At a recent roundtable luncheon on how to create meaningful connections in business, the conversation among the well-known business leaders landed authentically on a common theme: the pain, suffering and frustration in just about every aspect of our society
However, there was also an overwhelming consensus that this was an incredible opportunity to reinvigorate — or even reinvent — the dream we call America. Though they drew from very different viewpoints and experiences, they agreed that the business community can lead us to realizing that dream in a way we have never seen before — to realize a world of abundance for every single human in this nation and this world
But for that to happen, business leaders must promote the prosperity and well-being of their employees, their customers and the people in the communities in which they operate. As Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks and a true trailblazer of people-centric business, once said, “Success is not sustainable if it is defined by profit alone. We must also consider the well-being of our people and the communities we serve.”
Those who do will change the world for the better and realize unprecedented success
America is hurting – and people know it
Sadly, in the wake of the United States’ 250th anniversary, a December 2025 Pew Research Center survey of 3,560 US adults found that most Americans say the country’s best years are behind us. Americans are also far more pessimistic (44%) than optimistic (28%) when asked about what the US will be like 50 years from now. And this pessimism cuts across every demographic and is a shared national wound
The pain is real — and, unlike last year when we documented how burnout was the energy-sucking vampire draining the American workforce, what we are witnessing now is something more extreme: complete mental, emotional and social collapse. People are not just tired. They are disconnected, despairing and done
In fact, Gallup’s first-ever State of the World’s Emotional Health Report – Gallup, which surveyed 145,000 people across 144 countries, found in 2024 that 39% of adults worldwide reported feeling a lot of worry the previous day, 37% reported stress, 32% experienced physical pain, 26% felt sadness and 22% felt anger. All these figures are significantly higher than they were a few decades ago
Inside the workplace, the numbers are just as alarming. Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report states that for the first time since Gallup began tracking, more US workers are struggling than thriving. Employee engagement globally has fallen to 20% — its lowest level since 2020 — costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity
The “mic drop” moment: When companies answer the call, they win
However, herein lies the rub – the positive one — when companies genuinely invest in the well-being of their people as a core business strategy, they do extraordinarily well from a profit perspective, something that is integral to our philosophy at the Center for Social Capital, according to “Thriving Workplaces: How Employers Can Improve Productivity and Change Lives,” a report published by The McKinsey Health Institute in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. It concluded that investing in employee health could generate between $3.7 trillion and $11.7 trillion in global economic value — and boost global GDP by 4 to 12%.
Putting a powerful punctuation on all that is research, a portfolio of the 100 US companies with the highest employee well-being scores would have outperformed the S&P 500 by approximately 20%
And in fact, that’s the pattern we launched our Center on — one we’ve been documenting for three years, sometimes even to our own surprise. We dug into it further in our latest feature at The Social Capital Insider, “The Well-Being Crisis Is a Business Emergency,” where we argue that business leaders have an incredible opportunity to lead a national recovery and resuscitation of the American Dream — and that those who invest genuinely in their people’s well-being, job security, and AI empowerment will build the most profitable enterprises of this generation.
And we were grateful to feature the insights of many leaders who are answering the call. Here are just a few of their exclusive insights
At Delta Air Lines, CEO Ed Bastian has built an authentic and powerful wellness strategy that is both holistic and deeply practical. Delta has expanded its national network of pharmacies, launched a new nutrition program and made in-network care more accessible — all aided by an annual company-wide wellness survey that measures physical, emotional, social and financial health. One of the most tangible examples of that study’s efficacy was Delta’s Emergency Savings Program, which allows eligible employees to earn up to $1,000 from the company after completing financial education and contributing to an emergency savings account.
As Bastian puts it, “Our wellness strategy enables our people to be their best and enhances their sense of purpose, belonging and affinity by providing high-value health and wellness offerings.” And the philosophy behind it is simple: “At Delta, we do not only want our people to be well, but we want them to flourish. We know to take great care of our customers, our people must first take care of themselves.”
At Allianz Life, President and CEO Jasmine Jirele has elevated resilience from a corporate buzzword to a core life goal that the company can help its employees achieve. “For us,” explains Jirele, “this means supporting employees to balance workloads, take advantage of workplace flexibility… support a culture of listening, and encourage mental health support when employees need it.” So the company offers expanded hybrid flexibility around holidays and four fully remote weeks each year, trains managers to listen and support teams more effectively and helps employees handle unexpected events with greater confidence.
Their True Balance initiative integrates health, financial literacy, career growth and community into a single framework. Employees have free access to an on-site fitness and wellness center with group classes, cardio and strength equipment and personal trainers, as well as an on-site health clinic that provides comprehensive medical care at little to no cost — including services from a nurse practitioner and a mental health provider. And Jirele is particularly insistent that mental healthcare must be “accessible and affordable by providing it directly on campus.”
And finally, one of the greatest proofs is a company not only built on the very idea of mental well-being but also inspired by the complete loss of it
In 2009, Jane McGonigal — a game designer with a Berkeley PhD — hit her head in her office and suffered a concussion that didn’t heal. For 30 days straight: nonstop headaches, nausea, vertigo, memory loss, mental fog. Her doctors told her the only treatment was simply to avoid any kind of mental stress or strain – in other words, abandon her career and her life. Instead, Jane McGonigal built SuperBetter, lying in bed, unable to read or work, trying to survive her own brain telling her there was no reason to live. She turned recovery into a game because a game was the only thing her damaged mind could handle.
Today, SuperBetter’s CEO, Keith Wakeman, is applying that same foundation to heal a different kind of injury — the one overwhelming millions of victims of modern life. “The human brain is under attack,” Wakeman writes. “The human brain is designed for a different time, and advances in digital technologies have made it relatively easy for others to exploit its vulnerabilities for their own benefit. As a result, employees feel increasingly unsettled, and struggle with stress, poor mental health, cognitive overload, difficult emotions and social disconnection.”
It’s almost a strange stroke of dumb luck that McGonigal’s brain injury after her physical trauma shares so much in common with the plight of the multitudes of victims of modern sensory and information overload who never hit their head at all, yet still their brains are turning against them, leaving them anxious, hopeless and terrified
But Wakeman’s company carries the legacy of her antidote. “The good news is that employees and their families can be empowered with the ability to control their attention, use digital technology in ways that benefit them and defend against stress-based persuasion and cognitive exploitation.”
Together, these leaders are not just talking about wellness as a soft sideshow. They are building systems — financial, physical, emotional, social and technological — that treat well-being, stability, ownership and AI empowerment as the architecture of performance itself
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own
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