266. Is Blue Monday actually real? PLUS! Autistic Barbie, career pivots and the science of 'wintering' - This Week in Work, 13th January 2026

0:01Coming up this week in work. What if instead of starting January with a bang, we start it with a whimper? We're looking at the radical act of slowing down, the restorative power of seasonal stews, and the surprising reason why a blast of cold air might be exactly what you need to regulate your mood. Plus, how do you know when it's time for a career pivot? New thinking from Thomas Camoro Presumitz explores spotting that it will come back to that name in the main thing. spotting the difference between restless thinking and real action. Are you planning or are you just procrastinating perhaps? And truth or lie is back.

0:38We are taking apart Blue Monday. Is there a most depressing day of the year or are January blues a longer problem? We have the evidence and the verdict. And of course, in the workplace surgery, one business owner is on the hunt for a better way to diagnose company culture. They ask what actually predicts burnout and performance. This is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, I'm a chartered occupational psychologist. My name is Al, I'm a business owner.

1:09And together we help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace coaches. You know what's coming next, we'll be right after a quick word from our sponsors. HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers and here's a perfect example. Leigh, your turn. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content. But with a massive 900-page website, even the tiniest updates took 30 minutes to publish. Breeze, which is HubSpot's collection of AI tools, helped them write and optimise their content in just a fraction of the time. The results? 30 % more page views and visitors now spend 27 % more time on their site.

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1:59Hello, welcome back. Yes, we have got a cold. We went to the UK. We got the lurgy. We got the lurgy. We've had it twice, really unfortunate. But I suppose in our little world, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In our Bosnian bubble. In our Bosnian bubble, then we don't really pick it up because we don't see that many people. And there's less people, isn't there? You don't get crowds of people in the same space so often. But anyway, Happy New Year. I know you're, as a listener, probably well over this on the 13th of January, but it is actually Alanat's first day back at work. Yes, it is. Yeah, I have to be honest, I had to ask Leanne to reteach me how to type this morning because I picked up my keyboard and went, what do I do with this?

2:39Oh, God. I spent more time correcting my spelling mistakes, I think, than this morning sending my emails and replying to my hundreds of notifications. How many emails did you get? Right. I hope someone who's cold email me isn't listening because I got around about 900 and I quickly scanned through for those people I knew, replied and then just selected the rest of them and archived them. No, you didn't. I did. I thought it was important. Do you know what? Also, I noticed that we have an autoresponder on our email and we get lots and lots of pitches for guests, probably about two a day on average.

3:13And looking at all those, the majority of them came back mail unreturned. went back to the shows that they're just they're not real people. Botty. They're botty. Yeah I came back to over a thousand emails as well. No you didn't. Yeah and goodness knows how many notifications on LinkedIn. I've not even started to tackle LinkedIn yet and I'm only about a third of the way through my emails. So if you are listening and have got in touch with the LRI or the show over the last three weeks, bear with. Well you say bear with, bear with because Leanne will reply, I won't. Yeah and if it's important email me.

3:42Okay it's on to your favourite time of the week Leanne, it's time for the world famous. I've missed it. It's been a while. I know you talked over my intro. Sorry. Tell me, where's the jingle go, Lee? At the beginning? Yeah, we'll put it here. Cue the jingle. Okay, my love, what have you seen? I've got a new word. Okay, what's the new word? Wintering. Oh, I like that. It reminds me of, there's a little bit in Blackadder, I think, where, I can't remember, who's the main guy? Who's the main? It's Blackadder, isn't it? I've never watched Blackadder. The clue was in the name of the show. and he said yes I will something about wintering in Montego Bay which sounded very nice so my thought of wintering is that you essentially very rich and famous people go off and they'll spend winter in a particularly sunny place that would be wonderful wouldn't it, we used to do that we did do that, we used to do that those people who've been listening, if you've listened to the original podcast, Their Sideways Life and then you've just migrated across to this one then you'll know that for about three years we spent three months in Thailand and Southeast Asia Good times, man.

4:44Anyway, so what does wintering mean in this context, Lee? It's not that. It's not going off for a winter holiday. It was actually a term coined by Catherine May in her best-selling book called Wintering, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. So basically, it's about embracing the quieter, colder months instead of trying to power through them or kind of like, you know, the January surge, we've got this, woof. instead Catherine's like wintering should be a period of reflection so a time to slow down to sleep more expand your spare time let yourself rest this came from her own life being knocked off course by illness and uncertainty and she began to see winter not as something to endure but something to lean into and she puts it doing these deeply unfashionable things is a radical act now but it is essential The book actually came out in 2020, but the idea has regained some momentum, given the whole January trends of people resetting, particularly on social media.

5:51But in terms of wintering, people are swapping New Year pressure for cold weather rituals, such as slower mornings, cozy meals and gentle movement. Our thoughts? I like it. I like it. If you go back, like, whatever, 500 years, when there was no, like, no heating or whatever, even probably 200 years maybe 100 years no central heating that's what we did as a people when it came to like winter we would eat more we would uh the days were shorter so you'd work you know during the day and then the rest of the time like three quarters of the day you'd be like snuggle up in bed or something probably making babies actually a lot of people a lot of people yeah you're a lot of people born in the in the september is still the most uh the highest month for birth birth rates Is it?

6:33So that's where we know what you're doing in wintering, you dirty, dirty people. So I like this. Yeah. Enjoy. Enjoy, not endure January. I like that. I think we're doing that. It's a good job this is in the video podcast, this particular episode, because I'm sitting here with a hat on and dressing gown and you've got your pyjamas on. Yeah. And we've got all the heaters on in the house. We live in a summer house. It's really cold. It's really, really cold. We live in a house which is meant for summer vacationing. And so it's not particularly good for winter. Anyway, why am I worried about myself again, Lee?

7:00I do this often. You do tend to, my love, but that's okay because you know what? This podcast is about you. Yes. Or at least 50 % of it is anyway. 51. But yeah, wintering, I actually saw this in the Sunday Times. So it came out over the weekend. And it did actually, the article was quite interesting. And it included some wintering tips from a clinical psychologist called Dr. Stephanie Fitzgerald. Oh, I like that name. Yeah, it's strong, isn't it? Strong. um stephanie orson the gifts of winter um which is a similar themed book released at the end of 2025 basically it's a guide to reclaiming our most unappreciated season i'm not gonna lie i think this is gonna be my january read i think i'm gonna get this on kindle or if you're listening miss for gerald dr for gerald fitzgerald then send us a copy yeah that would be very nice as well um but yes some of the tips that included um included from dr stephanie was shifting your calendar mindset so don't see january as a time for a big change wait until april when there's more daylight and energy this is something we talked about last year in a hot take with minatsuki ayer who said that she's a coach and said the same that we're bound to this kind of western calendar when actually springtime it's traditionally been much more of a a time for change and resetting um second get outside even in the cold um she said that there is quiet growth happening tree buds shifting light and of course there is a science behind it as well not only in terms of forest bathing or tree hugging whatever you want to call it there is something as well um in terms of cold exposure it can boost neurotransmitters and things like serotonin dopamine endorphins all the good happy uh hormones that help regulate stress and mood she also recommends hot seasonal seasonal food you'll like this one how stews soups roasted veg not just for nutrition but because they invite slowness and the kitchen becomes a warm heavenly place to be uh social connection always important she mentions as well and finally she talks about normalizing how we feel so if we're feeling a bit flat a bit sad that's normal at this time of year the key is not to push those feelings away but to meet them with kindness for ourselves and in others um and things like rather than kind of hardcore gym plans if you're just not feeling it try something like yoga or pilates or going for a nice walk with your hound so that's wintering um i will leave a link to that in show notes i love that i went for a month the second of our home walks we only got back to our home country on friday friday so i went the second home walk really enjoyed it it's about 6k so it's not a massive walk but it's still nice go out with the dogs it was two degrees no 1.5 degrees when i went out this morning and it was just nice i came back feeling all like warm and yeah tingly tingly yes 100 above 100 above this 100 for this that's the word approved approved bosh bosh bosh what have you seen this week though okay so there's a guy called tomas kamero premusic now i i did a little googling because i thought premusic sounds very Croatian.

10:02And apparently the name Pramzic does come from Croatian. Camaro comes from the Spanish and Tomas sounds German. So I would like, I should like to meet this person. I suspect they're a blend of very interesting cultures. Anyway, he's a professor at UCL and Columbia and he's basically asked, or he wrote this article saying, how to tell if it's time for a career pivot. Now that's... Pivot. Pivot. Pivot. Apparently the most difficult scene to film in Friends. Really? They said that it took them hours because everyone just kept corpsing. So anyway, if you're not seen Friends, you've no idea what I'm talking about.

10:36It felt like the title should be more like why some of us are stuck in careers we picked based on absolutely no evidence whatsoever. But that's probably not something that Fast Company would go for as a title. It's not that snappy. Snappy. Basically, he's making this point that most people worry about changing careers. Now, we're not talking about changing roles here. So a lot of people will change roles, but actually to pivot and just suddenly do a totally new career, you were a corporate accountant and now you've opened a dog trimming studio, it's really, really rare because I think a lot of people worry about these career changes, which is a bit strange when you think about it.

11:09When you choose a career, most people just choose something arbitrarily when they leave university or leave school. They just go, right, this is what I'm going to do. And then they don't really change it. Even before AI became the hot topic, then this career predictability, as he calls it, was already crumbling. He said there's globalization, economic shocks, the death of those lovely career ladders, where you knew that, you know, your parents, if they stuck in a career in 10 years' time, they would be the boss or whatever on a better-paying job. And, of course, we have to manage our own careers now, so we constantly have to update our own skills.

11:41We have to absorb all the risk ourselves. And, of course, AI did come along. Skills are disappearing, becoming obsolete, because AI is doing everything. I saw something today. There's a brand-new Claude code. I can't remember what it's called, but it's basically it can access your desktop, and you can say, right, go and tidy up my home screen with all the icons that are everywhere, and basically go and move more into folders and everything. We are getting to scary, scary times. So, in fact, sorry, I'm confused by where I was looking at on my little notes. Gallup, this is what Gallup, you know Gallup, roughly 60 % of employees feel emotionally detached at work and only one in four people strongly believe their job aligns with their strength.

12:21That is quite frighteningly, what are your thoughts? Yeah, there's a big, big theme at the moment, isn't there, with what's called moral burnout when our values are misaligned with our job and that does take a toll in a similar way that that burnout does we get disengaged we get exhausted we get cynical um so it makes all the sense is there more to this because it's something else that's bringing to mind but i don't want to jump in if you've still got more to not really i'll just summarize we will leave a link to the article in the in the show notes just sort of summarize it is basically the article saying it's not about changing roles it's a proper career pivot is saying that very, very rare and most people only do a career pivot when they're really, really miserable.

13:00And they do come up with this thing economists are now calling the big stay where people have gone from job hopping, one of our previous word of the week, to job hugging, where they're staying stuck rather than settled. They're thinking about changing careers, but behaviorally, they're frozen. What were you going to say then? It sounded like you've got a really good point here. I think with the big stay or job hugging is it's also called it's worth bearing in mind as a business owner or leader just because you've seen a drop in attrition to people leaving your business doesn't mean that they're engaged it just might mean that they're too scared to leave right now financially because of the way the economy is so don't mistake low retention for engagement um the other thing as well do remember we covered it i don't know when maybe eight twelve weeks ago and it was about a study that looked into career pivots and what are the biggest predictors of people actually successfully doing it.

13:57And it was actually taking action. So not procrastinating and actually starting to do something about it. And the other big factor I think as well was having a coach, having someone there to kind of talk you, talk you through it and work with you. But yeah, and I think a big thing as well, isn't it, is having that, having that clear idea of what you want to do. And I think that's where the value of a coach can be. And I think where a lot of people get frozen is they know that they're not happy, but they don't know exactly what will make them happy or fulfilled or give them purpose in their work.

14:25So I think having somebody talk you through this can be quite helpful. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'm a big fan of the action thing. I've career pivoted many times. I never thought I'd be a podcaster. I started off wanting to work on a farm and I did. And then I went to sales and I went to pub management and then I started a beer business. And then, yeah, I've just pivoted lots and lots of times. And I think the key, I'm not saying necessarily that this is, I'm doing the most successful thing. But what I found quite good was just, like you say, taking action and going, right, I'm going to try this as kind of like a side hustle for a little bit.

14:57So rather than saying, right, OK, I'm an accountant and I would love to be a goose farmer, then don't just go, right, I'm going to hand my notes in and go and buy a load of geese. Perhaps go and work on a goose farm on the weekend or get some geese, just a few geese to start off with. Yeah, and get goosing. Get goosing. Spot on the microphone. Oh my God. I'm sorry. I really genuinely did spit on the microphone. That's grim. I remembered actually what that other main bit of that study was. Carry on. It was about where you, your temporal mind, where you spend most of your time. Do you remember? It's like past, present or future.

15:29And the people that had kind of an equal spread across three were much more likely to make a successful career pivot. If we get too stuck in the past or too stuck in the future, then it can make us freeze in the moment. of practicing things like understanding where you're stuck practicing things like reflective practice or mindfulness or positive psychology could be really useful it's not much of the mindset isn't it as it is a practical career pivot it is and i think also a key thing if you are looking to pivot and is that think about your fear of what people will say about you because that's all that was what was kind of suggested in this um in this article was essentially a lot of people worried that if i did go and become a goose farmer what would what would people think would my status go down would my family hate it would people laugh at me for leaving a great job to go and uh go and make geese go goosing on in their spare time so uh and if that is the case look nobody's thinking about you really they're too busy thinking about themselves so my suggestion is just do it just enjoy it just live your life don't get to don't get to 65 and go i really wish that i'd been a pilot pay me pilots a bad example but i really wish i'd raised geese Yeah.

16:40Moving on. You go goose. You go goose. You've got this. Yes. You've got this, Goosa. Right. What else have you seen, my love? Mattel has launched its first autistic Barbie. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. How do you? Barbie's very much a visual thing, isn't it? So how do they make it autistic? Well, I shall tell you. Yes. I shall tell you. So yeah, it was an announcement on Mattel's corporate website, picked up by a lot of different news outlets. I actually saw it in The Guardian and then went back to Mattel to see what the crack was. So yeah, the company this week has launched its first ever autistic Barbie.

17:17Apparently it's a new addition to their Barbie Fashionista range. Right. Don't know what that is. Developed over an 18-month period in partnership, and I think this is important, with the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network, which is a disability rights organisation run by and for autistic people. Mattel says that the aim is pretty simple, representation through play so the idea is that the more children who are able to see themselves reflected in the toys they grow up with that helps all children get used to um seeing difference as being a normal part of the world around them um so yeah in terms of how they did this so again sci-fi is really interesting so workly closing with assam which was the charity i mentioned mattel mattel's design team focused on representing some common autistic experiences while being clear that autism is different for everyone and not always visible.

18:08So for example, the doll's eyes gaze in a slightly angled way, reflecting how some autistic people avoid direct eye contact. She also comes with a pink finger clip fidget spinner. Difficult to say. Yeah, that actually spins. Noise cancelling headphones designed to reduce sensory overload. And a tablet showing symbol-based augmentative and alternative communication apps, which many autistic people use to support everyday communication even the clothing al was carefully considered so the doll wears a loose fitting purple a-line dress designed to minimize fabric to skin contact along with flat shoes to support comfort and ease of movement there is of course some comment from mattel uh jamie sigulman i believe that's how you say her name um who has the coolest and possibly creepiest job title in the world, Al.

19:03Would you like to guess Jamie's job title? Is it painting the faces on the Barbies? Close. Go on. She's global head of dolls. Oh, God, can you... Was it you and I went to look at a house once and there was just an entire room of dolls? Yeah. It's just not cool, man. Yeah. Oh, God. Nothing scarier than a doll. Yeah, I totally agree. Totally agree. They look at you. Yeah. Anyway, Jamie says, The autistic Barbie helps expand what inclusion looks like in the toy aisle and beyond, adding that every child deserves to see themselves represented in Barbie. And that was a whole thing around the theme as well, wasn't it, Curtis's representation?

19:41From Assan's side, this is the charity. Executive director Colin Killick has said the doll offers an authentic and joyful representation of autistic people, including the tools that help support independence in daily life. The launch also featured collaboration with autistic advocates, creatives and designers, including entrepreneur Madison Maria who is also a cast member on season three of Netflix's Love on the Spectrum. Have you come across this show? Very lovely show. She said that doll made her feel truly seen and heard. So Mattel says it has linked the release to its ongoing research with Cardiff University which has been running since 2020.

20:20The research suggests doll play activates areas of children's brains linked to empathy and social processing. with more recent findings indicating this may also support children who display neurodivergent traits. Al thought. Interesting. Were you a Barbie girl in a Barbie world? Do you know what? I was a Cindy girl. My sisters were Cindy. Really? Yeah, I think because they were cheaper. Yeah, I always thought that I was the Cindy girl, but I think it must have come from my mum or dad or something. Right. Because I just had this belief as a three or four year old that Barbies were a bit snobby.

20:54Right. Whereas Cindy's were a bit more down to work and cool. Did you ever take your Cindy and go and find one of your friends, perhaps Chessie, with a Barbie and have a fight? No, I didn't meet Francesca until I was in high school, so we were kind of past doll stage then. Fair enough, thank you. No, I was a solo doll player. I said a lot about my childhood, really. Anyway, what do you think? It's not about me. I think at first I was like, uh-oh, is this another one of those weird things that corporates do? But the fact that they've brought someone on, the Asan that they were talking about there, who know what they're talking about, it's cool.

21:28representation isn't it like you I see a lot more stuff recently that the BBC I think a lot of people are talking about the BBC and Channel 4 is very woke for including people with disabilities in as actresses and actors and sorry I should just say actor I shouldn't I shouldn't say actress sorry sorry sorry but a lot of people saying look I was really liked that I was represented or represented in that particular program there's also regional accents in the UK there's so many more regional accents and so it's nice that someone from sunderland who's got a very strong accent perhaps can go yeah i could still be on telly whereas 30 years ago you'd only hear people from the home counties so yeah i i think it's a good idea i don't think dolls in general a good idea they freak me out but i think it's a really good idea i also think it's a really good idea and you nailed it out it's about representation and we know this from decades of developmental research children form these stereotypes around gender around race around ethnicity around socioeconomic status really early like we're talking like three to six years old like it's super super early um and there's so many studies showing particularly around um gender young girls will start associating things like computers and engineering and problem solving with boys at a very young age um and even if they enjoy those activities they do start thinking this isn't really for people like me and their confidence starts to drop.

22:48And similarly in terms of the world of work, and you might be thinking at this point, what's Barbie got to do with the world of work? And again, what's about representation? If we think about autism, you know, autistic adults today often talk about feeling pressured to mask their behaviours, their preferences, to tone themselves down or to hide the support that actually helps them function. So things like headphones or fidget tools or different ways of communicating. So this type of representation at an early age now now is going to be so important for when these children grow up and enter the workforce and just those whole social norms shifting and it has to start with children and that's the thing I think when we think about EDI it's not just an organizational problem it's a societal problem it does start um with with with young children in education and then we also know as well we talked recently about the gen alpha survey and how 25 percent recognize themselves as neurodivergent know somebody who's neurodivergent, expect there to be recognition and support for people who are neurodiverse in organisations.

23:47So it's very, very topical. I can see a lot of people cringing at this and calling it woke nonsense. I disagree. I think it's representation in action. I think it's quite a nice little story actually. Yeah, I do too. If you're interested in autistic Barbie, it is available now. Wherever people buy their Barbies from. A doll shop near you A doll shop near you Although in nice detail Mattel says it will donate more than a thousand autistic Barbies to specialist paediatric hospitals in the US which I thought was quite nice as well Love it, love it, love it Okay, so we're going to take a short break and after this we've got Truth or Lie if you've not heard this before Basically, it's where I put a question to Leanne and say, is this a truth or is it a lie?

24:31We'll see you in a second Billion Dollar Moves hosted by Sarah Chen Spellings is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network the audio destination of business professionals. Join venture capitalist and strategist Sarah Chen Spellings as she asks the hard questions and learns through the triumphs, failures, and hard lessons of the creme de la creme so you too can make billion-dollar moves in venture, in business, and in life. Maybe start with episode 124 where you're going to hear how industry giants from Canva to YouTube define leadership. Listen to Billion Dollar Moves wherever you get your podcasts.

25:07welcome back welcome back it is time for truth or lie this is the part of the show i feel like truth or lie needs its own jingle yeah um or like a like a who wants to be a millionaire mood kind of

25:30perfect just loop that yes i will do the fact is though actually i'm currently wintering so i don't have time to put together a jingle for this particular but what i will do is come spring yes i will come up with one anyway so the truth or lie is basically where i ask leanne is this a truth or is this a lie? I think today's truth or lie is, well, it's something you've probably heard for years. Every January will hear this. All the brands talk about it. Mental health charities do mention it. News outlets have loads of headlines around it. Apparently, there is a single day in January. That's the most depressing day of the year.

26:02It's called Blue Monday. I believe it's about the 16th, 17th, is it? Yeah, I think it's technically like the third Monday in January. So it'll be next Monday, which is the 19th I think. Yeah I got told it was because that's when the credit card drops for Christmas. So Lee is it true? Is there such well there is such a thing as Blue Monday but is it just something that newspapers have made up or is there really a blue like a most depressing day of the year? I mean it feels right doesn't it? The third week in January being just the worst. Yes. Because January is so dark and the weather is grim and it's really cold and Christmas is over You're all a bit tubbier than you used to be.

26:41The credit card bill lands. New Year motivation has already kind of dropped off. So it makes sense. So when someone says there is a specific reason this Monday is just rubbish, it sounds completely plausible. In terms of where it came from, it was actually popularized by a psychologist back in 2005 called Cliff Arnold, working with a travel company. He even produced a formula combining things like weather debt, time since Christmas, broken resolutions, motivation, and just that nagging feeling that you should be doing something with your life by now. You didn't know, Cliff didn't know anything about wintering, did he?

27:19No, Cliff did not lean into wintering. But yeah, it looked very scientific. The equation actually looks really like mathematical. Equationally. Yeah. So yeah, understandably, the idea spread very, very quickly. So that's where it comes from. But in terms of is it true or not? Should we start with the case four, Al? Yes. yeah the positive i think it is true is that your prediction that's my well this is no this is just my thought yes it's my prediction because yeah you do get to that third monday and you're like which is why we took a week off last week yeah yeah sorry yes start with the coast four yes so we've not podcasted for four weeks so i think the first thing is there is lots of research that suggests that that the foundations of blue monday are real yeah the question is whether they actually combined to make one truly uniquely awful day um which you can see leanne's face because you were like properly just awful awful um so i guess the first error of research to look at is around light and mood um seasonal affective disorder i know you've heard this al sad um which is is just the perfect um perfect acronym thank you so one large body of research has looked at how reduced daylight affects mood and it consistently shows or it consistently has been shown that lower winter light exposure is associated with reduced energy lower mood and higher depressive symptoms and more than that meta-analysis of light therapy trials that's when we get the data of lots of studies and analyze them together with one question in mind and have shown that increasing light exposure can significantly reduce symptoms which tells us that the reverse is also true that less light makes things harder.

29:02So yeah, January darkness does affect how people feel. That is true. Secondly, you mentioned it, Al, financial stress that does spike over Christmas. There are strong links to this as well, linking debt to mental health. So there's a longitudinal study. What does that mean, Al? It means over a long period of time. Yes, it does. Following over 8 ,000 adults, it examined unsecured debt, so things like credit cards and loans, and found higher debt levels were associated with higher depressive symptoms even after accounting for income. The UK service data backs up to January consistently show spikes in people seeking debt advice which again fits that post-Christmas financial hangover.

29:43Next post-holiday emotional dip. So several psychiatric and public health studies have looked at hospital admissions and crisis presentations around Christmas. This is significant mental health episodes one uh systematic review found that emissions often drop during the christmas period itself and then rebound afterwards so the interpretation is basically that people hold things together over the holidays then feel the emotional drop once normal life resumes so it's kind of a january crash and it's something that clinicians see repeatedly kick those problems down down the road indeed yeah um and then there's also some research that Mondays do hit differently.