Parliament | We’re Closing For Two Weeks: The ROI of Real Rest
Here's something Arthur Brooks said recently that I had to stop and jot down for myself: "If you're in any position of leadership, you have an ethical responsibility to be working on your happiness because it's your gift to the people over whom you're a steward."
Let that sink in for a moment.
At Hoot, we talk a lot about joy as one of our core values. Not the Instagram-curated, highlight-reel kind. Real joy—the full-body, full-spirit response to living our purpose. The kind that comes from doing work that matters, even when the work is hard.
This distinction matters because excellent creative output—the work we do—requires profound emotional investment.
We're not pushing pixels or writing copy in a vacuum. We're excavating founder stories, articulating values that will guide hiring decisions, and creating frameworks that organizations will live by for years. This work is simultaneously exhausting and invigorating. It drains you and fills you up in the same breath.
Brooks frames happiness not as a feeling, but as a direction comprising three elements: enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Purpose-led, Brand Being work delivers on all three, but it's the meaning component that transforms exhaustion into energy.
But here's where it gets interesting: happiness isn't just a personal pursuit when you're a leader. It's a professional obligation.
The Ripple Effect of Leadership Happiness
Brooks shares data showing that the number one predictor of someone hating their job is a bad boss. Not compensation. Not benefits. Not even the ping pong table everyone jokes about. A bad boss.
And what makes a boss bad? Often, it's their own unhappiness bleeding into every interaction, every decision, every team meeting.
"Nobody wants to have an unhappy mother or father and nobody wants to have an unhappy boss," Brooks says. Emotional contagion is real. Unhappiness spreads through teams like wildfire, pulling down productivity, creativity, and retention along with it. (Reason 432 to invest in employee mental health)
The inverse is also true: happier employees are more profitable and productive. Companies in the top 20% of workplace wellbeing outperform the S&P 500 by an average of 520 basis points. This isn't soft science—it's hard ROI.
So when we invest in our own happiness as leaders, we're not being indulgent. We're being strategic.
Two Weeks to Reset
Which brings me to something we're doing differently this year at Hoot.
We're giving our entire team two full weeks off over the holidays. Not "working remotely if you want to." Not "checking in when you can." Actually, fully off.
The calendar gods smiled on us this year—the way Christmas falls just lends itself to a proper, extended break. But more than that, we're making this choice because we understand that sustainable joy requires real rest. Not the kind where you're half-watching Slack on your phone between family dinners. The kind where you actually disconnect.
This isn't a perk. It's an investment in the quality of work we'll do in January and beyond. It's recognition that emotional output—the kind required for transformational brand work—can't be sustained without genuine replenishment.
Brooks talks about how we need to design our leisure with the same seriousness we bring to our work. Two weeks gives our team the space to do exactly that—whether that means worship, nature, deep rest, or the kind of unstructured time where creativity actually lives.
The Bigger Picture
Running a culture-driven company means constantly questioning whether we're walking our talk. Are we actually living the values we help clients articulate? Are we creating the kind of workplace culture that we'd be proud to brand?
Giving our team two full weeks off is one answer to that question. It's us saying: we believe joy is essential, not optional. We believe emotional investment requires emotional care. We believe that people doing purpose-led work need real space to recharge.
And we believe—as Brooks argues—that our responsibility as leaders isn't just to extract happiness from work, but to actively cultivate it, knowing that our team's wellbeing isn't separate from our clients' results. It's foundational to them.
So yes, we're closing for two weeks. Yes, it will be quiet around here. And yes, we're investing in our happiness and that of everyone who works at Hoot.
Because when we experience joy, we become more ourselves, maybe even better versions of ourselves.
And that's exactly the kind of energy transformational work requires.
Here's to a restful, joyful close to 2025.
