Imagine

Imagine if instead of investing 600 million dollars in Superbowl advertising, companies used those dollars to feed starving children or mitigate the climate crisis.

In a study by AFLAC , 77% of consumers said they “would be motivated to purchase a company’s products or services if the company shows they are committed to making the world a better place.”

Imagine never again hearing of a colleague committing suicide apparently due to work-related stress.

In 2016, I was deeply saddened to hear about the loss of a banking colleague who was in the prime of his life.

I’ll always wonder: What if he had paused for a few seconds, just long enough to remember the faces of his loved ones, before he leapt in front of an oncoming truck?

It’s a moral imperative for high stress industries to examine their work cultures and provide mental health support including mindfulness training.

Basic mindfulness training can help people learn to breathe, pause, and find the mental space needed to act skillfully instead of react.

Imagine if the big banks used their global proprietary networks to gather and share insights and best practices on well-being from around the globe.

In Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being, economist Jospeh Stiglitz and his co-authors made the case for measuring more than GDP to assess a society’s health.

The banks with global proprietary networks are uniquely well-positioned to conduct research on global wellbeing.

It would be easy to explore geographic differences, to identify best practices in different regions, and to share them both within the organization and with the world.

A global wellbeing initiative would also be a way to make the world a better place.