in a
black background. And I wanted to really, I can imagine how I would feel, but I would, I think I will feel different when I really there, when I'm kind of virtually, digitally there. That would be something I'm curious about. I think our audience will be curious about that too.
Caitlin Krause (41:21)
I
brought a group together to a virtual moon.
And it was all a team that was with the State Department. We're doing a partnership with Egypt, a bunch of archaeologists and working on the project together. Part of the project involved going into virtual reality. And you could see, you could see layers of history. You could actually go back in time to some of the archaeological sites and see them and witness them differently. And then the team, I took the team to the moon and we looked at
Jiani (41:55)
you
Caitlin Krause (41:55)
planet Earth. And it was it was amazing. It was incredible. And some of the responses from the team afterwards were that they, you know, because we did different exercises, different practices throughout this journey that was spatial, a spatial traveling kind of journey together. And when we were looking at planet Earth, it was like what you were saying, we had these moments and there was music infused and objects and creativity and people came back and
after they were bouncing around on the craters and just said they were different as a team. They were more bonded. They had had experiences together as opposed from being from the neck up.
always on Zoom calls. And you can layer this where different people can experience, you know, we can go into a digital garden or into a digital experience together that I've designed through a browser. So you don't have to have a headset. It still puts your mind into a creative place. And we can start off on Zoom, and we can use different boards to interact with ideas together. It's all about invitational play and giving levels where people
feel safe to have those encounters, understand them, and then make them personal. So you can see I come alive when I talk about this, because I'm an experienced designer. I love being an experienced designer.
Jiani (43:13)
Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, I can see the light.
That's beautiful. And I think experience
has this way of shifting people's perspectives and change people. It's like a, it's technology for change. Yeah.
Caitlin Krause (43:32)
Yeah, because then you feel
the emotion.
Jiani (43:37)
Yeah, and I think back to those situations, I think one is from like the massive, massive perspective. Another one is like micro space. So I want it to be like tiny. I want it to be little on this planet earth and, and be maybe a bee or butterfly or a bird and start seeing the world from their perspective or maybe an ant, maybe an ant or a earthworm. I wanted to see the planet earth through
Caitlin Krause (43:50)
Yeah.
You
Yeah
Jiani (44:01)
probably earthworm does not have much experience to share maybe an ant maybe yeah maybe they'll have different sort of senses maybe they sense the earth through colors or something we need to bring an expert who knows earthworms and how they sense the world see that's kind of how we learn how we explore the world there's so many unknowns that that we can infuse into the experience that can potentially
Caitlin Krause (44:05)
⁓ who knows? could be a very wise performance.
Yes.
Jiani (44:28)
facilitate and cultivate a sense of wellbeing for leaders and teams and the problem-solving journey can be so much fun. Beautiful.
Caitlin Krause (44:37)
Mm-hmm. Well, and imagine I'm thinking
imagine that some of the problems right now that we're facing include things like climate change include things, you know, we want to be solving problems that are our big problems and
it often takes a certain mindset. Like when you talked about being an earthworm, I'm like, how creative instead of meeting something with friction and being tense, because that's often not when you have an epiphany. know, great scientists have epiphanies when they feel like they're in flow mode and, you know, they're playing with ideas. So it's like meeting gravity of these serious challenges with bounce, with levity. We can use our design in digital to
Jiani (45:16)
Yes.
Caitlin Krause (45:17)
enhance that.
Jiani (45:20)
That's beautiful. I hope through this
conversation, our audiences, leaders, and teams, you all get a more comprehensive idea about the idea of digital well-being and how that relates specifically in the context of leadership, dynamic leadership, and digital well-being and digital well-being leadership. And so as we conclude this conversation,
Caitlin Krause (45:40)
Yes, yes.
Jiani (45:43)
Caitlin, overall, what do you think is your magic? And also, how would you recommend our audience to implement in the most simple way, on a day-to-day basis, to constantly or to periodically experience this sense of digital wellbeing as leaders in teams? I know it's double question, sorry.
Caitlin Krause (46:07)
Mmm.
That's
all right. I love it.
I love not leaving anything out. will go to show the final, one of the final chapters in this book is about well-being through AI and how to thrive with hope. hope is something that
might seem naive because okay, you right now times sometimes seem heavy, you know, but if we look at actually the last epilogue, future site envisioning a future of digital thriving, my one of my qualities where if I step back and I look at myself as somebody who
grew up with parents in the Foreign Service, moved around a lot. I had to stay adaptive and curious. Otherwise, I would have been afraid. you know, I'm looking down at some of like, look at your life from on high and you can you can think that, it's been very diverse. You know, I was a programmer and I'm an artist. I'm a designer and I also
understand certain frameworks of science and math and what underpins a lot of digital technology. And the reason this book addresses AI is because I think right now there's so much about AI that is advancing possibilities. I'm very hopeful. So the superpower of hope is really what I rely on.
And it doesn't mean just wishful thinking and stepping back. It means leaning in and saying, not only am I hopeful in a future of thriving, but there are ways to make it possible. And we can do this together. So it's not about any of us feeling like we're alone meeting these challenges. You know, people who care so much start to feel that care sometimes as a difficult emotion. So how can we.
acknowledge that together, myself included, and say, hey, I choose to be hopeful, which means opening up to the truth of this moment, which is that we are all
in a relational trust with each other and showing up having conversations about AI and ethics, it needs to happen. And we can't do it alone. So that's, that's the note that I want to close on that anyone who has something to offer and also something that they're curious about, speak because there are other people waiting to hear you. And they won't know if you don't take a chance and reach out and say what you're curious about and also share what you have to
share. And that's gratitude. Yeah, gratitude. Yeah, what were you saying?
Jiani (48:49)
And at the same time, stay hopeful. I love that. I love that. And at the same time
to resonate and call back what you just said is to at the same time, stay hopeful. And then the hope will be tangible because it's being embodied in the questions that you ask in the ideas that you share and just the
your action of sharing and connecting is hope. It's measurable, it's tangible, and it's each micro steps that's guiding us towards hopefully a future that we could co-thrive as human
with technologies.
Caitlin Krause (49:30)
Yeah, it amplifies. I'm so grateful. Thank you. Thank you for asking the best questions. Yeah, really.
Jiani (49:36)
I
try and thank you for collaborating with me to fine-tuning those questions
Caitlin Krause (49:42)
I look forward to part three and thank everybody in our audience. Extreme gratitude. It is the season of gratitude and beyond. So thanks so much for having me on your show.
Jiani (49:53)
Thank you, Caitlin and all the best luck for the future immersive experiences that you will be built. And please let us know, and we're happy to invite our community to join you on this journey and experience a sense of awe, well-being, and flourishing future that we all.
deserve to be in.
Caitlin Krause (50:16)
Thank you, Jiani. They will be physical meets digital. So everybody is welcome. And I just, echo that gratitude back. Let's look forward to a part three sometime soon.
Jiani (50:28)
Beautiful.
Leadership Wellbeing Index: Building Tomorrow's Resilient Teams
What makes a leader truly effective in unpredictable times? Krause introduces her comprehensive wellbeing index, a framework that updates traditional metrics and builds in more agency, adaptation, and resilience. It’s context-driven and ideal for solving the current challenges facing everyone aiming to advance with AI in ways that don’t sacrifice our human ingenuity.
At the foundation lies psychological safety—Harvard's Amy Edmondson's concept that Krause identifies as non-negotiable. "Your team needs psychological safety where failure is encouraged, where there's an iterative pattern, because then both leaders and team members don't have to be positioning like 'what did you expect?' They're thinking about the best outcome."
But psychological safety is just the beginning. Future leaders must also cultivate the ability to give agency to others, recognize humanity in themselves and their teams, safely embrace challenges, and—critically—know when to rest. "How do people give themselves permission to rest as part of the well-being index for leaders?" Krause asks. "We used to use words like 'grind'—you have to grind your way to success. How can we create new, healthier cycles that don't leave cortisol spikes in our bodies?"
The Leadership Wellbeing index also emphasizes creating meaningful social connections and designing systems that allow people to "exit mindfully"—identifying energy-draining patterns and changing the response to challenging situations without shame or addiction-like behaviors. It’s a total mindset and practice shift, with major advantages.
The Three A's of Mindfulness: Leadership Superpowers
Mindfulness isn't just meditation cushions and breathing exercises. For leaders, it's a practical toolkit that Krause distills into three essential practices:
Aware: The foundation of all leadership presence. "Being aware of my emotional state, my body state, the sensations, things happening around me," Krause explains. You can't lead effectively if you're unconscious of your patterns and triggers. The ability to couple attention with intention is essential, and some practices help you level up.
Advancing: Growth mindset in action. "We’re like trees seeking sunlight. People are not static. We get to choose whether we carry self-doubt or the stories other people told us. We can write our own." This isn't toxic positivity—it's a conscious choice about which narratives drive your decisions.
Authenticity: The courage to show up fully present, with openness and courage. It’s about the relational trust we build into systems. "When I'm less focused on perfection and more focused on how I can be available in this moment, I realize—this is life. All we have is a series of “now moments,” and being authentic helps us know how to take positive right action in the moment, and how to stay open for others."
These aren't soft skills. As Krause employed while leading the Air Force in resilience training, "People might think at first these are soft subjects, wellbeing and creativity, and collaboration. But then it's like, no, actually these are skills to become better at. It’s about agility in this age of AI."
Hope as Action: The Leader's Ultimate Responsibility
In uncertain times, hope might seem naive. But Krause reframes hope as measurable action. "It doesn't mean wishful thinking and stepping back. It means leaning in and saying, not only am I hopeful in a future of thriving, but there are ways to make it possible. And we can do this together." It’s a fierce, resilient, brazen hope.
For leaders, this translates into a clear directive: "Anyone who has something to offer and also something they're curious about, speak. Other people are waiting to hear you. They won't know if you don't take a chance and reach out."
Hope becomes tangible through the questions we ask, the ideas we share, and the simple act of showing up authentically in our communities and teams.
⭐ Caitlin’s MAGIC
The "superpower of hope" - not passive wishful thinking, but an active, embodied approach that leans into challenges with curiosity and adaptability. Drawing from her diverse background as both a programmer and artist, she transforms hope into a collaborative force that opens people to the truth of the present moment while building toward a thriving digital future. Her magic lies in encouraging others to speak up and share their creative, visionary gifts, recognizing that we're all in relational trust with each other and can tackle complex challenges like AI and digital wellbeing together rather than alone.
Connect with Caitlin
Caitlin Krause is a globally recognized experience designer, learning expert, and Stanford University instructor who specializes in technology, wonder, and wellbeing. As author of six books, including Digital Wellbeing (2024), Designing Wonder (2021), and Mindful by Design (2019), and founder of MindWise consultancy, she helps leaders and organizations develop human-centered relationships with mindful technology through her expertise in AI, virtual and augmented reality, and immersive storytelling. With over a decade of educational experience and degrees from Duke University and Lesley University, Caitlin delivers keynotes and workshops worldwide, promoting mindful leadership, emotional intelligence, and design thinking that fosters imagination and creativity in both individuals and teams.
Credits & Revisions:
Guest Alignment Reviewer: Caitlin Krause
Story Writer/Editor: Dr. Jiani Wu
AI Partner: Perplexity, Claude
Initial Publication: July 25 2025
Disclaimer:
AI technologies are harnessed to create initial content derived from genuine conversations. Human re-creation & review are used to ensure accuracy, relevance & quality.
