I was lucky enough to attend Work Life X conference in Greenfields Melbourne last week, and this wasn’t your everyday business conference. This was a conference exploring the future of the workplace, covering concepts such as finding your purpose; humanising work; digital nutrition; wellbeing; employee engagement; leadership; productivity and being more conscious/ intentional in work and in life.

Speakers included leaders from Slack, Deloitte, Pwc and Vinomofo to name a few, as well as the Work Life X team Kate and Kate who proved to be fantastic speakers as well as hosts. The venue was beautiful, green and light-filled, and the talks were engaging as well as thought-provoking. You really had to be there, but hopefully my takeaways are the next best thing:

1. Active recovery is more important than chilling.

Thank you to Dr Kat Page for this one. Although I love to exercise, I used to think that coming home from work and watching a mindless TV show was the downtime I needed after a long day at work. Now I realise that real recovery is allowing our brain’s physical state to change and to fully concentrate on something else, so yoga, rock climbing or playing piano is perfect for this.

App Store hack:

• Duolingo
• Sweat
• Lumosity
• Daily Yoga

Learn a language, do a HIIT workout, brain games or practice yoga, respectively.

2. There is a reason my boss has so many plants in the office…

It’s the same reason Apple use, err apples in their advertising and shop windows draw us in with beautiful flowers. Our brains love associations with nature. It actually produces feelings of wellbeing, makes us more productive, and has a positive effect on overall health. The perfect reason to take a walk by the canal at lunchtime (Dr Gary Veale, Uni of Melbourne).

App Store hack: Calm. Listen to stories about being in nature anywhere in the world.

3. The next one came from inspirational couple Helle Weston and Lukis Mac.

They go around the world teaching about transformative breathwork, and how incorporating this deep breathing practice into our lives can have a magnificent impact on the realisation of our core values and the movement towards our goals. What they taught me was that our visions need our investment. Don’t wait around for someone to tell you what you can do in life. Invest in your passions, whether it be in the form of money, time, or just believing in yourself more, don’t wait around for others to invest in you – invest in yourself and the rest of the world will follow.

App Store hack: Buddify. Meditation and breathing exercises to suit any occasion/ timeframe.

4. Design thinking methodologies don’t only have to used to build products and services.

They can also be used to design your personal life. Couple and mother of one Emmy-Lou and Ben Hamley (PwC and Models Inc respectively) showed us how by mapping our values against the outcomes we want to achieve, we can become clearer on our direction and set realistic intentions for ourselves and our families. This ties into Al Jeffrey’s talk about doing vs. being – first get clear on how (or who) you want to be, and then what to do will be a lot easier to decipher. A good tip to incorporating this into daily life is having a morning routine and listing your top three intentions for the day. As author Jim Collins said, “if you have more than three priorities, you don’t have any”.

App Store hack: Day One. Daily journaling app.

5. It’s all about the journey.

Finally, I learnt from the lovely Kate McCready (Work Life X) and Mikey Ellis (Vinomofo), finding your purpose isn’t a destination and it’s not so much about what you do but how you do it. This is a topic I’ve put a lot of thought into. Kate defines fulfilment as being made up of four elements – developing the self, using our full potential, being a service to others and unity with others. Sometimes a career change is necessary, but other times it’s about changing our approach to what we do that makes our work meaningful for us.

App Store hack: Pinterest. Create a vision board of what success looks like for you.

If you’re clear (or unclear!) on your vision and looking for a new role in technology, design, marketing, commercial or recruitment, feel free to check out our jobs section for live roles!