Advertisement

Yahoo's Reset Your Mindset at Work

Yahoo and Fortune present: Reset Your Mindset at Work, featuring commentary from Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban, Tennis star Serena Williams, WW International CEO Mindy Grossman, and many more on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Video Transcript

JULIA LA ROCHE: After months of economic anxiety and uncertainty in almost every aspect of our lives, it's time for a reset. Over the next hour, we'll celebrate mental wellness in the workplace, a Yahoo special in partnership with Fortune, "Reset Your Mindset at Work." We'll hear from a host of business leaders, newsmakers, and influencers on how we can emerge from this crisis stronger than before.

Among our guests, "Shark Tank" investor and Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban.

MARK CUBAN: So I personally think this is a chance-- this reset is an opportunity for us to do a couple of new things that four months ago I would've been totally-- totally against.

JULIA LA ROCHE: We'll also hear from sports legend, Serena Williams.

SERENA WILLIAMS: This is a really good time to just take care of me and other people should think about it that way, too.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Also joining us, the president of the American Medical Association, Dr. Patrice Harris, and the CEO of WW International, Mindy Grossman, as we examine how we can return to work safely. All that and a lot more on this Yahoo special in partnership with Fortune, Reset your Mindset at Work.

Hello and welcome to "Reset your Mindset at Work." I'm Julia La Roche, a correspondent for Yahoo Finance. And I'm excited to bring to you this hour, jampacked with some noteworthy guests to have a powerful and uplifting and meaningful conversation around mental wellness in the workplace and what the workplace of the future will look like in the next normal.

Now I would like to bring in Yahoo Finance editor in chief, Andy Serwer. Andy, you have the ear of the C-Suite. I know you have been talking to so many CEOs and business leaders throughout this pandemic. What are you hearing from them?

ANDY SERWER: Well, Julia, first of all, I think there's been an abrupt change. To be quite honest with you, mental health has been sort of a sideshow at work. And to the extent that chief executives even thought about mindfulness, often, they would just bring in a consultant and sort of leave it at that.

But now with all this working at home, mental health has taken to a new urgency and it's become a front and center issue. So now executives and other managers are having to deal with mental health and mindfulness on a day to day basis, and it's calling for new strategies. New ways of coping with working with people and making sure they're engaged and working well within the organization. So we're starting to see just a whole new way of work beginning to unfold.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Andy, I'm glad you brought up a strategy, because you're right-- I think businesses are starting to rethink strategy. And that mental health is a smart strategy in the workplace. Our next guest, I'm so pleased to welcome, Mark Bertolini, the former CEO of Aetna along with Johnson & Johnson's chief human resources officer, Peter Fasolo, to talk about mental wellness in the workplace.

Mark Bertolini, I want to start with you, because I know that mental wellness and mindfulness, it's so personal to you. You have these two life events that were really changing for you. And it changed the way that you ran Aetna. I was hoping you could share with our viewers about your own experience.

MARK BERTOLINI: Yeah, I think as a result of having to sit with my son for a year in the hospital as he fought cancer and my own accident. I realized that the system was not set up to create or recreate the human experience for you after you got "well," quote, unquote. It was more about you got well, the thing that you had that was wrong was fixed, and you could go back into your world.

And I very quickly realized that the whole person needed to be addressed when re-entering the world that they used to be in. Realizing both of it's not going to be normal like it was before. That you had to reinvent yourself to some degree and you had to have a set of practices that allowed you to see the world in a different way, in a more productive way, in a more wholesome way.

JULIA LA ROCHE: And Peter, I know that Johnson & Johnson, you have talked about creating the healthiest workforce. And I'm wondering how mental health, the mindfulness, the mental well being plays into that strategy, and what kind of results you all have seen?

PETER FASOLO: Well, Julia, first of all, thank you for having me. And we do at Johnson & Johnson look at the health of our employees in the most holistic way. We set out goals to have the healthiest workforce on the planet. And that means mentally healthy, spiritually healthy, nutritionally healthy, and emotionally healthy. And we have a range of programs and approaches to do that.

And we, just like Mark's experience at Aetna, we have tried to really look at the outcomes of this. But we also understand that employees don't check themselves at the door when they come into the facilities at Johnson & Johnson, so we want to make sure that people are looking at their lives in the richest, most comprehensive manner. And now with COVID-19, it has become even more paramount as close to two thirds of our workforce are working from home and dealing with the array of balances that they have to deal with-- child care, elder care, bouts of loneliness-- and staying connected and collaborating in ways to ensure that mental health is at the forefront of what our employees are doing is even more important now than it ever has been.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Yeah, and Mark, Peter was just referencing the investments they made-- I know at Aetna, you did the same thing. And we've had this conversation about investing in human capital. And it's something that needs to be addressed. And I was hearing if you think that part of it has to do with maybe a broken capitalist system that we have right now-- how do you think we might rethink that on the other side of this crisis.

MARK BERTOLINI: I think it is a broken system. And we do need to rethink it. People have been rethinking it, but I think we've been given lip service to the kinds of changes that need to happen. I think we measure-- we've been measuring our economy for a long time on six financial flow funds to determine the economy's health. And we looked at sort of tangentially, productivity and skill sets as part of that solution.

But we really haven't realized is that the human condition in and of itself, where people live, how they live, the kind of circumstances they have when they're not at work actually do matter. And that's come fully to the fore here as we've gone through this crisis. This crisis has opened up a very clear idea where one little bug can actually shut down the world's economy. And actually, on a monthly basis, $350 billion is the toll that this is taking on our economy, is actually more than we spend on health care on a monthly basis.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Well, it's a really startling statistic that you just brought up-- more than we spend on health care-- really incredible stuff. I want to ask you Peter for your reaction to investing in human capital, rethinking that in the workplace. Do you think that's something that's going to start to change on the other side of this?

PETER FASOLO: Well, I think companies like Johnson & Johnson and other global corporations need to continuously remind themselves that when it comes to the health and wellness of your employees, you have to think in terms of prevention, wellness. I think Mark's right-- is by the time it gets the outcome, you're trying to fix things, and sometimes, it's a bit too late or it gets more complicated or more expensive.

And what we try to do at Johnson & Johnson is invest heavily in prevention wellness in terms of know your numbers, ensure that you're taking mental health breaks, that we have healthy cafeterias, fitness centers, and make sure that people access to programs like EAP and resiliency training and fitness training. No one program or intervention is going to hit the specific outcome you're looking for. It's the strategy and the holistic approach you take towards your employees, which is an investment model, which is a commitment model, and an engagement model so that you have a long term investment in your employees.

Because most companies like Johnson & Johnson are in the innovation business, and you need employees to bring their whole selves to work. You have to make sure that you're protecting them, and that you're keeping them safe, and that you're investing in them.

JULIA LA ROCHE: And I think one of the things that's really remarkable to me is that you're seeing the return on investment, if you will. There is an economic benefit to investing in your people. Mark Bertolini, going back to what you just mentioned earlier, the fact that we're spending so much on health care, yet we really aren't seeing the outcomes-- I think even of the OECD nations, we spend more, yet we don't see the [AUDIO OUT]. Do you think that-- I guess how could we fix that system? It just seems like it's broken right now.

MARK BERTOLINI: Well, I think we have to-- business people for decades have been trained to store scarce resources and to put at risk plentiful resources. And for a long time, the scarce resources were financial resources and the plentiful resources were people. Just put another person on the line. Train somebody else on the job to do this work. Put somebody behind a terminal screen or on the phone.

I think what's happened since probably the early '70s, what we've seen is a flip, where financial capital is now plentiful, and human capital is very scarce. Well-trained people who know how to learn and continually evolve with the kind of organization they're in. And we have not made those investments as quite frankly, as businesspeople, we aren't rewarded by the tax system to do so. We can't depreciate our investment in people like we can the machines, so machines are a better economic spreadsheet outcome than people are. And I think we've lost our way as a result.

So we've got to turn that around. Start spending more money in education. The single biggest thing we can do to restore the American dream and to improve the quality of our human capital over time is in K to 3 education, where we teach people how to learn, how to read. We should stop teaching to tests-- standardized tests-- and teach these children how to learn based on the circumstances they're in.

On the other side of it, we then need with people that know how to learn the ability to reskill people for the communities they live in, not necessarily for some job halfway across the country. Because social mobility, geographic mobility, labor mobility is all but stopped, while people stay in their communities where their families are and their social networks are.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Mark Bertolini, former CEO of Aetna, and Peter Fasolo, the chief human resources officer of Johnson & Johnson. Thank you both for your time.

MARK BERTOLINI: Thank you, Julia.

PETER FASOLO: Thank you, Julia.

MARK BERTOLINI: Good seeing you.

JULIA LA ROCHE: And now let's hear from a former-- or not former-- let's hear from tennis legend, Serena Williams-- how she has been navigating the COVID-19 lockdown.

SERENA WILLIAMS: I started quarantining a little bit earlier. So I was in the house a really long time. And then I was like, OK, I'm with a two-year-old, who is amazing, but it's a lot of work every single day. And then she was in this phase where every word was mommy. And I loved it, but at the same time, I'm, like, I can't hear this anymore. I can't hear, mommy, mommy.

It was definitely challenging, but we overcame it, and now we're in our Cinderella robes. I feel like I almost get to be normal. And as weird as it sounds, it's, like, amazing, and I love it.

I've been kind of just really enjoying every second that I get at home. And, you know, I haven't gotten tired. I haven't--

In the beginning, it was definitely hard-- in the beginning. But once I got over that, I was, like, I'm kind of in love with this staying at home life. Obviously, I'm rooting for businesses, which would include mine, to be able to come back. But it's good to just kind of take a break and just really focus on the things that are really important.

My husband actually is, like, just different. So what he did is a long time ago before this happened, he rented himself a warehouse, and he set up, like, his office, and, like, all his computer, and his camera, so he can go live and all this other stuff. And he has like a separate office that's not at the house. So when this happened-- husbands take note-- when this happened, he already had this office that he goes through, which literally, nobody is ever in except for himself.

Everyone has been struggling with this whole thing. And I see all the names on it online that talk about like, quarantine, how everyone is getting a little thicker. But I really took out this time to take-- to take and cleanse my body. So I've been actually-- I've been doing that since quarantining started. So I've been doing these things 30 days, and I would take, like, two days off. And then I completed my second 30 days, and I took, like, three days off.

And now I'm actually doing another cleanse for 60 days-- excuse me. So it goes 60 days are intense. I'm doing another one to 60 days. And they're intense, but I just eat really healthy. I cut off eating-- I did intermittent fasting. I eat-- I try to eat healthy. And, you know, it's so fun. And I'm, like, I want a drink in quarantine, too, but I also want to be healthy when I go back out and play tennis. I want to feel super good.

And this very rare do I as a tennis player have time to actually take care of me. And so I thought, this is a really good time to just take care of me. And other people should think about it that way too, because it's like, you never really get to spend as much time at home. And you could cook for yourself. It's like, a lot of stuff that you can really control what's actually going on in your body.

JULIA LA ROCHE: I'm Julia La Roche and I'm excited to bring in our next guest. We have Mark Cuban, the-- the owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Mark, thank you so much for joining us.

MARK CUBAN: Thanks for having me, Julia.

JULIA LA ROCHE: All right, Mark, well you've been incredibly vocal throughout this COVID-19 pandemic. And you and I have talked about something that you call an American reinvent. What do you mean by that?

MARK CUBAN: You know, when everything's just upside down like it is right now, everything changes, you know? And that creates new opportunities. The people who have been trying to do business like the way it's always been done are uncertain about how to bring their businesses back. Large companies are uncertain about their legacy industries and businesses. And when you have all that uncertainty, that creates an unbridled amount of opportunity. You know, sometimes out of tragedy comes opportunity.

JULIA LA ROCHE: But my question for you is it seems like you're really optimistic. How do you navigate that when there are so many people who are hurting? We're talking about tens of millions who filed for unemployment, people who are seeing their very livelihoods hurt. And also, we're having a conversation about mental health right now, which has become a crisis in and of itself. How do you remain so optimistic?

MARK CUBAN: It's brutal. I mean, it's horrific. There's no way to sugarcoat it. There's no way to spin it. It is just awful. But at the same time, the only way to solve those problems is to really focus on trying to solve them or trying to come up with solutions. Or at least where you can't solve them, suggestions. Or even if I can just impact on the margins and make it better for just a few people. And that's why I'm optimistic, because I want to keep that grind going. I want to keep that-- you know, that eye on trying to help.

And, you know, there's a-- it feels good to help people. You know, and that's what keeps me optimistic. You know, I'm just trying to have an impact.

JULIA LA ROCHE: I think one of the things about you, Mark, is it's about leadership. You have been calling out leadership or lack thereof on both sides of the aisle throughout this. And it's something that we do need. So how do you assess the leadership? How would you grade the leadership in Washington DC? How would you grade the administration's response to this crisis?

MARK CUBAN: Well, it's not just administration. I think politically, we got off to a better start, right? I think the president was a lot more open-minded, he was a lot more deferential to experts and scientists when we needed it. And then something flipped, and he went in a completely different direction.

But it's not just him, right? Because-- and again, it's not like I'm throwing him under the bus, because I just-- I think he could have done better. But when you have imperfect information, you make imperfect decisions. But then you look to Congress, right? And there's really nobody that stands out that we can trust.

And let's just talk about something that was horrible that happened that really came from the Democratic side, as best I understand it. When we looked at the PPP program, right, the reason why PPP was a good idea was that if you could get money to small businesses with 500 or fewer employees quickly-- the operative word be quickly, if not very quickly-- once they had that money in the bank, they would be able to-- they would have the money to retain employees.

The longer that money was delayed, the more likely that they were going to lay people off or fire them. Well, why was that money delayed? It was delayed and a lot of respects because the Democrats kept on trying to get funding for museums and kept on trying to get funding for all these other things. And every day that was delayed out that just made things far worse and added to the unemployment.

And then part three, we have treasury, right? So here where we are right now, we've got all these companies that are basically in a state of suspended animation, right? They may or may not be able to open up. They laid off employees, but they can't get them back, because they can't afford to bring it back, either because they can only open up partially, if at all. And because 68% of people who are on unemployment make more off of unemployment than they do from their former job, so the employees-- the employers can't afford to bring them back. So they're stuck in Never Never Land. That's a huge problem.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Yeah. Mark, I think you bring up some really good points, too. And I should have mentioned at the top of this-- a lot of people know you as an investor on "Shark Tank" and you really do have a pulse on the small, medium-sized business community as well as your own experience in corporate America. So thank you for bringing up those issues. So I guess my question for you, Mark, is what do we kind of restart or give back to growth? Because a lot of it, the PPP and the stimulus checks-- it's kind of a Band-Aid for a wound, if you will. So how do you jump start the growth when you can't even operate at full capacity?

MARK CUBAN: Great question, Julia. So let's start with reality. The primary reality is no business can survive without sales. And two thirds of the economy is consumer-generated demand. And so we've got to get to a scenario where consumers have enough confidence to go out there and spend money. And so there's a couple of ways that you could do that.

You've got to-- [LAUGHS] hey, it's happened to me, too. It's happened to me.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Yeah.

MARK CUBAN: So couple of ways we can do that. One, you've got to you've got to make it so people have confidence in their jobs, right?

JULIA LA ROCHE: Right.

MARK CUBAN: And we're going to have to have a transitional-- not permanent-- transitional federal jobs program. And so we're going to need to hire people, millions of people, you know, preferably for testing, tracing, and tracking, supporting vulnerable populations, long term care. You know, giving people jobs that they know are stable, because that gives them the impetus to spend money.

Two, we're going to have to have a perfectly timed stimulus program. So what does that mean? Well, I talked about companies in suspended animation. You've got all these PPP companies that can't fully open, can't bring back the employees, because they're making too much already, but that ends on July 31, right? That's when the CARES program employment stimulus ends.

And so I think we need to do a debit card program, where we give money, literally, to each household, and have make it use it or lose it. Whether it's 1,000 or 1,200 or whatever that number is, every couple of weeks, and say, you have x number of days to use this debit card or you lose the money that's been deposited on there. Because by doing that and timing it right, that's going to create demand for these companies so they can afford to bring their employees back after they're off of all that unemployment CARES enhancement.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Mark, I always love how you come with new ideas and solutions. When you think about how to problem solve, it just seems like that's in your DNA. Now I've asked you a couple of times on Yahoo Finance's live programming if you're thinking about that presidential run in 2020. We're getting down to the wire here. I would love to pose that question. And also, if you were in office, what would be one of the fundamental things that you would change that we have not yet mentioned in this conversation?

MARK CUBAN: OK, so it's highly unlikely, because of timing, as you mentioned, but stranger things have happened. So you know me, Julia, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm never going to say no. But to answer your question directly-- health care, right? We haven't even had a basic discussion about what happens to health care.

Now that, you know, we've got 39, 40 million people who are unemployed, and who knows how many because they were just hours or reduced wages are underemployed. So we went from an environment where we had 45 million people who are eligible for the ACA and 150 million who were on their employer payrolls that could get insurance programs through-- health insurance through their employer.

Now those numbers can be completely backwards, where we may have 90 million people or whatever-- you know, 45 plus 30, let's say-- 75 million people who are eligible for the ACA and maybe only 110 on employer-based insurance. That creates a whole set of issues in terms of having people have a safety net and being able to take care of their families if somebody gets sick.

You know, and not just from COVID-- from all the other things we get sick from. And so no one's had even the briefest conversation about that. That's awful, right? Again, that goes back to leadership from both sides. And so that's the first thing I would do.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Well, Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, investor on "Shark Tank." Thank you so much for joining us on "Reset Your Mindset."

MARK CUBAN: Thanks for having me, Julia. Always fun.

- Straight ahead on the "Reset Your Mindset" special, brought to you by Yahoo in partnership with Fortune, our small business roundtable featuring Verizon business CEO, Tami Erwin, Farmgirl Flowers CEO Christina Stembel, and Crisis Text Line CEO Nancy Lublin. That's coming up next.

KARA SWISHER: And once this is over, which at some point, it will be, we have to start thinking hard about what kind of society we have created and what protections we need to put in place to protect all people who work, and have the better-- have a better life for them. So it's made us think about it in a really dramatic fashion.

SHERYL SANDBEG: There are moments in this tragedy that people can have that when their loved ones are dying. But for a lot of us, the daily challenges we face-- there are a lot of moments where we can say, wow, there is so much good I still have. There's so much good I can do.

I taught my kids that one of the things to do when they feel sad and lonely is reach out to someone. Call their grandparents who are quarantining home alone. Reach out and try to make someone else feel better. And those are the moments where I think that bring us together.

TONY MARX: I've got an amazing team. And now, you know, in these-- in these unexpected crisis moments-- and this one is, you know, sort of historic-- I mean, this one is really going to be for the record books-- that's when you see the power of know having invested in great talent. As well as having invested in things like digital, which seemed a little far fetched when we started doing it. And now obviously, everyone understands why it's so essential.

TAMI ERWIN: Welcome back to "Reset Your Mindset," a Yahoo and Fortune special. I'm Tami Erwin, and I'm the CEO of the Verizon Business Group. And you know, as we think about COVID and the impact on small businesses, they have most directly been impacted by this crisis. A recent survey that we saw suggested that about 50% of overall businesses are in danger of failing. And yet as you've heard throughout the day, there's an incredible sense of optimism about how businesses are thinking about reimagining and really using the resiliency that small businesses possess to think about what their future might look like.

And I'm really delighted to have a chance to have Christina Stembel, who is the CEO of Farmgirl Flowers, and Nancy Lublin, who's the CEO of Crisis Text Line, join me this afternoon to engage in a dialogue and conversation about how we're managing through this crisis.

Nancy, you're certainly on the front line. You're seeing how COVID has impacted all of our lives. In particular for women, I think about 85% of essential workers are women, and then of course, they carry much of the home duties, whether it's educating or cooking or cleaning or all of it. And you're in the thick of it with the Crisis Text Line. Talk a little bit about what you're hearing is the mindset of where we are now about 70 days into this crisis.

NANCY LUBLIN: We've basically seen three waves of emotion. The first wave was anxiety-- intense anxiety. Words like panic, freaked out, and reference to symptoms.

That was starting in the end of February. The next wave we saw was the impact of the quarantines themselves. That was felt most intensely by the 18 to 35-year-olds, what I would consider the adulting age group. And they were disrupted in three ways. One is they moved back home. Their housing situation-- they're back home in their childhood bedroom, which feels like a defeat. Or they're sheltering alone. Or they have a new young family, and it's very hard to shelter with little kids. Or they're with roommates they met on Craigslist and they're thinking, I never thought I was going to spend as much time with you.

The second way they were disrupted was their careers, right? Their school, their jobs-- they were the first to be furloughed, first to let go. And the third thing that was disrupted was dating, relationships. You can't date in a world where you're supposed to wear a mask and say six feet apart. So they've really been disrupted.

And the third wave of emotion that we've seen is the impact of the grief and the job loss. And we expect this third wave to last a very long time.

TAMI ERWIN: You know, Christina, I think about your business, and you started Farmgirl Flowers in your apartment. It's now a growing $33 million business with 100 employees. But you've had to face some really difficult decisions over the last several weeks. Talk a little bit about how your company is navigating through this coronavirus pandemic.

CHRISTINA STEMBEL: Yeah, what you mentioned, Nancy, those emotions-- I felt all of those emotion very acutely and very quickly. You know, to have 12 and a half hours to shut down a company, basically, where 90% of your operation, you have to shut down in such a short amount of time-- the first feeling is just tremendous fear. You know, like, something that you've just spent 10 years of your life, 120 hours a week building-- no-- no reason or rationale for what you've done. It's just an outside circumstance that nobody budgets or puts in their financial model, you know, a pandemic line, you know? And so--

You know, we're bootstrapped. We're a high growth company. We were on track to do 50 million this year. We had 197 team members the morning of March 16. And I had to furlough all but six that day in 12 hours with no notice. And then figure out how to move thousands of orders to another facility that didn't have the infrastructure to set up to do that. And how to communicate with our customers-- thousands of customers their orders were going to be late. And then to figure out if I was going to able to stay afloat.

TAMI ERWIN: So Christina, I think you've given us a very specific example of how you've had to play that out. And Nancy, I want to come back to talk a little bit about what guidance would you give us as employers. I know I've worked very hard to make sure that I care for my employees, my customers, my shareholders, society at large. What advice would you give Christina, give Verizon as we think about how we shop on behalf of our employees based on what you're seeing and hearing?

NANCY LUBLIN: So we are seeing some things that work that are helping people feel strong. Taking the big, massive, overwhelming, unknown, unpredictableness of this and shrinking into time bites that seem more manageable. Saying to your co-workers and your friends and family, what are you going to do tonight to stay strong? What are your plans for tomorrow or for Memorial Day Weekend? So thinking and shorter time frames will help give you a sense of control. And then I will tell you that people are really looking to family, friends, and pets.

TAMI ERWIN: Christina, maybe some advice as we think about small business is one of the things I'm very proud of at Verizon is we've been very involved in the PayItForward program. We've donated $7.5 million to small businesses in grants of $10,000. And I love it because I know that every dollar is going to rebuild for small businesses. What advice would you give us as we think about where we are today for small businesses?

CHRISTINA STEMBEL: Yeah, so I think that the difference between the companies that make it and don't make it are the ones that are willing to do the hard things, the things that you don't want to do to pivot, which is what we had to do. We had to change our entire distribution model in five weeks and open four additional distribution centers in different places, which meant while we couldn't save our jobs in San Francisco, we could save jobs in other places, which is a really hard thing to do. But you just have to do the hard things. And rethink of the way you're doing business to change it, because this is going to be a new normal. And you have to pivot very quickly before you run out of money.

TAMI ERWIN: I love it. Do the hard things and be willing to reimagine. Christina and Nancy, thank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back.

- Coming up next on the "Reset Your Mindset" special brought to you by Yahoo in partnership with Fortune, we'll speak with WW International CEO Mindy Grossman along with Dr. Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association. Stay with us.

ANDY SERWER: Welcome back to "Reset Your Mindset." I'm Andy Serwer, editor in chief of Yahoo Finance. I want to bring in our next two guests Mindy Grossman, the CEO of WW international and Dr. Patrice Harris who is the president of the American Medical Association. Welcome to both of you.

PATRICE HARRIS: Well, thank you for having me.

MINDY GROSSMAN: Thank you. Great to see you.

ANDY SERWER: Good to see you guys, as well. So I want to start with Dr. Harris and ask you-- you're a psychiatrist-- and just sort of ask you, generally speaking, what is going on with the mental health of Americans through this crisis?

PATRICE HARRIS: Well, let's set a little bit before this crisis. We were having an increase of adolescents and adults who were experiencing anxiety. I have seen an increase in unfortunately, the number of suicides and suicide attempts in adolescence. So that was pre-COVID, and now we have this crisis, which actually makes us all anxious and worried and fearful.

And so we have now a crisis on top of a crisis, and we are seeing in addition to those feelings, people have to be in order for us to be safe, isolating. And we're seeing increased feelings of loneliness. So with this current pandemic, we are seeing increased anxiety feelings of loneliness and isolation that WERE already on top of pre-COVID crisis.

ANDY SERWER: And Mindy, over to you I want to ask you how you shifted the priorities of WW international during this time. And how are you looking to serve the wellness needs of your members during this pandemic?

MINDY GROSSMAN: Yes, Andy, we were-- we have been in the process of transformation of the business over the last number of years on one hand to not just be the leader in weight loss, but to have an entire holistic approach to support people in health and wellness. And in addition, accelerate our digital transformation.

And when we identified what was happening with COVID, we made a very quick pivot because we had to pause all of our physical studios around the world, where we had 30,000 workshops a week to support the safety and security of both our employees and our members. And we pivoted the product tech team. And in six, days we trained 14,000 coaches and guides, and simultaneously in 12 countries, launched all those workshops virtually. And we've been supporting that throughout this whole time.

And as you were hearing from Dr. Harris, one of the things that was so important to us was ensuring that not only could we support the safety and security, but that we could keep the community together for motivation and support in a time of isolation. What that has done is further accelerate our digital strategy. Before this time, we were already planning to launch later in the year, a whole new vertical of the company around digital, which is about 5 million of our members are all digital-- about 25% also went to the studios. But with personal and group coaching. And that is still on track.

And what we're seeing, because we do see behavior in real time-- imagine 5 million people tracking every day their food, their activity, they're talking on our social channels. And we're monitoring the conversations in our virtual workshops.

ANDY SERWER: Right.

MINDY GROSSMAN: And this idea of needing support, feeling vulnerable. But there's been a really big pivot recently to significant conversations around health and wellness and priorities and reassessment.

ANDY SERWER: Right, right. I want to jump in there, Mindy, and ask Dr. Harris about what individuals can do to make themselves healthier mentally being home. And also what can companies do, Dr. Harris, to help out their employees as well?

PATRICE HARRIS: So you heard me talk about worry and fear and action. But I think overall, we are a resilient country, right? And what we can do is channel that worry, those years into action. And I always say individual actions can make collective impact. So the most important thing, I think, individually is to make sure we are practicing self care.

Mindy talked about wellness. And so first of all, we have to give ourselves grace to feel the feelings that we're feeling-- the fear and the worry. Don't beat ourselves up. We don't have to be perfect parents. You know, we don't have to have these expectations of doing at all, because we're all learning as we're growing here. We can make sure we are sleeping as best. We can make sure we are eating as healthily as we can-- although again, give ourselves grace. We can move, we can exercise.

And again, I've said you know not everyone has the privilege. We need to make sure we have privileged conversations of going outside even or having a safe neighborhood. But I would say even in your own home, you can put on your favorite record and dance. And so we can do that individually.

And I would just make one more point about action and channeling that worry into Action there will be a new normal as people always say, and we will need to make sure that our services and support for mental health needs are ready. And so right now, we need to be preparing. And businesses need to be preparing as to what they can do to support their employees when we get or as we are getting to the new normal.

ANDY SERWER: All right, lots more to talk about here, but unfortunately, we've got to wrap. So Dr. Patrice Harris and Mindy Grossman, thank you both so much for taking the time to talk to us today.

MINDY GROSSMAN: Always great to see you.

PATRICE HARRIS: Same here. Thanks for having us.

MINDY GROSSMAN: Thanks, again.

- Straight ahead on the "Reset Your Mindset" special brought to you by Yahoo in partnership with Fortune. We're joined by Drybar founder, Alli Webb. You won't want to miss.

- Welcome back. One of the key components to improving your mental health is self care. And what better way to boost your confidence than by getting your hair done. Since opening its doors just 10 years ago, beauty salon chain, Drybar, has taken its LA area beginnings and expanded to more than 100 locations, now employing over 3,000 people throughout the US and Canada.

By focusing on one very particular piece of the beauty industry, Drybar has found success in simplicity and plans to continue its growth long after lock down.

JULIA LA ROCHE: OUR guest today is Alli Webb. She's an entrepreneur, "New York Times" best selling author, and the founder of Drybar. Alli, thank you so much for joining us.

ALLI WEBB: Thanks for having me.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Well, Alli, we're going to have a bigger conversation around mental health, mental wellness-- those sorts of things. But I just want to get your take on the last two months. I'm sure you've done a lot of reflecting during quarantine. What is top of mind for you these days?

ALLI WEBB: Well, you know, I think it's-- you know, for me, it's been a lot about trying to see the silver lining in all of this. And you know, for as challenging as it is, I mean, I feel, you know, lucky to have-- to be safe and healthy and in a place where I can comfortably quarantine.

I think, you know, it's kind of like this range of emotions, I think, that we all are experiencing. It's, like, you know, some days are better than others, and you try to stay in your routine.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Yeah, certainly a good thing to bring up, the quality time, the silver linings, if you will. I have to imagine as a founder, a businesswoman, has COVID-19 caused you at all to rethink your business strategy?

ALLI WEBB: Well, I mean, not so much the strategy, per se, but more, like, what it has forced us to do, which I think has been a good thing, is like, you know, right now, the majority of our stores are closed. We've opened in two markets that are safe to open. And there's completely new protocols. Like, you're every other chair, the clients are in every other chair, it's a virtual check in. People are being screened before they walk in our centers, the're wearing masks.

Like, you know, so that was certainly not a strategy we ever thought we'd have to engage with. But, you know, I mean, I think that there'll be some good things that come out of that. I mean, virtual check in is amazing. You know, and obviously, our biggest priority as a company right now is the safety of our clients. So, you know, it's more of a pivot than, you know, a change of strategy.

I mean, we have a lot of plans to open a lot more stores and to do a lot more things that, you know, we're hoping we will still be able to get to, but, you know, just pushed a bit down the road. So yeah, I mean, it's really challenging for businesses like ours and anybody in the service industry, as you know. You know, it's just you're-- you're just so stuck, and there's really not much you can do.

I mean, I've done more hair tutorials than I can count, just trying to give women you know some tips and tricks for when they're at home, because we're still doing things like this, and we're still actually seeing each other. You know, your hair looks so great, I feel like maybe you've watched some.

JULIA LA ROCHE: I did see those. And actually-- well, you bring up a good point. It's like before, I didn't really want to do my hair and things like that, but it kind of gives you a sense of routine. And we were talking earlier, when you sat down in the chair with a stylist, it kind of almost feels like a mini therapy session, as well.

ALLI WEBB: It's-- it's the psychology of the blowout-- that's really the thing. Just like, you know, we were saying in the beginning, it's like, when your hair looks good or you feel good about your makeup, your outfit, whatever the thing is for you, it makes you internally feel great. I mean, I can't tell you how many women over the years have told me they don't go to a board meeting without a blow out, because it's this extra, like-- it's like a power suit. It's like this extra kind of layer of confidence that they're getting. So I don't see that, you know, impacting us-- that people are going to see, like, oh, yeah, I've had enough of good hair.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Alli Webb, the founder of Drybar. And also, we have Squeeze coming up, another venture of yours, as well. I should mention that. Thank you so much for joining us.

- Coming up on the "Reset Your Mindset" special brought to you by Yahoo in partnership with Fortune, we talk to Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan, along with Fortune president and CEO Alan Murray. That's coming up next.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Welcome back to "Reset Your Mindset at Work." I'm Julia La Roche and I'm honored to bring in our next guests. We have Alan Murray, and the CEO of Fortune, along with Verizon Media Group's very own CEO, Guru Gowrappan. Welcome to you both, really interesting conversations that we're having around mental wellness, so I'd love to get your reactions.

Alan, I want to start with you. You've been hosting, I've noticed, quite a few CEO calls. And there was one that really caught my attention. It was with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and he revealed to you a startling statistic around mental health at his company that something like 36% of employees reported having mental health issues. I'm wondering what are you hearing from the C-suite of America. These days?

ALAN MURRAY: Yeah, I think it's a big issue and we would all make a mistake if we overlook it. I don't quite know how Marc Benioff got that figure of 36%, but he was quite confident and quite precise on it. And then the same day, I was on a call with the CEO of Synchrony, and she said something very similar-- that they had seen a pronounced increasing calls to their mental health distress line. And I think it's a lot of the things you've been talking about for the last hour.

I mean, there's stress that comes from the pandemic itself. A lot of people are feeling stressed from isolation. Some people are having domestic problems that have been exacerbated by the situation we're all in. And I think it's something that's really important and shouldn't be overlooked.

JULIA LA ROCHE: It certainly is. And Guru, I want to bring you into this, because even long before the pandemic, I noticed at work that you all were [AUDIO OUT] around mindfulness, meditation, mental wellness, those sorts of things. I would like to know from your perspective as a CEO why was that such an important critical step before the pandemic? And then how do you think that pandemics only going to amplify the importance of those initiatives?

GURU GOWRAPPAN: Sure. Thanks, Julia. And one of the things that I've always said, and Alan I have talked about this, too, which is your mind is your master. So when you think about that, you have to nourish and take care of it. And it's unfortunate, but also, I think there's a silver lining in this pandemic, that it's become a forcing function for companies to really tackle mental health head on. And it's been exciting to hear all the different speakers and even what Alan was sharing in terms of insights about how people are changing on a personal level. But I think we started early on.

And in many ways, we've always said that investing in this, keeping your employees healthy and happy, mentally, emotionally, physically-- then they're more productive. I mean, it's as simple as that when you start thinking about.

ALAN MURRAY: Yeah, and Guru, there's another important thing going on that I hear in these CEO conversations, and I thought Mark Bertolini captured it very nicely. There's a fundamental change in the way the economy and business operate today from 10, 20 years ago. He talked about how we used to steward scarce-- you steward the scarce resources and you overuse the abundant resources. It used to be financial resources that were steward-- that we were stewards of and it was people who solved the problems.

And there really has been a change with the rise of tech, the increase in the value of intellectual property. That finance is now the abundant resources. It's the people who are so critical to companies today. You have to pay attention to the people or you risk undermining your most important assets.

GURU GOWRAPPAN: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Alan. I think that's how we've been, of course, approaching it. And it's good to see finally everybody stepping up to this. But there's so much more work to be done.

JULIA LA ROCHE: I think you both bring up a really important point. And I'll pose this question to both of you-- and I'll start with you again, Alan-- the business community's response to the pandemic. I was wondering if you could assess that. And if people are starting to understand the role of business and where this theme of stakeholder capitalism, and the importance of stepping up and taking care of all of your stakeholders, which also includes your employees, not just your shareholders.

ALAN MURRAY: Yeah, well, as you know, Julia, the move towards stakeholder capitalism was well under way before the crisis hit. And frankly, I wondered, geez, everybody's in a crisis, they have to look at their bottom line, maybe they stopped will go away. But interestingly, it's been the exact opposite. I think the nature of the crisis has emphasized the importance of a move to stakeholder capitalism.

If you look at what's going on in the pharmaceutical industry for instance, where you have companies that used to be extremely short term bottom line focused and hoarding their intellectual property, all working together trying to find solutions to the health problems. It's a very different way of operating than we're accustomed to seeing in the past. So I do think there are some silver linings to this crisis and things moving in a good direction. Guru, I don't know if you see it the same way.

GURU GOWRAPPAN: I see it-- it's amazing that you mentioned it. If you think about before stakeholders-- it's employees, customers, shareholders, and society-- if I think about the previous world, you know, most companies, you think about its customers, shareholders, then somewhere, employees, and then you know, society trickles down.

The biggest change here, which is employees first. What do you do for employees in society-- that's your input. I always say employees and society is your input. The output is what you show to the shareholders And what you show to the customers. In a way, I think it's coming down to that in terms of stakeholder. And I think this pandemic-- the silver lining, as you said, Alan, is it's really accelerated that change.

ALAN MURRAY: Yeah, absolutely.

JULIA LA ROCHE: And along those lines, Guru, we're talking about addressing some of the challenges, maybe some of [AUDIO OUT] within society. And right now, I know Verizon Media, mental health is incredibly important to them, announcing, you know, $10 million in ad inventory for the cause. I want to get your thoughts on what do you think the role is of Verizon Media in addressing this crisis.

GURU GOWRAPPAN: You know, I would step back a little bit, Julia, and I will say that large corporations need to step up in times of crisis. I think Alan is saying the same-- we're seeing the shift. We made-- when I think about Verizon Media more broadly, less about a statement, but more truly saying it's a priority internally, let's start with ourselves first, our employees, and then external.

So internally, you know, people have seen it be made mandatory health education for all employees. That's mandatory-- people are going through it right now. You know, in some cases, we've started to pilot, the idea is by fall, most of them would have gone through it.

We also now provide 24 by 7 crisis support, counseling, mindfulness programs, community support to our neurodiversity ERG. And the last piece that you mentioned, of course, you know, Verizon overall-- we contributed to the COVID response overall, but part of that are the more than 50 million that we contributed, about 10 actually was dedicated to mental health organizations, who've seen a spike in demand in their services. So a lot of that.

And then from a consumer and society perspective, we launched Yahoo Life, which was all around mental, physical, emotional well-being. Really going after it. So the first and foremost, I always say mental health is first of all, you're going to take care of yourself. For me personally, what do you do for yourself and your employees. And then how do you start working with community and society broadly.

JULIA LA ROCHE: Good points to bring up. And in closing for both of you, this pandemic has created a lot of time to reflect in. I'm wondering if there's anything that's maybe shifted your own mindset, anything that's changed for you all personally?

ALAN MURRAY: I don't know who has time to reflect. I've never been busier in my life. It's amazing how eliminating the commute time and the moving time has forced us all to sit on Zoom calls from 8 o'clock in the morning until 9 o'clock at night.

I think the biggest change I hear from businesses-- that I agree with-- is that the ability to do things virtually has turned out to be much more powerful and much more effective than we thought. I think it's going to cause a big change in the way we work in the future.

GURU GOWRAPPAN: I agree with Alan. And it will be interesting to see a year from now when a lot of them, a lot of us are used to working from home, but the normal life comes back a year, a year and a half-- you know, you have the vaccine, And you have the herd immunity, and all of that-- how your personal life interacts with your work life will be interesting. I think to Alan's point, too, I mean, you're all learning as we speak-- I mean, this is the first time I heard this. About 11,000 years in humanity, where first time, we're all facing the same issue, and they're solving that.

What big change and habit-- I think, Alan, we've talked about is important-- I think it's built a lot of resiliency. We're seeing it. I'm seeing it in CEOs and our teams. It's really brought in a lot of acceptance. You can't do much. I mean, you have to say this is what it is, and we're going to do what we can, and walk through it. I do come back to I think the big difference is self care and taking action, which is whatever is in your control, right? Really focusing on that.

And I felt like there was also a lot of the speakers today from Mark Cuban to Dr. Harris to Serena Williams-- everybody were really talking around how do you become more resilient, how do you accept it, how do you take care of yourself, and how do you act, right?

JULIA LA ROCHE: A true learning experience for us all. Guru and Alan, thanks so much for joining us. And for some parting thoughts, let's bring in Andy Serwer, editor in chief of Yahoo Finance. Andy, what was your reaction from today's conversation?

ANDY SERWER: Well, just sort of adding on to Alan and Guru's points, I think we're really in a new era where mindfulness, and the employees is the number one constituent, I think is going to be front and center and critical to work going forward from here, Julia.

JULIA LA ROCHE: All right, well, Andy, thank you so much. Thank you to all of our guests joining us. To all of our viewers at home, I hope you will continue this conversation with us across Verizon Media group's platforms. And we'll have more to come on Yahoo.com. I'm Julia La Roche, Yahoo Finance correspondent. Have a good night and be well.