What Works

The Center for Nonviolent Communication describes what they teach as "empathy in action." And so it seems fitting to close out this series on Decoding Empathy with a look at nonviolence, Nonviolent Communication, and making social spaces at work & beyond that work for more people.

I talked with Leonie Smith, founder of The Thoughtful Workplace, about how she uses the tools and practices of nonviolence to help individuals and teams feel more seen and understood.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Leonie Smith and The Thoughtful Workplace
• Watch the Ask Leonie video series
• The Expulsion of the Other by Byung-Chul Han
• "Ahimsa" on Wikipedia
• The Center for Nonviolent Communication
• "The 'Magic' of Meeting in Person" by Devon Price
• The Notebooks of Simone Weil edited and translated by Arthur Wills

Related:

• My conversation with Mara Glatzel on the economics of "neediness"
• My conversation with Charlie Gilkey about implied rules and better team habits

Check out the full Decoding Empathy series!

Every episode of What Works is also released in essay form at whatworks.fyi!

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I have learned a lot about cognitive empathy by learning copywriting. After all, copywriting is a puzzle—the puzzle of figuring out what someone is thinking or feeling and how you can connect your idea to that thought or feeling.

So, it seemed only fitting that I would invite a copywriter to this series on decoding empathy to share her process and give you a behind-the-scenes look at cognitive empathy in practical application. In this episode, I get real nerdy with Samantha Pollack, a positioning strategist and copywriter, and think about how the digital doppelgangers we create via our personal brands might help us get curious about who is behind others' digital doppelgangers.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Samantha Pollack and Cult of Personality
• Doppelganger by Naomi Klein
• "The Politics of Recognition" by Charles Taylor in Multiculturalism

Find every essay and episode in the Decoding Empathy series.

Every episode of What Works is also released in essay form at whatworks.fyi!

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Typically, the question of accessibility online is considered in technical terms: How does this website need to be designed? What ALT text is appropriate for this image? Are captions available for this video? And obviously, knowing the technical aspects of accessibility is important.

But if accessibility stops at the technical requirements, we forget that there are people on the other side of those checklists and manuals. We forget that even the most rigorous checklist can’t account for everyone and their experiences. We forget to ask critical questions that seem obvious when it comes to a backstage pass but are readily dismissed when it comes to most other social spaces.

In the 3rd episode of my 5-part series on Decoding Empathy, I talk with Erin Perkins, an accessibility educator and the founder of MabelyQ, and draw on the work of disability studies scholar Tanya Titchkosky to theorize the overlap between access and empathy—and what it means for you.

Footnotes:

• Learn more about Erin Perkins and MabelyQ
• The Question of Access by Tanya Titchkosky
• Impact of post-COVID symptoms on US adults via the CDC
• WC3's Web Accessibility Initiative tips for online content
• "Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis as biographical illumination" by Catherine Tan
• "Coming Out Disabled" by Tanya Titchkosky

Every episode of What Works is also available in essay form at whatworks.fyi

What Works is funded by readers and listeners. To help support this work, upgrade to a premium subscription for just $7 per month.

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How do you get seen in a world that doesn't see you? How do you get recognized when so many systems are designed to keep you unrecognized? Those are the questions at the heart of today's episode. In the 2nd episode in my 5-part series on decoding empathy, I talk with behavioral scientist and brand strategist N. Chloé Nwangwu about how she helps underrecognized people "emerge from the margins" and get noticed.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Chloé Nwangwu and Nobi Works
• Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
• The Question of Access by Tanya Titchkosky
• "Why We Should Stop Saying Underrepresented" by Chloé Nwangwu on HBR
• "Racial attention deficit" by Sheen Levine, et al
• "Forget the ambition gap, it's the ‘ambition penalty’ that's really holding women back at work" by Stefanie O'Connell Rodriguez on Glamour
• Speech by Angela Bassett

Every episode of What Works is also available in essay form at whatworks.fyi

What Works is funded by readers and listeners. To help support this work, upgrade to a premium subscription for just $7 per month.

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Today, we peel back the layers of a term that's become ubiquitous in the business world and beyond: empathy.

In this episode, empathy's origin story. Er, stories. We'll explore its philosophical roots deep in the 19th century, through my personal trials and errors with empathy, to some of the challenges we face in empathizing with people we have less in common with. Ultimately, I want to explore the ways empathy invites curiosity, leverages imagination, and recognizes our differences.

This is the first in a 5-part series in which I'm decoding empathy. We'll talk brand strategy, non-violent communication, disability, and copywriting. And all throughout the series, we'll look for ways to recognize difference instead of assuming sameness.

Footnotes:

• "Build Your Creative Confidence: Empathy Maps" via IDEO
• Bewilderment by Richard Powers
• "Double empathy, explained" by Rachel Zamzow
• "On the Ontological Status of Autism: the 'double empathy' problem" by Damian Milton
• "Don't Mourn for Us" by Jim Sinclair
• Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives by Amy Coplan and Peter Goldie
• Waiting for God by Simone Weil

Not Mentioned:

• Anderson, Ellie , and David Peña-Guzmán. 2020. “Episode 07: What’s the Deal with Empathy?” Overthink Podcast. December 1, 2020.
• Ganczarek, J., Hünefeldt, T., & Olivetti Belardinelli, M. (2018). From "Einfühlung" to empathy: exploring the relationship between aesthetic and interpersonal experience. Cognitive processing, 19(2), 141–145.

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form at whatworks.fyi

If you love deep dives like this series, please consider becoming a premium subscriber. You get access to my premium columns, quarterly live workshops, and discussion thread. Visit: whatworks.fyi/subscribe

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Are you waiting for a glorious day with your system, plan, or business just work? I hate to tell you this—but you will be waiting a long time.

Plans, systems, and businesses evolve. Change isn't a bad thing—it's the only thing.

In today's edition of This is Not Advice, I share how I recently coached Sean through a run-in with process entropy and process evolution.

To get the full essay or episode, visit: https://www.whatworks.fyi/p/process-entropy-and-process-evolution

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Our beliefs leave an indelible mark on how we interact with others and our environment. Even when those beliefs aren't conscious.

Beliefs about quality of life are a whole other can of worms. Who gets to decide the relative quality of a life? Or what lives are worth living? And how do our beliefs about quality of life and worthiness impact the way interact with others and the way we treat ourselves?

In this episode, I reflect on how my beliefs about quality of life were influenced by my favorite Star Trek character, Data. I discuss technoableism, narratives of overcoming, and the unnecessary self-judgment we can put ourselves through on the path to becoming like everyone else.

Footnotes:

• Rethink Work: An 8-week cohort-based course
• Star Trek: Nemesis
• Against Technoableism by Ashley Shew
• "Valuing Disability, Causing Disability" by Elizabeth Barnes
• More on "narratives of overcoming" in my book, What Works

If you're a sci-fi nerd like me, check out my limited podcast, Strange New Work, wherever you listen to podcasts!

All new episodes of What Works are available in written essay form at whatworks.fyi

***

If you’re questioning your relationship to work but finding it difficult to make lasting changes, I’d love to help.

I’m committed to helping you confront and deconstruct big assumptions that compete with your good intentions. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in my new 8-week cohort-based course, Rethink Work.

We’ll examine the beliefs, stories, and systems that keep us hustling—even when it hurts—so you can make changes that last and create a more sustainable approach to work.

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The proliferation of derivative nonsense on various social media platforms begs the question: Is it possible to make a TikTok video, Instagram post, or LinkedIn update that's remarkable? Is it possible for repetition to be an asset? For repetition to even be remarkable?

In this episode, I take a deep dive into gimmicks—the formulaic and repetitive media that can help us think in new ways. Specifically, I'm looking at Frankie's Cultural Observations. If you don't know the series, I'm delighted to share it with you today!

This is the 3rd in my series, What Makes This Remarkable, where I break down remarkable content I come across to give you new perspectives on your own work (creative or otherwise). Premium subscribers also get "Remarkable Homework"—prompts for thinking differently about your projects—and the chance to ask questions or discuss that week's lessons. Upgrade your subscription to join in!

Footnotes:

• What Makes This Remarkable (60 Songs That Explain the '90s, Savior Complex)
• Frankie's Cultural Observations on YouTube
• "Observing Frankie McNamara's Observations" by Brandon Tauczik in Paper Magazine
• Sandwiches of History on YouTube
• Girl with the Dogs on YouTube
• Working definition for the gimmick as a medium: A gimmick is a nonsequential series of works that utilize a novel scheme, angle, or device to explore a network of ideas.
• "Why Write In Form?" by Rebecca Hazelton via The Poetry Foundation
• Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
• Hyperculture by Byung-Chul Han
• Ted Nelson & "intertwingularity"
• The Cluetrain Manifesto

All new episodes are available in written essay form at whatworks.fyi

***

If you’re questioning your relationship to work but finding it difficult to make lasting changes, I’d love to help.

I’m committed to helping you confront and deconstruct big assumptions that compete with your good intentions. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in my new 8-week cohort-based course, Rethink Work.

We’ll examine the beliefs, stories, and systems that keep us hustling—even when it hurts—so you can make changes that last and create a more sustainable approach to work.

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Last week, Vox published an article by internet culture reporter Rebecca Jennings about how everybody needs to be a self-promoter now—and we all hate it. Then, I read a response by writer and book coach Leigh Stein, who was quoted in the Vox piece, in which she admitted to actually enjoying creating her social media content. Stein said that she was considerably more optimistic about the state of things than Jennings article was.

I found the exchange fascinating. I find it hard to disagree with either of their perspectives! And Stein wasn't really disagreeing with Jennings either—which left me with one thought: I don't think we're talking about the same things here.

So I resurrected an old piece from July 2021 that made the case I wanted to make—that self-promotion sucks and is contentless, but that self-promotion is not the only mode for creating content that gets the job done on social media—and updated it for today's social media moment. This episode has my response to both Jennings's and Stein's articles, as well as a description of how enshittification doesn't only apply to platforms but to creators, too. And then, I share the 3 Rs of Digital Content.

Footnotes:

• "Everyone's a sell-out now" by Rebecca Jennings on Vox
• "who told you it would be easy?" by Leigh Stein on The Attention Economy
• "autofanfic" by Leigh Stein on The Attention Economy
• "The 'Enshittification' of TikTok" by Cory Doctorow on Wired
• "Always On: The Hidden Labor We Do Everyday" by Tara McMullin on What Works
• "To Quit or Not to Quit Social Media" by Tara McMullin on What Works
• "Revisiting Remarkable Content to Consider Digital Ecology" by Tara McMullin on What Works

All new episodes are available in written essay form at whatworks.fyi

***

If you’re questioning your relationship to work but finding it difficult to make lasting changes, I’d love to help.

I’m committed to helping you confront and deconstruct big assumptions that compete with your good intentions. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in my new 8-week cohort-based course, Rethink Work.

We’ll examine the beliefs, stories, and systems that keep us hustling—even when it hurts—so you can make changes that last and create a more sustainable approach to work.

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Layers. Unless we're talking about cake, you can have too many layers. In today's episode, I share a recent metaphorical revelation I had about sound and sensory sensitivity. And then, I introduce you to a different way of thinking about stress that can help you identify better ways to manage it.

Footnotes:

• Rethink Work: an 8-week cohort-based course
• The Highly Sensitive Brain by Bianca Acevedo
• Stress: A Brief History by Cary Cooper & Philip Dewe
• Stress, Appraisal, and Coping by Richard Lazarus and Susan Folkman

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form at whatworks.fyi!

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So, you're stressed. Or work feels intense. Or you're putting more energy than you should into manifesting a day with "no surprises."

But why? Even if you're not working on an especially challenging project or hustling to get in under a deadline, the work we do can be stressful in a sort of ambient and ambiguous way. And we might downplay that stress because, hey, aren't we just lucky to have a cool job like this?

When we think about work, we're often dealing with an outdated metaphor—The Factory. But if you work in a creative, knowledge-based, service, or caring field, that metaphor doesn't have as much to offer as we think it does, especially when it comes to understanding work stress.

Today's episode offers a way to rethink the ways your work can be stressful so you can rethink the resources you need to feel better and do more remarkable work.

Footnotes:

• Rethink Work, an 8-week cohort-based course
• "Sources of intensity in work organizations" by Armand Hatchuel in Creating Sustainable Work Systems (1st ed)

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form at whatworks.fyi!

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Why is it that our bodies and brains tend to function on so much outdated code? Our personal algorithms and mental shortcuts are often stuck in a different time and place. We jump to conclusions or inadvertently flood our systems with cortisol because some stray line of code gets triggered.

In this episode, I examine the tricky way that our beliefs have a way of creating our reality—not just describing it. What we believe ends up being what we see. Case in point: work-life balance.

Footnotes:

• "Religion as a Cultural System" by Clifford Geertz
• The Second Shift by Arlie Russell Hochschild
• Systems Ultra by Georgina Voss
• "Understanding Mindset: Trade-offs, Heuristics, and Navigating Change" by Tara McMullin

⭐️ NEW: Rethink Work, an 8-week cohort-based course ⭐️ Join me for a live and interactive course on rethinking our beliefs about work—including work-life balance, productivity, data, passion, and purpose. Get all the details here.

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The only sure bet is uncertainty. As we start a new year, I want to take a closer look at navigating uncertainty and how we can normalize not knowing. In this episode, I introduce you to a nerdy, wire-rimmed-glasses-wearing badass of a German pastor and guide you through 4 questions you can ask whenever you're navigating uncertainty (which is all the time...).

Footnotes:

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Wikipedia overview)
• Letters & Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• Small Arcs of Larger Circles by Nora Bateson
• "Dancing With Systems" by Donella Meadows
• "Sustainability in Knowledge-Based Companies" by Peter Brödner in Creating Sustainable Work Systems
• On Religion by John D. Caputo

Note: I talk at length about God in this episode—but there's no evangelizing. It's about "religionless Christianity." Just trust me.

Love What Works? Support the show by telling a friend about today's episode or the What Works newsletter. Or by becoming a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Learn more!

You can also read today's piece at whatworks.fyi

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Today, a short meditation on time, the end-of-year season, and how we might carry what we experience now into the next season of work.

Footnotes:

• Dr. Who: the "Wibbly-Wobbly, Timey-Wimey" speech
• Time On Our Side, featuring essays by Tim Jackson and Barbara Adam (among others)
• Daniel Dombeck's 2018 study of mice and time
• Exhalation, including "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang

Read today's piece at whatworks.fyi

Love What Works? Support the show and my work by becoming a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Learn more!

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This is the 3rd edition of Cold Pitch, an experimental project from YellowHouse.Media exploring media, curiosity, and identity. I'll be sharing one more episode from this project next week before returning to the usual What Works program in 2024!

How do you feel about "showing up" in online spaces? What fears or anxieties do you have about hitting the publish button or connecting with strangers on social platforms? My husband and YHM partner Sean has long avoided the public side of working online. But that's changing.

In this edition of Cold Pitch, I ask him about his fears, where they come from, and how he's getting on now that he's been a bit more public with him work. Plus, I offer some analysis on how recognition—or perhaps more importantly, misrecognition—shapes our identities. The conversation ends up in a place that neither he nor I expected but were glad to have arrived at.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about YellowHouse.Media
• Dial Sean's phone tree: 1-406-200-8460
• Learn more about artist Tamar Ettun
• "The Politics of Recognition" by Charles Taylor
• Read the essay version of this edition

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Planners and project management apps reinforce linear, chronological thinking. What if we used a completely different medium to plan for growth?

I'm hosting a workshop on Thursday, December 14 at 12:30pm ET/9:30am PT for premium What Works subscribers. If you'd like to learn more about planning as a learning process and make a syllabus for your next learning project, upgrade for just $7 per month: http://whatworks.fyi/subscribe

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This is the second edition of Cold Pitch, an experimental project from YellowHouse.Media about media, curiosity, and identity. In this edition, Sean and I talk about our favorite daily YouTube show, Good Mythical Morning.

It's the backbone of our evening routine, the content we rely on to draw a thick line between the workday and rest time, and, as you'll hear, a rich text.

Footnotes:

• Good Mythical Morning on YouTube
• Ear Biscuits on YouTube
• "Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal" on Wikipedia
• "From Work to Text" by Roland Barthes
• "Parasocial Interaction" on Wikipedia
• "Mass Communication and Para-Social Interaction" by Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl in Psychiatry
• "We Found Extremely Rare Toys in These Blind Boxes" on GMM
• "Five Guys vs. Shake Shack | FOOD FEUDS" on GMM
• "Our 2500th Episode!" on GMM
• "We React to Photos That Will Break Your Brain" on GMM

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Over the next few weeks, I've got something a wee bit different for you! This is the very first edition of Cold Pitch, an experimental media project from YellowHouse.Media. Cold Pitch explores media, curiosity, and identity through a variety of forms and methods.

In this first edition, Sean McMullin (my husband & partner at YellowHouse.Media) and I talk about, well, cold pitches. A cold pitch, simply put, is a request to a stranger to do something for you. Podcasters deal with cold pitches every single day. Most are terrible. Not only are they irrelevant and poorly executed—they most often start with an outright lie.

I have feelings. Clearly.

In this conversation, we talk about the social "meat space" basis of a cold pitch, the psychology of email, what you might learn from the autistic folks in your life about honest & direct communication and more.

If you dig it, follow along with Cold Pitch at coldpitch.substack.com
And you can find a written version of this edition, along with links to references, here: https://coldpitch.substack.com/p/an-inbox-full-of-lies

• Learn more about YellowHouse.Media, our audio production agency
• Find out more about Sean McMullin
• Support What Works

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This is the final installment in Strange New Work, a series that uses speculative fiction to explore radical work futures.

Power. Some fear it. Others hoard it. Some with power speak softly. Others carry a big stick. Power is charisma, or coercion, or violence. Power is name recognition, or money, or computer code.

Regardless of your definition or perceptions of it, power plays a critical role in how we work.

Today, we explore power—what we can do with it, how we can grow it, and, critically, how we can share it—because power in the future of work will look very different than it does today.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Tania Luna
• Lead Together by Tania Luna
• The Power Paradox by Dacher Keltner
• The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
• "The Lathe of Heaven" BBC film adaptation
• "Mary Parker Follett—Creativity and Democracy" by Gary M. Nelson in Human Service Organizations
• "There Is a Better Way to Use Power at Work. This Forgotten Business Guru Has the Secrets" by Matthew Barzun in Time Magazine
• "Content Decision Making" via Sociocracy For All
• Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
• The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
• "A Band of Brothers, a Stream of Sisters" by Ursula K. Le Guin

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This is the penultimate episode of Strange New Work, a special series from What Works that explores the future of work through the lens of speculative fiction.

What's the most undervalued skill of the 21st-century economy? Moderation.

I very well might be forgetting something. But with more of our lives and work showing up online every day, the way our feeds, data, and connections are moderated is critical to our daily lives. Moderation can be many things—it's how platforms are designed, how content is incentivized or de-incentivized, and how communication between people is mediated. Some moderation is done structurally, some is done with code, but lots of moderation is done by real people all over the world.

In this episode, I take a close look at the skill of moderation, its role in our evolving tech futures, and the politics that complicate this essential work.

Footnotes:

• "Welcome to hell, Elon" by Nilay Patel on The Verge
• "Why Elon's Twitter is in the Sh*tter with Nilay Patel" on Offline with Jon Favreau
• Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson
• Work Without the Worker by Phil Jones
• "Content Moderation is Terrible by Design" featuring Sarah T. Roberts on Harvard Business Review
• "Moderating Social Media" on the agenda on YouTube
• "How Microwork is the Solution to War" by Ben Irwin on Preemptive Love
• "Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge" by Scharon Harding
• Rosie Sherry on tips for content moderation
• "Neal Stephenson Explains His Vision for the Digital Afterlife" on PC Mag

Love What Works? Become a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Your subscription helps make my work sustainable and gets you access to twice-monthly This is Not Advice episodes, quarterly workshops, and more. Click here to learn more and preview the premium benefits!

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I've got something short, sweet, and really special for you today. Sean, my husband, my go-to extrovert shield, and the co-founder of YellowHouse.Media has a new project that is pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

It's a hotline! Or rather, it's a weekly call-in prerecorded pep talk. It's sort of like a podcast, but you have to call a phone number to hear it. Trust me, this is a very Sean thing to do.

Each week, he shares a fresh pep talk along with a poem, some tunes, and other audio goodies. You just select from the phone tree which you'd like to hear. Plus, you can even leave him a message yourself!

You can hear this week's edition by listening to this quick episode. Or, dial 1-406-200-8460 to get the full experience. You can also learn more about Sean and grab the number from his website: seandmcmullin.com.

Without further ado, here's this week's dial-in affirmation for daily living!

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This is the 6th installment of Strange New Work, a special series that uses speculative fiction to explore radically different work futures.

Find the work you were born to do. Do what you were meant to do. Discover the work that makes you feel alive.

We've all heard these messages. Crack open any career, self-help, or personal development book on your shelf, and you're sure to find a similar message. It seems pretty convenient that our "purpose" in life is work, doesn't it?

In this episode, I unpack the "made for work" message, take it to its logical sci-fi ends, and draw on a key idea in the sociology of work to consider how we might shape the next 40 years into something more humane.

Footnotes:

• "If you 'don't dream of labor,' should organize for socialism" by Caitlyn Clark for Jacobin
• Embassytown by China Miéville
• Translation State by Ann Leckie
• The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
• The New Spirit of Capitalism by Eve Chiapello & Luc Boltanski

Love What Works? Become a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Your subscription helps make my work sustainable and gets you access to twice-monthly This is Not Advice episodes, quarterly workshops, and more. Click here to learn more and preview the premium benefits!

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This is the 5th installment of Strange New Work, a special series that explores how speculative fiction can help us imagine radically different work futures.

Think the future of housework looks like Rosey the Robot from The Jetsons? Or maybe just a fleet of Roombas keeping every inch of a house free of dust or dirt?

Think again. Housework is ready for a much, much bigger disruption. Of course, housework is rarely portrayed in pop culture space cowboy science fiction. And when it is, it's all about the high-tech solutions to trivial issues like making dinner or scrubbing dishes. But many quieter (and more constructive) speculative stories do consider how housework might evolve in a completely different direction.

How we restructure housework—domestic and reproductive labor—is key to rethinking how we approach the future of all kinds of work. How we live impacts how we work. And how we work impacts how we live. And this episode is going there.

Footnotes:

• Frances Gabe's Self-Cleaning House
• After Work by Helen Hester and Nick Srincek
• A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers
• Embassytown by China Miéville
• Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer
• "What Communes and Other Radical Experiments in Living Together Reveal" on The Ezra Klein Show
• Everyday Utopia by Kristen Ghodsee
• The Perennials by Mauro Guillén
• "The demographics of multigenerational households" via Pew Research
• Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
• A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk and Robot) by Becky Chambers
• A Spectre, Haunting by China Miéville
• Can't Even by Anne Helen Petersen

Love What Works? Become a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Your subscription helps make my work sustainable and gets you access to twice-monthly This is Not Advice episodes, quarterly workshops, and more. Click here to learn more and preview the premium benefits!

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This is the 4th installment in Strange New Work, a special series from What Works that explores how speculative fiction can help us imagine new ways of working.

Social and professional norms aren't natural or innate. They're political. Those in power exert their preferences on those who aren't, and throughout history, have exerted social, cultural, and physical violence to either force subjugated people to assimilate or drive them out of society altogether.

Speculative fiction is rife with tales of imperial conquest and colonization. And it's helpful for identifying the kinds of control and domination that we deal with daily, even though many of us never notice it. Speculative fiction can help us see harm for what it is, recognize the damage done by colonizers, and imagine forms of resistance.

In today's episode, I dive into the harms of imperialism, how supremacy culture forms the basis of professionalism, how Indigenous futurism gives us a way to "imagine otherwise," and what coach and author Charlie Gilkey recommends for creating a culture of belonging at work through team habits.

Footnotes:

• "Remote work gave them a reprieve. They don't want to go back" by Samantha Masunaga for LA Times
• The Imperial Radch Trilogy by Ann Leckie
• Ann Leckie on Geek's Guide to the Galaxy
• "Unsettled" in Buffalo is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel
• "Indigenous futurism" on WeRNative.org
• "From growing medicine to space rockets: What is Indigenous futurism?" on CBC's Unreserved, featuring guest Grace Dillon
• Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction edited by Grace Dillon
• "White Supremacy Culture" by Tema Okun
• Team Habits by Charlie Gilkey
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
• Solarpunk Magazine

Love What Works? Become a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Your subscription helps make my work sustainable and gets you access to twice-monthly This is Not Advice episodes, quarterly workshops, and more. Click here to learn more and preview the premium benefits!

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This is the third installment in Strange New Work, a series that explores how speculative fiction can help us imagine the future of work.

Today's work happens in tiny slivers of time. And we try to optimize each minute or hour for all its worth. But remarkable work? Well, that takes time. And lots of it. The kinds of work that are central to our evolving economy—care work, maintenance work, creative work—require more time rather than more optimization. In this episode, I consider how viewing work through the long-term lens can help us reimagine projects and systems in a way that's more just, equitable, and beneficial for all involved.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Jordan Maney
• Follow Jordan on Substack and Instagram
• Find out more about Joanna L. Cea
• Grab a copy of Beloved Economies
• The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
• "How to Build a Planet" on Our Opinions Are Correct
• "The Seven Practices" from Beloved Economies
• The Parable of the Sower & The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler
• "A Few Rules for Predicting the Future" by Octavia Butler

Love What Works? Become a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Your subscription helps make my work sustainable and gets you access to twice-monthly This is Not Advice episodes, quarterly workshops, and more. Click here to learn more and preview the premium benefits!

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This is the 11th edition of This is Not Advice, a "not advice" column for premium subscribers of What Works.

In this episode and essay, I tackle the assumed quid pro quo that's at the heart of content marketing. It's that quid pro quo that causes us to see the ideas, information, and stories we share online as a favor that demands something in return—follows, subscriptions, and sales. When we say, "I'm tired of sharing all this stuff for free and not seeing sales in return," we're hinting at the quid pro quo beneath the surface.

Enjoy this excerpt from the larger piece or, to hear the whole thing, go to whatworks.fyi and upgrade your subscription for just $7 per month!

View the original post here.

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This is the second episode in my new series, "Strange New Work."

Artist and writer Morgan Harper Nichols is a world-builder. She says, "Worldbuilding, for me, [is] a form of expansive hope—a necessary imagination for being alive." What is world-building? It's the process of creating secondary, fictional worlds. There's world-building in all sorts of fiction—but especially science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy.

And world-building as a practice—a necessary imagination—can be a tool for mapping a better work environment, too.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Morgan Harper Nichols on Substack, her website, and Instagram.
• Read the piece that inspired this conversation.
• The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
• N.K. Jemisin on world-building on Wired and LitHub
• To Write Love On Her Arms
• "What is capitalist realism?" by Tara McMullin, featuring Iggy Perillo

Every episode of What Works is also shared as an essay at whatworks.fyi—become a free subscriber to get weekly posts delivered to your inbox or upgrade to a premium subscription for access to bonus content and quarterly workshops for just $7 per month!

All of the books I mention in this series are in the Strange New Work Bookshop list.

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The future of work doesn't have to be an extension of today's reality.

This is the first installment in Strange New Work, a new series from What Works about imagining radically different ways of working and doing business.

In this episode, I take a closer look at speculative fiction and its role in the collective imaginary. Is science fiction all space operas and apocalyptic battles? Not hardly. Science fiction isn't really about the future. It's a commentary on and reimagining of the present.

Footnotes:

• All of the books I mention in this series can be found here.
  • No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara
  • The Jewel-Hinged Jaw by Samuel Delaney
• "The Epistemic Value of Speculative Fiction" by Johan de Smedt and Helen de Cruz
• "Sci-Fi Idea Bank" by Packy McCormick
• Ursula K. Le Guin in conversation with The Nation on YouTube
• Vauhini Vara on Amanpour and Company on YouTube
• "The Measure of a Man" Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 2, Episode 9)

Each installment in Strange New Work is published in essay form at WhatWorks.FYI

Love What Works? Support the show and my work by becoming a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. Learn more!

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Join Tara McMullin for a journey into the far future of work, and consider how we can create more humane, inclusive, and supportive work environment. The first episode of Strange New Work drops September 14!

You can find Strange New Work wherever you listen to podcasts—and each new episode will drop in the What Works feed, too!

Support the show at: whatworks.fyi Strange New Work is brought to you by What Works with Tara McMullin and YellowHouse.Media.

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Today’s episode is a sneak peek of Work In Practice, my new 12-week training program for guides of all kinds. This program offers a toolkit for identifying the beliefs and stories that make a more sustainable relationship with work possible. If you’re a coach, consultant, manager, or trainer who works with people rethinking how they work, this is for you.

***

"Anyone can succeed if they work hard and apply themselves!" That's the voice of meritocracy.

Unfortunately, that sweet, encouraging voice can easily turn to "If anyone can succeed if they work hard and apply themselves, why aren't you working harder?!"

Meritocracy sounds great when you're on the side of opportunity. However, personal setbacks and systemic oppression can easily turn meritocracy into the voice of failure.

Footnotes:

• Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard in Slate's Juris Prudence and on 5-4
• Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom
• "Leaving the Cult of Never Enough with Manisha Thakor" on What Works
• "What is Capitalism Realism?" on What Works
• The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits
• "'The Meritocracy Trap,' Explained" by Roge Karma
• Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyi

Work with me: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.

Love What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops

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There are rules you know about—and rules you don't. Some rules are written down—and other rules are "just the way things are." And there are rules that make things clear to everyone—and rules that exclude through their lack of clarity.

Charlie Gilkey is on a mission to bring those unclear rules and unspoken agreements out in the open and improve the way we work in the process. His new book, Team Habits: How Small Changes Lead to Extraordinary Results, is both a treatise on better work and a detailed manual for achieving it.

In this episode, I talk with Charlie about how what seems obvious often isn't—and how that negatively impacts our work environments. We also talk about how to start changing things for the better.

This episode is one part of my longer conversation with Charlie! You'll hear more from him in my upcoming series, Strange New Work. Coming in September!

Footnotes:

• Team Habits by Charlie Gilkey
• Get the Better Team Habits newsletter on Substack
• More about Charlie and the team at Productive Flourishing
• The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
• "White Supremacy Culture Characteristics" by Tema Okun

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyi

Work with me: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.

Love What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle.

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Play, learn, work, retire—those are the four stages of what Mauro Guillén calls the sequential mode of life. In his new book, The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society, he proposes a new story for moving through life. It's a story that actually reflects the facts on the ground—rather than our grandparents' idea of what life was supposed to look like.

In this episode, I talk with Guillén about his research and his vision for how life, learning, and work could be different.

Footnotes:

• The Perennials: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society by Mauro Guillén
• Find out more about Mauro Guillén

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyi

Work with me: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.

Love What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle. Upgrade your subscription today!

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This is the 8th edition of This is Not Advice, my "not-advice" column for premium subscribers of What Works. Today, I'm talking about our over-reliance on metrics and how easily we're seduced by reductive data. When does a metric turn into an incentive for bad behavior? And why are we so happy to accept the feeling of clarity and certainty without actually understanding what's going on?

Click here to upgrade your subscription and get the full episode! Or learn more about becoming a Premium Subscriber.

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Making work for the public seems to come with a slew of fuzzy social expectations. What do we owe our readers, listeners, viewers, and followers? What more is expected beyond the post, episode, or video? How do you navigate the tension between care and boundaries?

When I came across a LinkedIn post that Randi Buckley made, I felt a wave of relief. Her answer to those questions? Nothing. We owe nothing more than we've already given. In this episode, I share wisdom from Randi, additional wisdom from Jordan Maney, and a lot of the inner workings of my own mind.

Footnotes:

• The LinkedIn post that started it all
• Find out more about Randi Buckley
• Find out more about Jordan Maney
• No Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Le Guin's first blog post

NEW: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyi

Love What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle. Upgrade your subscription today!

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The media give us wildly exaggerated images of wealth and consumption. And even if we recognize that a tv show or an Instagram account is more fantasy than reality, those images impact what we believe we should be earning and buying. MoneyZen author Manisha Thakor calls the result Counterfeit Financial Culture and argues that it's one of the reasons we end up feeling like we're never quite enough.

In this episode, Manisha details Counterfeit Financial Culture, and I offer the mimetic theory of desire as additional context for understanding the situation.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Manisha Thakor
• MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your Enough by Manisha Thakor
• Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgis
• Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and the New Technologies of Power by Byung-Chul Han
• Capitalism and Desire by Todd McGowan

NEW: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyi

Love What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle. Upgrade your subscription today!

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At age 50, Manisha Thakor realized that she'd sacrificed her life at the altar of work. How did that happen? And what was she to do about it? Manisha's new book tackles how to unwind a toxic relationship with work and money.

Footnotes:

• MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your Enough by Manisha Thakor
• Find out more about Manisha Thakor
• Alienation by Rahel Jaeggi
• Capitalism and Desire by Todd McGowan
• What Works by Tara McMullin

NEW: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.

Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyi

Love What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle. Upgrade your subscription today!

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This is an excerpt from the 7th edition of This is Not Advice—a not-advice column exclusively for premium subscribers. In this episode, I take a closer look at flexibility. When is it a feature? When is it a bug? When does flexibility create more opportunities for learning or value? And when does it devolve into chaos?

To hear the whole episode, become a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. You'll get twice monthly This is Not Advice episodes, plus (mostly) full-length interviews with the people I feature on the show, and more! Go to whatworks.fyi/subscribe

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This episode originally ran on May 25, 2022. It's been lightly remixed for today's release!

“Rugged individualism” is the very language we speak in America. It shapes the way we approach work, family, and society. And rugged individualism has a direct impact on the decisions we make about our businesses and careers. In this short episode, I unpack where rugged individualism comes from and highlight a different way forward.

Footnotes:

• Rugged Individualism Monologue by Terry Smith
• "The Myth of Rugged Individualism” by Robert Reich
• “We’d Like To Thank You, Herbert Hoover” from Annie
• Individualism and Economic Order by Friedrich Hayek
• Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
• “The Philosophers: Loneliness & Totalitarianism” on Vox Conversations

Every What Works episode is also published in essay form in my newsletter. Subscribe FREE or become a premium subscriber for bonus content for just $7/month. Go to: whatworks.fyi

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So much of our modern discourse around productivity, empowerment, entrepreneurship, and personal growth includes messages about our bodies. These messages might not be explicit, but the messages are there—and our brains pick them up loud and clear.

Similarly, we might not realize that we’re sharing messages that insert themselves into how others perceive their own bodies—but many of us are. It’s impossible to talk about self-discipline, accountability, or efficiency without those concepts leaving their marks on our flesh.

This episode covers a tiny sliver of all the ways that the medium of self-help acts on our bodies. But my hope is that it will encourage you to think critically about the messages you receive about your body and the messages you share that might impact others’ bodies.

You’ll hear from independent beauty culture journalist Jessica DeFino, body confidence influencer Tiffany Ima, and Flaunt Your Fire founder India Jackson.

This episode contains frank talk about bodies, weight, beauty, dieting, and related topics. I know that these subjects can trigger harmful thoughts and behaviors for me if I’m not careful. So please, take care while listening to this episode.

This episode originally aired on October 18, 2022. It's been slightly updated for this rebroadcast.

Footnotes:

• Subscribe to Jessica DeFino’s newsletter about beauty culture and the beauty industry.
• Follow Tiffany Ima on Instagram.
• Listen to the Flaunt Your Fire podcast and learn more about India Jackson.
• Erica Courdae on reconsidering your normal, as well as “Normal is a Life with Michelle Kuei” on the Pause on the Play podcast.
• “Body acceptance stops at the skin. Why?” by Jessica DeFino
• “The Skin as an Antidote to Consumerism” by Jessica DeFino
• “How White Supremacy and Capitalism Influence Beauty Culture” by Jessica DeFino in TeenVogue
• What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
• “Postscript on Societies of Control” by Gilles Deleuze
• Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee
• “Rachel Hollis Part 1: Hashtag Relatable” on Maintenance Phase
• “The Trouble with Calories” on Maintenance Phase
• “Bodybuilding vs Powerlifting vs Weightlifting” on Shape
• Confidence Culture by Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill
• Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World by Danielle Friedman
• 3 Books for Remembering “You Have a Body”: On disability, on chronic illness, and on our bodies in society

You can find essay versions of every What Works episode at whatworks.fyi - where you can become a premium subscriber, support my work, and get bonus content for just $7 per month. Upgrade today!

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This is an episode of "This is Not Advice," a bonus podcast I do for premium subscribers of What Works. Instead of just a teaser this week, I wanted to share the whole episode with you. If you'd like to receive future episodes, go to whatworks.fyi/subscribe and become a premium subscriber for just $7/month.

For this edition of This is Not Advice, I wanted to piggyback on the conversation I had with Jay Acunzo about social media generally and Threads specifically. Part of the conversation that didn't make it into the main piece involved the ratio of how much creating versus consuming we do online. On this, Jay and I have very different philosophies. I don't think he's "doing it wrong," but I did want to tease out the factors that influence whether we [can] spend more time creating or consuming online—and how that impacts the work we do.

It's an episode about craft, gender, genius, and moving beyond the creating versus consuming dichotomy.

Click here to read the full piece and get links to everything I cited in the piece!

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This is an episode about Meta's new app, Threads. It's also about Substack and Substack's new-ish feature, Notes. But really, it's an episode about what we're looking for from the category we call "social media" and how we think about achieving those ends. And perhaps what it's really, really about is how we go looking for and creating meaning in the digital sphere.

Jay Acunzo, a writer, podcaster, and public speaker who thinks a lot about online content, was one of the 100+ million people to give Threads a try over the last week. I was not. So I wanted to see how he was approaching the platform, why he joined in the first place, and maybe, just maybe, how he's thinking about making meaning online.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Jay Acunzo, his podcast, and his newsletter
• Substack Notes
• "Threads is a mecca of Millennial brain rot" by Kate Lindsay on Embedded
• "Meta unspools Threads" by Casey Newton on Platformer
• "To quit or not quit social media: opportunity cost can help you decide" on What Works
• John Austin's How to Do Things With Words
• Performativity in the theory of Judith Butler
• "Queer Failure" by Kate Tyson

Find written versions of every What Works episode at whatworks.fyi

Love What Works? Consider becoming a premium subscriber for just $7/month. Not only do you help support my work, but you also get access to bonus episodes and other goodies.

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"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism," say Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Žižek.

Capitalist liberal democracy is construed as the "end of history"—the culmination of millennia of civilizational progress, the inevitable outcome of a long march toward justice and freedom. But is it? And if it's not the best system for our economic and political needs, what is the alternative?

It's almost impossible to imagine. But, despite what Margaret Thatcher said, there is an alternative—many, in fact. We just haven't dreamed them up yet.

This is the argument of Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism, a great little book that wrestles with big questions and ends on a surprisingly hopeful note.

In this episode, I'll share some reflections on our identities as consumers and the nature of capitalist realism. Then, you'll hear the latest episode of the Books Applied Podcast with Iggy Perillo. Iggy and I discussed the book for her podcast and I loved it so much that I wanted to share it with you, too!

Footnotes:

• Iggy Perillo and WSL Leadership
• Books Applied Podcast
• Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
• "Media Frames UPS Strike as Harming You, the Consumer and Protagonist of Reality" by Adam Johnson in The Column

As always, you can find my opening essay, plus a condensed transcript of my conversation with Iggy, at whatworks.fyi

Love What Works? You can support my research and writing by becoming a premium subscriber on Substack for just $7/month. Thanks in advance!

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Welcome to the 5th edition of This is Not Advice, a non-advice column for premium subscribers of What Works. If you’re already a premium subscriber, thank you! If you’re not, I still think you’re great—and you can read a solid chunk of this column for free. Or, subscribe to get access to full-length columns and podcast episodes.

Or, read this excerpt here.

Next week, I’m teaching a workshop on how to pitch yourself to appear on podcasts for YellowHouse.Media. I’ll show you how to find shows to pitch, how to think like a producer, and how to prepare for your interview. Click here to learn more & register.

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"Failure" got a glow-up sometime in the last 20 years. Instead of something to be feared, gurus tell us to embrace failure. That failure is a waypoint on the path to success. But this shift in our relationship with failure has only further inscribed the winner-loser binary that causes so much of our anxiety about the future.

What if "failure" wasn't part of the "success" formula? What if we looked beyond conventional notions of failure and success to question whether those ideas even matter at all? Whether they serve us at all?

Today on the podcast, Kate Tyson (Strathmann) is queering failure. She's questioning what it means to build a business or a project without the normative notions of success and failure. And how calling those norms into question allows us to imagine new and different ways to do business—or any kind of venture.

"Queer Failure" is an excerpt from [Im]Possible Business by Kate Tyson.

Footnotes:

• [Im]Possible Business by Kate Tyson
• Follow Kate's writing on Substack
• The Queer Art of Failure by Jack Halberstam
• Fox Market and Bar in Montpelier, Vermont
• "Don't Bail Out the Restaurant Industry" by Tunde Wey
• Saidiya Hartman
• Étaín Underthings
• Runway's Entrepreneur Universal Basic Income program
• Wanderwell Bookkeeping and Consulting
• "Queer Theory" by Nancy Harding in Key Concepts in Critical Management Studies

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Buckle up—today's episode was inspired by something that got me really worked up this week: "I think home-baking is one of the stupidest things anyone can engage in," says Rick Easton of Jersey City's Bread and Salt.

This episode is about shoulds and supposed-tos, baking at home, and the ways we devalue certain kinds of labor. Whether or not home-baking is your thing, you'll recognize the way value is narrowly defined by culture and, I think, gain new language for the worthiness of work that doesn't fit the capitalist mode.

Footnotes:

• "Leave the Baking to the Professionals" by Hannah Goldfield, New Yorker
• Bread, and How to Eat It by Rick Easton and Melissa McCart
• "On Bread" via From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
• "What could 'food is political' mean?" via From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy
• King Arthur Baking: Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Loaf
• Breadhead by Greg Wade
• History of Low-Carb Diets on Wikipedia
• "I love bread!" Weight Watchers commercial
• "Home Cooking can be a Feminist Act" by Nigella Lawson
• "Men More Likely Than Women to be Seen as Brilliant" via NYU
• "When Male Chefs Fear the Specter of 'Women's Work'" by Meghan McCarron, Eater
• "The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power" by Audre Lorde, YouTube
• "The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power" by Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

Essay versions of every episode of What Works are published at whatworks.fyi — subscribe FREE to have them delivered straight to you. Or become a paid subscriber for just $7 per month and get access to bonus content, discounts on workshops, and more! Go to whatworks.fyi to learn more.

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"Outsiders" shoulder a disproportionate burden when it comes to fitting in. Can we demand more from the "insiders?"

This is a preview of the 4th installment of This is Not Advice, a not-advice column for paid subscribers of What Works. If you’re not a paid, enjoy the first half of this essay (audio or written) or upgrade your subscription to access the whole thing. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus content and help me make this show!

For a written version of this episode, go to: www.whatworks.fyi

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What gets labeled as "authentic" is often quite predictable. It's a market-compatible expression of what was once something unique or personal. Authenticity is a vibe—and a valuable one at that.

"Predictably unique" is how David A. Banks defines authenticity in his book, The City Authentic. Authenticity, or what's "predictably unique," describes how culture, place, and style are packaged to become recognizable—and, therefore, consumable—to a general audience.

And while Banks's interest is in the politics of urban planning, his analysis spoke to a question I've pondered for almost as long as I've been a Very Online Person: Why does authenticity often feel so fake?

How can a form of expression feel legitimately authentic one day and discernibly contrived or derivative the next? Is it the expression or my perception of it that changes? Why does "authentic" become an aesthetic, a legible set of features that denotes the "real?" And why does formulaic authenticity convey such social capital (or at least promise to)?

I tackle these questions and more in this episode!

Footnotes:

• The City Authentic by David A. Banks
• "'She Looks Like an Instagram:' How Empowerment Became a Brand" by Tara McMullin
• "The Strange Logic of Value in the Attention Economy" by Tara McMullin
• The Jargon of Authenticity by Theodor Adorno
• "Personal Branding and the Crafting of Self" by Tara McMullin
• The Influencer Industry: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media by Emily Hund
• How to be Authentic by Skye Cleary

Every episode of What Works is also published as an essay. Go to read.explorewhatworks.com or subscribe to get them automatically delivered to you! You can also chip in $7 per month to support my work and to get access to bonus content.

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On June 8, Skye Pillsbury opened the latest edition of her newsletter, The Squeeze, with the header RIP Gimlet. She continued:

I’m heartbroken over the news that Spotify has laid off another 200 podcast employees, though I’m not shocked.
— Skye Pillsbury, The Squeeze

I devoured Alex Blumberg's Startup when it first came out, which was about a year before I started podcasting. Then, I inhaled Reply All when it launched, and despite its later troubles, was genuinely moved by its final episode. I lapped up Blumberg's earnest interviews with entrepreneurs on Without Fail. I even had the privilege of interviewing Blumberg during a course I taught at CreativeLive.

I followed Gimlet's acquisition by Spotify with interest (and a healthy dose of skepticism). The bumpy ride that they've had since then was utterly predictable. Though, like Pillsbury, I find the news that Gimlet is no more—at least in any recognizable sense—quite upsetting.

This short dispatch is about podcasting and the podcast industry—but really, it's about why we shouldn't judge success—or run companies—using the logic of Wall Street.

Footnotes:

• "RIP Gimlet" in The Squeeze by Skye Pillsbury
• "Spotify to Layoff 200 Employees in Podcast Strategy Shift" by Amanda Holpuch, New York Times
• Startup by Alex Blumberg & Gimlet Media (Excerpts from Season 1, Episodes 1, 2, and 4)
• Reply All by Alex Goldman, Emmanuel Dsotzi, PJ Vogt, and Gimlet Media
• Without Fail by Alex Blumberg & Gimlet Media
• "Podcast Companies, Once Walking on Air, Feel the Strain of Gravity" by Reggie Ugwu, New York Times
• "A U.F.O. Podcast Zooms Past the Competition" by Reggie Ugwu, New York Times
• "Crooked Media Hires Vice’s Lucinda Treat as First CEO, Gets Funding From George Soros’ Investment Firm" by Todd Spangler, Variety
• "'You Paid WHAT?!' Or, How Echo Chambers Distort Prices and the Way We Think" by Tara McMullin

Love What Works?

Become a paid subscriber and get twice-monthly bonus episodes, the chance to write in with questions, and more for just $7/month. Upgrade your subscription at: taramcmullin.substack.com/subscribe

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Every episode is also published in essay form at: taramcmullin.substack.com

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I’m about to write the most journalistic thing I’ve ever written: I received a tip.

I wish I could say it was an “anonymous tip” because that sounds even more journalistic. But it wasn’t anonymous, though I won’t say who it was. Anyhow, my source told me about a small business owner—someone who sells online courses and does quite well—paying an outrageous sum for a fairly standard service.

This, of course, was not an isolated incident. I didn't really need a tip. I know all about this kind of thing. Wildly inflated prices grace all manner of products and services within the creator economy, coaching industry, and "online business" space in general.

‘What’s going on?’ my source wanted to know. ‘How do people get caught paying so far above market rate? And why do people charge prices so out of whack with the market?’ I totally paraphrased all that. Here's what my source really asked about: "the gaslighting inflationary online pricing bubble."

In this episode, I endeavor to get to the bottom of the Gaslighting Inflationary Pricing Bubble Online—GIPBO. I discover that it's not so much an economic problem (although that's part of the story). It's an epistemological one.

Footnotes:

• "Hostile Epistemology" by C. Thi Nguyen
• "Neoclassical Economics" on Investopedia
• "The Epistemic Seduction of Markets" by Lisa Herzog in The Raven
• "Escape the Echo Chamber" by C. Thi Nguyen
• "The Art of Rent" by David Harvey

Love What Works? Share the show or newsletter with a friend who would appreciate a critical look at work, business, and leadership in the 21st century.

And please consider supporting the work I do by becoming a paid subscriber. This episode alone took over 30 hours to research, write, edit, and produce. You can contribute (and get access to some sweet bonuses!) for just $7/month. Click here to contribute!

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Welcome to the 3rd edition of This is Not Advice, my advice column that’s not an advice column for paid subscribers of What Works.

This week, I am tackling a question that came up during last week’s workshop on media ecosystems (link to replay below!) and that my husband Sean asked me just this morning. It also came up a number of times during a workshop on audio essays that I taught earlier this year.

So I’m going to assume this is something that a lot of folks struggle with—myself included on a regular basis.

Here’s the gist:

I’ve accumulated lots of thoughts that I want to turn into a cohesive project—
maybe a book, a podcast series, an online course, even a single essay.
How do I even begin working on something like that?

This episode is an excerpt from my full column! To upgrade your subscription and read or listen to the full episode, click here!

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Today's episode is all about trust and responsibility—and how those qualities impact the cost of doing business and the work that's required for any company to be successful. And specifically, it's about something I'm calling the Trust-Profit Paradox. Simply put, you can't build trust and optimize for profit at the same time.

After losing my ish listening to The Verge's Nilay Patel stump Airbnb's Brian Chesky with a question about AI-generated images on the Decoder podcast, I started to think about the responsibility that companies like Airbnb have (or, rather, avoid). From there, my research took me to some truly unexpected places—like into mainstream management theory.

Footnotes:

• "The Pope Francis Puffer Photo Was Real In Our Hearts" by Eileen Cartter on GQ
• "'I can't make products just for 41-year-old tech founders': Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is taking it back to basics" on Decoder with Nilay Patel (audio & transcript available)
• "The Delusion of Profit" by Peter Drucker in Wall Street Journal
• "Cost of Capital" on the Harvard Business School blog
• "If you're getting ripped off, it's not surprising" featuring Niko Matouschek at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern
• "The Age of Customer Capitalism" by Roger Martin in Harvard Business Review
• "'Is Substack Notes a Twitter clone?': We asked CEO Chris Best" on Decoder with Nilay Patel

Join me for a workshop called "Tending Your Media Ecosystem" on Wednesday, May 31st at 1:30pm ET/10:30am PT—exclusively for paid subscribers to What Works. Get started for just $7/month!

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What are we really talking about when we talk about our hopes and fears about AI?

It's us. We're the problem.

Actually, we're not the problem—we're more like the solution. But that's less mimetic.

Sure, this is yet another pod hitting your feed with a take on AI. I'll assure you, though: this episode isn't really AI. There's no fear-mongering or cute suggestions for prompts. It's a bit of a meditation on the very human parts of our relationship with technology. And it's probably one of the most hopeful pieces I've put together in a few years!

***

Anyhow, today's episode is the second edition of This is Not Advice, a "not advice" column for paying subscribers of What Works. This is the final public edition, so if you'd like to keep getting a dose of "not advice" from me every other week, plus submit your own topics and questions, and support independent analysis of the future of work, business, and leadership, go taramcmullin.substack.com/subscribe and chip in just $7/month.

I'm also hosting a workshop on May 31 for paying subscribers called Tending Your Media Ecosystem. I'll share how what I read, watch, and listen to becomes what I write, produce, and post.

Footnotes:

• Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Deja Q"
• Grammarly's new AI Assistant
• "Did clickbait kill BuzzFeed and the digital media era?" on Offline with Jon Favreau
• "Readers Aren't Flocking to Chatbot Novels Just Yet" in Counter Craft by Lincoln Michel
• "Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins" on Folding Ideas with Dan Olson
• "Dingus of the Week: Pivoting to Robots" in Men Yell at Me by Lyz Lenz

Every new episode is also published in essay form! Click here to read.

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There's a sort of inside joke in the online business space of coaches, creators, and service providers. Or maybe, at this point, it's an "outside joke?"

Q: What's the surest way to make more money as a creator or small business owner?

A: Teach other people how to make money as a creator or small business owner.

Hilarious, right? Anyhow, this isn't some weird quirk of extremely online people. It's something huge companies do, too. Douglas Rushkoff calls it "going meta." You can see it in the stock market, in automakers, and—yes—at Meta. In this quick Dispatch, I take a look at how "going meta" changes work, both for self-employed and traditionally employed folks. And, I consider how we might do things differently.

Footnotes:

• Survival of the Richest, by Douglas Rushkoff
• Team Human, by Douglas Rushkoff
• "What a Meta For?" by Douglas Rushkoff on Medium
• Kyla Scanlon's tweet
• "How Ford Makes Money" on Investopedia

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“This cancerous economic principle means that executives and venture capitalists have abandoned the concept of value within a business. Through decades of corporate greed, production has become almost entirely separated from capital, meaning that executives (and higher-ups) are no longer able to understand the nature of the businesses they are growing.”
— Ed Zitron, “Absentee Capitalism”

This might sound weird—but most companies today aren’t in the business it appears they’re in. Netflix isn’t really in the content business. Facebook isn’t in the social media business. Etsy isn’t in the handmade marketplace business. Instead, companies are in the growth business.

And this impacts all of us, tying how we work not to the production of valuable products and services but to the potential for capital growth. Even for independent workers and small businesses, the capital growth game sets the rules and obstacles for the game we play.

Today’s episode is about gaming the system—how the game we play dictates the decisions we make and the actions we perform. After all, you have to know what game you’re playing to know how to win. And you also need to decide whether that’s the game you want to play.

Footnotes:

• Games: The Art of Agency by C. Thi Nguyen
• “Bent but Not Broken: The History of the Rules” via NFL Operations
• CBS Sports: “Results of 2023 Rule Change Proposals”
• MSNBC: “BuzzFeed News to shut down”
• “Absentee Capitalism” by Ed Zitron
• "Amazon's Trickle-Down Monopoly" by Moira Weigel
• “The Valuable Business of Maintenance Work” by Tara McMullin
• What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting by Tara McMullin

Support independent research and analysis about the future of work and business by becoming a paid subscriber of What Works! For just $7 per month, you help make my work possible. Click here to pledge your support!

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Today’s quick episode is a sample of something I’m creating for paid subscribers to What Works. I’m calling it my “This is Not Advice” column. Or, TINA for short. Not to be confused with TINA a la “there is no alternative”—if you know, you know.

Paid subscribers not only receive this subscriber-directed content, but they also have the chance to, well, direct the content! When you’re a paid subscriber, you can write in with a question, topic, or observation that you’d like my take on—some added context here and some sideways observations there.

If you like today’s episode and want to get more of it, go to read.explorewhatworks.com and become a paid subscriber for just $7/month!

***
Today's Question:

What else can I do to grow my [audience, platform, brand, list, etc.]?

To me, this isn’t only a question for independent workers and small business owners—although it’s especially salient for that group. It’s also a question that points to a bigger trend in work in general. And that trend is the way all workers are now encouraged to be entrepreneurs of themselves. This is evident in the portfolio career model, the lessons about personal branding, and what Micki McGee has called the ‘belabored self,’ that is, constant work on perfecting oneself to fit the market.

This question has become quite fraught over the last 9 months or so. When I would have once been able to begrudgingly prescribe a series of actions on various social media platforms or construct a content strategy designed to attract new readers/listeners/viewers, the media landscape has become, to borrow Cory Doctorow’s term, enshittified. Thanks to enshittification, none of the legacy platforms are viable candidates for a concerted strategy. And splitting one’s effort across multiple platforms is just watering down already ineffective action.

Listen to hear my answer! Or find the written version at read.explorewhatworks.com

Footnotes:

• Become a paid subscriber to What Works for just $7 per month!
• "The Enshittification of TikTok" by Cory Doctorow on Wired
• Micki McGee on the "belabored self"
• "How Audience-Building is Not the Same as Finding Clients" by Tara McMullin
• Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han
• Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman
• "Why Creating Remarkable Work Matters" by Tara McMullin
• "Revisiting Remarkable Content to Explore Digital Ecology" by Tara McMullin

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What does a bad movie from 1992, loss aversion, Steinbeck, pizza, farm animals, and the founder of a software company have in common? Well, you’ll find them all in this episode.

This episode will take you places. I don’t want to spoil it. So suffice it to say, this episode is all about questioning why we act the way we do when it comes to how we scale up (and scale down) our dreams.

Footnotes:

• Learn more about Nathalie Lussier and AccessAlly
• Far and Away (1992 film)
• Oklahoma land rush of 1893
• “A primer on the 30s” by John Steinbeck
• More about loss aversion
• 2002 pizza study
• Psychopolitics by Byung-Chul Han
• Check out Nathalie & Robin’s farm on YouTube
• What Works by Tara McMullin

Support the research, journalism, and analysis that goes into What Works by becoming a paid subscriber for just $7 per month. You'll get access to bonus content and help me continue to do this work (instead of, ya know, selling you stuff).

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I am on board when it comes to technological progress. I look forward to updating my devices (although I don’t do it as frequently as I used to). New apps and features excite me. I’m pretty quick to adapt to change.

I am not a Luddite. Or so I thought.

“The word Luddite still means an old-fashioned type who is anti-progress,” writes Jeanette Winterson in her book 12 Bytes. “But the Luddites of the early 19th century were not against progress; they were against exploitation.” Reading these lines was the first time what the Luddite movement actually stood for really sank in. Where I had once seen atavism and fear, I now saw labor politics I could get behind.

When I picked up Gavin Mueller’s Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Were Right About Why You Hate Your Job, I did so to learn more about the radical roots of Luddism and how the movement could inform my own thinking on the future of work. I also picked it up amidst the current fervor over AI and debates about whether the robots were finally coming for writers’ jobs.

In this episode, I share my favorite ideas from Mueller's book and apply them to commonplace tools like project management apps (ClickUp, Asana, etc.) and social media scheduling apps. I think you'll have a different perspective on tech once you've listened!

Footnotes:

• Breaking Things At Work by Gavin Mueller
• 12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson
• Gavin Mueller on the Chris Voss show (YouTube)
• "AI and Automation are destroying jobs, not work" via Quartz (YouTube)
• "Dear YouTube, creators keep burning out. Here's the fix." via Channel Makers (YouTube)
• "Creator burnout is real. 6 ways to recover" via Sidewalker Daily (YouTube)
• My 2021 TEDx talk on remarkable work
• "Kids at Work, Games as Labor, Content as Product, and Surplus Elite" by me on Substack
• "The Game is Rigged: Rethinking the Creator Economy" by me on Substack
• "Intelligence Superabundance" by Packy McCormick on Not Boring
• "Moss introduces Jen to the internet" from The IT Crowd (YouTube)
• "You have to start talking" via GaryVee Video Experience (YouTube)

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It seems like every company today claims to be "on a mission" to change the world or improve our lives. They bill themselves as social movements more than profit-driven enterprises. It sounds nice. But how does it really function in the lives of workers? Do these missions meaningfully improve our communities?

In this episode, I briefly explore the history of the corporate mission statement and then dive into a critique of the bestselling leadership book, Start with Why. You'll hear why the Start with Why ideology is so appealing, how it sets us up for disappointment, and whether it's actually an effective brand and marketing strategy. Plus, I leave off with an alternative take that flips this ideology on its head.

Footnotes:

• Walmart’s Statement of Purpose
• Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, and Practices by Peter Drucker
• The New Spirit of Capitalism by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek
• “Start with Why” TEDx talk by Simon Sinek
• The Problem with Work by Kathi Weeks

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At least in my corner of social media, there are a lot of folks asking what makes a business ethical. Or, perhaps more accurately, there are a lot of folks answering that question.

And there are probably even more folks worried that there’s something unethical about the way they run their businesses. They’re afraid they haven’t checked all the ethical business boxes.

When Brooke Monaghan emailed me to ask whether I wanted to have a messy conversation about some of the messaging around ethical, equitable, or trauma-informed businesses, I jumped on the opportunity. You see, while this is certainly not true of all messaging on these topics, much of it unintentionally replicates problematic systems and social relations.

Capitalism always appropriates that which tries to resist it.

This episode explores a few different ways to think about the messages you’ve probably run into as you think about working or doing business differently. It’s not about calling anyone out or shaming anyone. It’s a look under the hood at some of the unexpected forces at play.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Brooke Monaghan.
• “Does social media leave you angry?” on NPR
• Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
• A Spectre, Haunting by China Miéville
• “White Women/Black Women” by Phyllis Palmer
• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
• Utilitarian ethics
• Deontological ethics

I release every episode in essay form on Thursdays. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, or read the archive at read.explorewhatworks.com.

Want to support the ad-free independent analysis I do at What Works? Become a paying subscriber at read.explorewhatworks.com. For just $7 per month, you not only get access to all of my free content, but bonus podcast episodes, the “This is Not Advice” Column, and sneak peeks at works in progress. Go to read.explorewhatworks.com to subscribe.

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This Earth Month... buy more stuff?!

We're about to be bombarded with messaging about corporate climate initiatives. We'll have the chance to buy merch to "support" the planet. And we'll be incentivized to spend more so that a small portion can be donated to organizations fighting climate change.

As you might expect, it's all marketing. Earth Month and Earth Day seem to have become another excuse for a sale.

But we miss a key issue in our fight for change if we stop at the "greedy corporation" critique. In this short dispatch, I compare Panasonic's #CreateTodayEnrichTomorrow campaign to Parks Project's mission to do good, and I advocate for a systems-level critique that can penetrate do-good messaging to get to the heart of the problem.

Footnotes:

• Panasonic's ad: Green Impact (with Michael Phelps)
• Panasonic CES 2022 Top Things to See
• The Entrepreneurs Helping Save U.S. National Parks via Forbes
• Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

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"All parasites have value, Sibling Dex. Not to their hosts, perhaps, but you could say the same about a predator and a prey animal. They all give back—not to the individual but to the ecosystem at large."
— Mosscap, in A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers

For the next few months, I'm focusing on some big projects and taking my foot off the gas of the podcast a bit. But since writing is how I think, my big projects spin off shorter pieces as I work through ideas.

I'll share some of these shorter pieces here on the podcast and in the What Works newsletter as "dispatches" from my projects.

Today's dispatch explores our feelings about those who don't work—and how those feelings can create obstacles to more sustainable choices about how we do work.

Footnotes:

• Monk & Robot novellas by Becky Chambers
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
• Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
• The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker's Notebook by James Boggs
• The Immunity to Change process via MindTools

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I’ve called myself a recovering overachiever. I’m recovering not from the drive to excel but from the anxiety inherent to wondering if anything I achieve will ever be enough. And folks, it’s a struggle.

The philosophy Byung-Chul Han describes this anxiety as central to contemporary society. He dubs our modern age the “Achievement Society” and argues that our plethora of potential projects and opportunities work to maximize our productivity. After all, what better way to inspire people to greater efficiency than by inspiring them to tackle #AllTheThings?

This week, I talk with the host of The Anxious Achiever and author of the forthcoming book of the same name, Morra Aarons-Mele. We both the anxiety that the drive to achieve can create and how mental health conditions of all kinds impact the way we work.

Footnotes:

• Pre-order The Anxious Achiever by Morra Aarons-Mele
• Listen to The Anxious Achiever podcast on your favorite app
• Find out more about Morra Aarons-Mele
• The Burnout Society by Byung-Chul Han
• Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
• “High-Functioning Anxiety - Life Fright of the Shy Loud” presented by Jordan Raskopoulos at TEDxSydney

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We all have deep human needs—for belonging, for autonomy, for creative expression, for safety and security. But modern life can make it a real challenge to get those needs met in meaningful ways. Instead, we’re offered products with flashy marketing messages. Kitchen gadgets, social media platforms, clothing, personal care products, and many others offer to help us live our best lives. Financial and educational products promise a greater sense of security and autonomy. But do these commodities really satisfy our needs? Or do they merely stave off the hunger a little longer?

In this final episode of The Economics Of, I explore how various economic concepts can help us understand why we buy the things we do, how our consumption relates to larger economics forces, and how our relationships are influenced by it all. I also talk with Mara Glatzel, the author of Needy, about how to better understand our own needs and create the conditions through which we can get those needs met.

Footnotes:

• Get your copy of Needy by Mara Glatzel
• Learn more about Mara Glatzel
• “Varieties of the Rat Race: Conspicuous Consumption in the US & Germany” by Till Van Treeck, via the Institute for New Economic Thinking
• “Trickle-Down Consumption” by Marianne Bertrand and Adair Morse in The Review of Economics and Statistics
• “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844” by Karl Marx
• Adam Smith’s America by Glory M. Liu
• Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
• “Alienation” on Overthink with David Pena-Guzman and Ellie Anderson
• More on Thorstein Veblen via Investopedia
• Everything, All the Time, Everywhere by Stuart Jeffries
• Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman

New episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weekly

If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.

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What makes an idea valuable? What turns it into a product that can be bought, sold, or rented? Ideas turn into capital assets thanks to our system of intellectual property rights. But understanding IP isn’t simply a matter of learning what a trademark or patent is, and then learning how to leverage it to create wealth. To truly understand intellectual property, we need to under property—what it is and why it exists—first.

In this episode, I explore the origins of our conception of private property, why we’ve coded intellectual property rights into law, and how one business owner—Jenny Blake—licenses her IP to companies to generate (relatively) passive income.

Footnotes:

• Jenny Blake’s Free Time
• Jenny Blake’s Pivot Method
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber
• The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow
• “Coding Land and Ideas | The Laws of Capitalism” featuring Katharina Pistor via the Institute for New Economic Thinking
• “Enclosure” on Wikipedia
• “Legal Evil” featuring Katharina Pistor via the Institute for New Economic Thinking
• “How to Unf★ck Intellectual Property” featuring Dean Baker via the Institute for New Economic Thinking
• Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy and Who Pays for It? by Brett Christophers
• Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher

New episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weekly

If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.

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This is Part 2 of The Economics of Getting (and Paying) Attention. If you haven’t listened to Part 1, I highly recommend starting there!

In today’s episode, I explore the “right to publicity” and the value of celebrity as an economic condition. From there, we get into how audience-building businesses gain efficiency by vertically integrating media, ads, and offers and how micro-media creators often leverage monopoly power to charge exorbitant prices.

Footnotes:

• “New wellness price point just dropped” Conspiratuality Instagram post
• The World After Capital by Albert Wenger (available free)
• “The Audience Commodity and its Work” by Dallas Smythe
• “From Celebrity to Influencer” by Alison Hearn and Stephanie Schoenhoff
• Good Mythical Morning on YouTube
• Sporked
• “How Audience-Building is Different from Finding Clients” by Tara McMullin
• Vertical integration

New episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weekly

If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and then rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.

★ Support this podcast ★

How comfortable are you with your own voice? How likely are you to say what's on your mind?

Samara Bay, the author of the brand-new book Permission to Speak, is on a mission to change what power sounds like. I found Samara because one of my favorite podcasters was on Samara's show. I then binged her back catalog and started recommending her show to everyone I worked with. One of those folks then turned around and told Samara I had shouted her out! We've been fangirling together ever since.

I first had Samara on the podcast during the Self-Help, LLC series (Episode 397: Bad Usage). But her book has just hit the shelves so I took that as an excuse to schedule another chat and bring it to you as a bonus "mini" episode. Enjoy!

Footnotes:

• Buy Permission to Speak at Bookshop.org (or wherever you buy books!)
• Find out more about Samara
• Follow Samara on Instagram
• YellowHouse.Media

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Attention is a scarce (and precious) resource. A gargantuan number of media outlets, advertisers, influencers, and brands vie for our attention every day. In turn, many of us (including me) are out there trying to attract attention, too. At the same time, the changing nature of the attention market (as well as larger macroeconomic shifts) creates some real weirdness.

This is the first episode of a two-part deep dive into the economics of paying attention, getting attention, and audiences as a commodity. In this episode, we’ll question how an influencer can charge $100k per year for coaching, examine how attention scarcity impacts the market, and explore the “principal product of the mass media.” This episode is for you if you ever spend time on social media, consume any kind of traditional media, buy things, or hope people will buy things for you. We’ll get into the weeds—but all for the purpose of getting very, very practical.

Footnotes:

• “New wellness price point just dropped” Conspiratuality Instagram post
• “Paying Attention: The Attention Economy” via the Berkley Economic Review
• The World After Capital by Albert Wenger (available free)
• “Georg Franck’s ‘The Economy of Attention’: Mental capitalism and the struggle for attention” by Robert van Krieken
• “The Economy of Attention” by Georg Franck, translated by Silvia Plaza
• “The Audience Commodity and its Work” by Dallas Smythe
• Dallas Smythe 1979 lecture via SFU Communications
• “The Economics of Working Together with Kate Strathmann” on What Works
• “Dallas Smythe Today - The Audience Commodity, the Digital Labour Debate, Marxist Political Economy and Critical Theory” by Christian Fuchs

New episodes are published in essay form every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get the delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge, by subscribing to What Works Weekly: explorewhatworks.com/weekly

If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and then rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.

★ Support this podcast ★

Toward the end of last week's episode, Kate Strathmann talked about the importance of understanding the "tiny economy" of your business. Digging into cashflow is a perfect way to do just that. When we start thinking about how money flows 3 dimensionally, we start to see new opportunities for investment, growth, and exercising our values.

This episode originally aired in September 2021. Turns out, I needed an extra week to put together the economics of attention, and this piece followed up my conversation with Kate beautifully. I'll be back next week with an all-new episode!

Footnotes:

• Cashflow Is A Feminist Issue (essay version)
• SBA report on credit market experiences among new business owners
• Report on the gender gap in business financing (CBS News)
• The Valuable Business of Maintenance Work
• Your Biggest Small Business Opportunity is Doing Less
• Decolonization is for Everyone: TEDx talk by Nikki Sanchez

Written versions of each new episode are available at explorewhatworks.com every Thursday. Or, sign up for What Works Weekly—free—and get them delivered to your inbox automatically!

If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and then rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.

★ Support this podcast ★

Sure, you can build a business or independent career made for one. But once you start thinking about making a bigger impact or scaling up to serve more customers, you start thinking about hiring help. And that makes a lot of people nervous!

The idea that we might unintentionally create a toxic work environment or exploit the people we hire is enough to keep many from hiring help at all. While you might expect this subject to get more of a psychological or sociological treatment, economics has a lot to teach us about creating equitable relationships at work, too.

In this episode, Kate Strathmann joins me for a “conversation with no answers,” where we explore the possibilities of work relationships outside the traditional structures.

Footnotes:

• More from Kate Strathmann and Wanderwell Consulting
• Previous episodes featuring Kate: 341, 298, 153
• “Exploitation” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Episode 386: Extra Context — Getting Paid
• Surplus Labor in Radical Economics
• More about Guerilla Translation
• “Open Value Accounting” (contributive accounting)

A written version of each episode is published every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get it delivered straight to your inbox by signing up at explorewhatworks.com/weekly

If you’d like to learn more about how we can approach life and work differently, check out my book, What Works. I explore the history and cultural context that’s led us to this success-obsessed, productivity-oriented moment. Then I guide you through deconstructing those messages and then rebuilding a structure for work-life that works.

★ Support this podcast ★

The first time I heard you could charge $47 for a PDF less than 50 pages long, I was shocked. When I first encountered an online course selling for $2000, I about fell out of my chair. Of course, it wasn’t long until I, too, was selling information products for more than my first car cost.

Of course, I’m also an autodidact who benefits greatly from the proliferation of “free” information. And I’m a writer and podcaster who chooses to make 99% of what I make free to consume and use.

I’ve benefited from both sides of the equation when it comes to the economics of information. And so this episode is a long time coming. It’s an exploration of the seeming paradox at the heart of how we value information. And this episode covers some broad territory: from the 1960s and Stewart Brand who originated the phrase “information wants to be free,” to how information gets priced, to a case study on two of my most popular forays into information products, to feminist economics and the erasure of care work.

Footnotes:

• “The Real Legacy of Stewart Brand w/ Malcolm Harris” on Tech Won’t Save Us with Paris Marx
• “The Zen Playboy” by Malcolm Harris in The Nation
• My courses on CreativeLive
• “Feminist Economics” video series from the Institute of New Economic Thinking, hosted by economist Jayati Ghosh
• Berik, Günseli, Ebru Kongar. The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Economics. 2021. 1st ed., Taylor and Francis, 2021.
• “What is Money? With Paco de Leon” on What Works
• Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle by Silvia Federici

“Course Mechanics Canvas: 12 Levers to Achieve Course-Market Fit” by Wes Kao

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Welcome to “The Economics of…”—a new series from What Works. In this series, I’ll be exploring how economic concepts and frameworks can help us run our businesses or manage our careers. Each episode will have some fundamental economics education and a case study to make each concept tangible.

Today, we’re tackling a pretty fundamental economic concept: opportunity cost. Opportunity cost helps us understand what we have to give up in order to get what we want. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, it is. But opportunity cost asks us to dig deep to discover the hidden costs of any decision—and that can be anything but straightforward.

In this week’s case study, I talk with Tell Me A Story founder Hillary Rea about the opportunity cost of quitting social media (or rather, the opportunity cost of not doing all the things she has the time to do now!).

Footnotes:

• Learn more about Hillary Rea and Tell Me A Story
• Economics in Two Lessons by John Quiggin
• “Unlimited Wants, Limited Resources” by Robert Skidelsky and the Institute for New Economic Thinking
• “Networking That Pays” by Michelle Warner
• Music by Track Club

An essay version of each podcast episode drops every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. If you'd like to have it delivered straight to your inbox each week, sign up for What Works Weekly—FREE: explorewhatworks.com/weekly

“Thanks to What Works, I’ve broken up with goal setting as usual. Tara has laid out a liberated way to identify what matters to me and move towards it without striving, suffering, or burning out.” — Annie Schuessler, Rebel Therapist

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Well, it’s the first week of January. And whether you’re back to work or eking out a few more hours of unstructured liminal time, the arrival of New Year energy is imminent. You know what I mean by New Year energy—it’s that annual infusion of urgency, striving, and discipline that comes crashing down on our post-holiday mellowness. And if we’re not paying attention, that New Year energy will sweep us out to sea.

What if this year, we embraced patience?

In this piece, I share how baking has helped me feel good about going slow and why that’s crucial to the way I work.

Footnotes:

• You Belong by Sebene Selassie
• “The Human-Built World Is Not Built For Humans” by L. M. Sacasas
• Music available on Track Club by Marmoset

Essay versions of podcast episodes are released every Thursday on the website. Sign up for What Works Weekly to have them delivered to your inbox: explorewhatworks.com/weekly

Start the new year with a radically different approach to goal-setting. Grab my new book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting: explorewhatworks.com/book

Or join me for a brand-new live workshop on January 10, 17, and 24 called Work In Practice: workinpractice.life

Today’s episode is an edited and updated version of a piece that was originally published in December 2021.

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If 2020 was the year people asked, “Can we really work from home?” and 2021 was the year people asked, “How might we return to the office?”, then 2022 was the year people started asking, “Why do we put up with this crap?”

If like me, you’ve been working from home for many years, maybe this shift in discourse felt irrelevant. You’ve got your own gig; you make your own rules; you create your own working conditions. But I believe this larger shift transcends the divisions created by our tax codes—contractor, employee, sole proprietor, member of an LLC, and even employer. Whether we have obligations to an employer or rely on some of the world’s largest corporations for “free access” to the software products they create to harvest our personal data, we are workers.

The way we think about work and workers is changing because work changed and is still changing.

In this quick bonus episode, I lay out a vision for work in 2023 and beyond that defies the structures and assumptions that keep us focused on productivity and efficiency, despite our best efforts to prioritize creativity, collaboration, and care.

Look for the written version of this episode at explorewhatworks.com

Ready to transform the way you work? I have two recommendations:

The first is my new book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting. It’s a fundamental rethinking of why we choose our goals, why we’re always striving for more, and how we might create work and life structures that don’t revolve around achievement or the relentless pursuit of growth.

You can grab your copy—or gift one to a friend—at explorewhatworks.com/book.

And the second is a brand-new workshop that I’m teaching January 10, 17, and 24th called Work In Practice. This 3-part workshop builds on the themes of the book and applies them to our daily work. On January 10, we’ll tackle job crafting so we can do better work with less stress. On January 17, we’ll embrace our limits so we can make reasonable and sustainable plans for the year ahead. And on January 24, we’ll creates systems of care for ourselves and others to increase our access to resources, as well as increase what we have available to give and share.

To find out more, go to workinpractice.life.

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This episode is decidedly different from what you've heard on What Works this year! If this happens to be your first foray into the show, maybe start with an earlier episode.

But if you're into hearing my dear husband (and executive producer) chat about the ups and downs of this year, as well as some of our favorite things of the past 12 months, listen on!

All of the books we mention in this episode are linked in my Bookshop store.

Thanks for listening this year! Look for new episodes in 2023. I've got some great stuff planned.

***

Our work has evolved. Our way of working has not. Make 2023 the year you transform the way you work.

I'm teaching a 3-part live workshop in January called Work In Practice. I'll guide you through rethinking the way you work from the ground up. We'll dismantle old mindsets and standard operating procedures. And then we'll rebuild a vision for work that's based on sustainability and satisfaction.

Get all the details at WorkInPractice.Life!

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Everyone experiences work stress from time to time. But some of us experience persistent work stress—even though we have more "tools" for reducing stress than ever before.

If you've experienced work stress this year, there's a good chance you're thinking about how you can create the conditions for less stress in the new year. So today, I'm exploring how psychologists understand what kinds of work create more stress, what conditions reduce stress, and how we might intentionally design our work to be more sustainable.

Note: In the last third of the episode, I use a swear word (commonly abbreviated B.S.) to reference a book & theory by David Graeber. It's the name of the theory... so I use it a lot. If you'd rather not hear it, stop the episode around 17:45. You'll still get most of the message!

Footnotes:

• Creating Sustainable Work Systems: Developing Social Sustainability (2008)
• Chapter: "Sources of work intensity in organizations" by Armand Hatchuel (2005)
• Demand-Control Theory
• Job Demand-Resource Model
• The Office (US Version)
• B***S*** Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber

Looking for a great gift for your clients, colleagues, or team members? How about my new book, What Works? It's a great way to spread the message that we don't have to do things the way they've always been done. And you can provide a little relief when it comes to all that "New Year, New You" garbage. Grab your copy here!

Essay versions of each podcast episode are released every Thursday. Get them delivered straight to your inbox by subscribing here—free of charge.

Reviewing the past year and planning for next

If you’re listening to this close to its air date, you’re probably thinking about how this year went and what you’d like to tackle in the next year. I suggest including a review of the demands of your work, the autonomy you allow yourself, and the resources you have at your disposal:

• Does your work present challenges that motivate you to learn and think creatively?
• Are those challenges met with an appropriate level of autonomy and sufficient resources?
• In what ways do you deny yourself flexibility in the way you work?
• How does flexibility (or lack thereof) impact how you meet the challenges of your work?
• What resources would allow you to challenge yourself in new ways?
• What challenges would you like to take on in the new year?

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Over the last two years, I've transitioned from identifying as a business owner first to identifying as a writer and podcast first. In the first year—2021—I didn't realize that's what I was doing. But over the course of this year, it was quite intentional. Making that shift has allowed me to explore creative territory that I didn't think I could explore when my primary function was content marketing.

In this week's episode, I talk with India Jackson about transitioning from content marketer to writer and podcaster. I share what it's meant for my work, my sense of identity, and my mental health. Plus, we talk about some of the difficult decisions I had to make on this journey.

Tune in to India's show, Flaunt Your Fire, wherever you listen to What Works or at flauntyourfire.com

Footnotes:

• Find out more about India Jackson and Flaunt Your Fire
• Find out more about Pause On The Play
• Hear India on EP 398: Good Bodies and EP 294: Offering Bespoke Services
• Jay Acunzo's LinkedIn post

Grab your copy of my new book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting!

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The shelves are full of products that promise to fulfill your values: ecofriendly, independent, cooperative, woman-owned, Black-owned, sustainable, etc. And right on! Unfortunately, not every product that claims to align with your values really does. Often, values-marketing is more about maintaining the status quo than it is about doing things differently. That’s what I call “values hijacking.”

Values hijacking occurs on the consumer level, but it also occurs on the cultural and political levels. Marketing, government policy, incentive structures, and cultural norms can all short circuit our critical thinking about what action to take.

On today’s episode, you’ll hear about one my husband’s biggest soapbox issues, and then I’ll turn the mic over to Erica Courdae, host and founder of Pause on The Play, and we’ll go deep on how our values become hijacked by systems of power.

Footnotes:

• More about Erica Courdae and Pause on the Play.
• POTP Episode 178: Values hijacking, capitalism, and systemic change with Tara McMullin

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What is a goal really? What purpose does a goal really serve? And is that purpose truly benefiting us, the goal-setters?

These are big, messy questions. But they are far from abstract. Our answers to these questions—whether we know it or not—shape the way we work and live on a daily basis. This intermediary space—the space between philosophical questions and practical implications—is a place I happily hang out in all day long. Luckily, I know someone who likes hanging out in that place as much as I do!

His name is Charlie Gilkey. He’s a friend of the pod—as well as the co-founder of Productive Flourishing and author of Start Finishing. He’s also the host of the Productive Flourishing podcast.

Today’s episode is a rebroadcast from the Productive Flourishing feed. Charlie and I talk about why in the world I wrote a productivity book, how the cultural code we operate in impacts the way we plan and set goals, how that code disproportionately harms some more than others, and much, much more.

Footnotes:

• What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting by Tara McMullin
• More about Charlie Gilkey
• Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey
• Listen to Productive Flourishing
• Broken (in the Best Possible Way) by Jenny Lawson
• Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne

Written versions of each episode drop on Thursdays at explorewhatworks.com. Get them deliverable to your inbox by subscribing at explorewhatworks.com/weekly.

Introducing Recovering Overachiever Club

Recovering Overachiever Club is a 3-week deep dive into why we strive and what we can do differently in the new year. Join us November 29-December 20 for exclusive essays, podcast episodes, and conversation—oh, and earn a few merit badges, too. Learn more!

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Do we really have the same 24 hours as Beyoncé? Yes. And no. And… it’s complicated.

There is a never-ending stream of advice about how to make the most of your time. And honestly? Most of it is just bullsh*t. That’s because there is no way to hack yourself or your work to produce more in less time if your emotions are fried, your energy is drained, or you’re dealing with the effects chronic illness.

This conversation—originally broadcast as a Spotify Live—is an unflinching look at what it means to consider our multidimensional capacity in the realms of work and life. You’ll hear from my friends Jenny Blake, author of Free Time, and Charlie Gilkey, author of Start Finishing—and me, too!

Note: the audio quality on this episode is totally listenable—but it’s not our normal podcast quality.

Footnotes:

• Get What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting by Tara McMullin
• Find out more about Jenny Blake
• Buy Free Time by Jenny Blake
• Find out more about Charlie Gilkey
• Buy Start Finishing by Charlie Gilkey

Written versions of our podcast episodes land on Thursdays at explorewhatworks.com. Get them delivered straight to your inbox by subscribing at explorewhatworks.com/weekly

Introducing Recovering Overachiever Club

Recovering Overachiever Club is a 3-week deep dive into why we strive and what we can do differently in the new year. Join us November 29-December 20 for exclusive essays, podcast episodes, and conversation—oh, and earn a few merit badges, too. Learn more!

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It’s been almost exactly 7 years since this podcast first launched as Profit. Power. Pursuit. Since then, we’ve produced 400 regular episodes (with some bonuses here and there). You know, I’ve written many more than 400 blog posts and emails. But we don’t number those—plus, they are published across different sites on the web, so I never have a handled on just how many times I’ve hit “publish.”

400 episodes is a lot. It’s more than the vast majority of podcasters will ever make. The only reason I bring that up is because today’s episode is about the power of practice. Developing a podcasting practice is the only way to consistently put out a strong episode week after week. But developing a practice of any kind was not something I knew how to do 7 years ago.

This episode dives into what I’ve learned about practice from 7 years of podcasting. Plus, I share an excerpt from my book (out today!) about the satisfaction of practice in an achievement-oriented world.

Footnotes:

• Join Tara TODAY for a live reading and Q&A about the book
• Buy What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting wherever you buy books!
• Listen to Tara’s interviews about the book on this Spotify playlist

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Hustle. Grind. Boss up. Do more. Love them or hate them, these words are embedded into the ways we think about work and entrepreneurship. But as we’ve seen with the enormous growth of the r/anti-work subreddit and the panic about quiet quitting, more people than ever are thinking about different ways to go about building their lives, careers, and businesses.

As we close out the Self-Help, LLC series, I wanted to address where our productivity hang-ups come from, who our productivity really benefits, and how we might go about doing things differently. This episode is in 2 parts. The first half or so is an introduction to how employers (including self-employers) profit from unpaid work and why the productivity-wage gap has become so immense. The second half of the episode is my conversation with Jadah Sellner, about the vision for business she lays out in her new book, She Builds.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Jadah Sellner and her new book, She Builds.
• “TikTok ‘5-to-9’ Trend Shows Quiet Quitting Hasn’t Killed Hustle Culture” on Bloomberg
• Dolly Parton rewrites her working woman’s anthem for SquareSpace
• THE ULTIMATE MORNING ROUTINE (parody)
• Revolution at Point Zero, essays by Silvia Federici
• Data on the productivity-wage gap (Economic Policy Institute)
• Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee
• Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

Essay versions of each episode of the podcast come out on Thursdays at explorewhatworks.com and in my newsletter. Sign up free: explorewhatworks.com/weekly

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I wanted to include an episode on bodies in the Self-Help, LLC series because so much of our modern discourse around productivity, empowerment, entrepreneurship, and personal growth includes messages about our bodies. These messages might not be explicit, but the messages are there—and our brains pick them up loud and clear.

Similarly, we might not realize that we’re sharing messages that insert themselves into how others perceive their own bodies—but many of us are. It’s impossible to talk about self-discipline, accountability, or efficiency without those concepts leaving their marks on our flesh.

This episode covers a tiny sliver of all the ways that the medium of self-help acts on our bodies. But my hope is that it will encourage you to think critically about the messages you receive about your body and the messages you share that might impact others’ bodies.

You’ll hear from independent beauty culture journalist Jessica DeFino, body confidence influencer Tiffany Ima, and Flaunt Your Fire founder India Jackson.

This episode contains frank talk about bodies, weight, beauty, dieting, and related topics. I know that these subjects can trigger harmful thoughts and behaviors for me if I’m not careful. So please, take care while listening to this episode.

Footnotes:

• Subscribe to Jessica DeFino’s newsletter about beauty culture and the beauty industry.
• Follow Tiffany Ima on Instagram.
• Listen to the Flaunt Your Fire podcast and learn more about India Jackson.
• Erica Courdae on reconsidering your normal, as well as “Normal is a Life with Michelle Kuei” on the Pause on the Play podcast.
• “Body acceptance stops at the skin. Why?” by Jessica DeFino
• “The Skin as an Antidote to Consumerism” by Jessica DeFino
• “How White Supremacy and Capitalism Influence Beauty Culture” by Jessica DeFino in TeenVogue
• What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
• “Postscript on Societies of Control” by Gilles Deleuze
• Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee
• “Rachel Hollis Part 1: Hashtag Relatable” on Maintenance Phase
• “The Trouble with Calories” on Maintenance Phase
• “Bodybuilding vs Powerlifting vs Weightlifting” on Shape
• Confidence Culture by Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill
• Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World by Danielle Friedman
• 3 Books for Remembering “You Have a Body”: On disability, on chronic illness, and on our bodies in society

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We form an impression of our voices early in life. While it might shift some as we age, those impressions tend to stick with us. For many of us, what we learn about our voices is how their don’t quite measure up to the ideal: too high, too low, too soft, too loud, too this, too that. This is especially true for women, queer people, transgender people, non-native English speakers, Black people, people of color, indigenous people, and really anyone whose voice doesn’t fit into the white, male baritone mold.

So what do we do? We try to sound more like everyone else. And that can not only mess with our ability to use our physical voices, but it messes with our ability to use our metaphorical voices and confuses our sense of self.

Samara Bay, a Hollywood dialect coach who’s worked on blockbusters like Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy, is on a mission to help everyone find “permission to speak.” In this episode, we dig into how the self-help imperative to “own your voice” might be more complicated than it sounds.

Footnotes:

• Find out more about Samara Bay
• Pre-order Samara’s book Permission to Speak
• “I still have a voice” by Alice Wong
• Samara Bay on Anna Sorokin and Elizabeth Holmes’s voices
• Women and Power by Mary Beard
• More about African American Vernacular English on Pause on the Play
• College students talk about their relationships to their Southern accents on Dolly Parton’s America
• “The Magic of Voice Transitioning with Nicole Gress” on Camp Wild Heart with Mackenzie Dunham
• “Me minus me” on This American Life (Sandy Allen’s vocal transition)
• “If you don’t have anything nice to say” on This American Life (complaints about female voices)
• More on the mid-atlantic accent

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There’s an influencer for every thing these days. Camping equipment? Sure. Nutritional supplements? You bet. Miniatures? You know it. College admissions? But of course. In this episode, though, we’re going to focus on one of the original influencer niches: MOMS.

The rise of the influencer ushered in a new outlet for self-help. Now, not only are there motivational books and talks, there’s a product endorsement to help you live your best life. Influencers give us, perhaps, the direct line between personal growth and consumer capitalism. I talk with the author of the forthcoming Momfluenced, Sara Petersen, about all of that and more.

Footnotes:

• Subscribe to Sara Petersen’s newsletter
• Pre-order Momfluenced
• “Life After Lifestyle” by Toby Shorin
• “The Rhetoric of the Image” by Roland Barthes
• The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
• Episode 393 with Kelly Diels
• Episode 395 with Steph Barron Hall
• “The Influencer Industry: Constructing and Commodifying Authenticity on Social Media” by Emily Dean Hund

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If your Instagram feed or Explore page looks anything like mine, then you likely see a preponderance of posts about personality types, conditions, or other self-knowledge. We’re hooked on learning about ourselves! And perhaps even more hooked on sharing what we’ve learned—which means that the Instagram algorithm (as well as TikTok’s and Pinterest’s algorithms) has learned to love this kind of content, too.

In this episode, I explore discovering ourselves versus making ourselves, why self-knowledge is big business on Instagram, and how creating viral personality content can wreak havoc on the creator’s psyche. To dig into this with me, I invited @ninetypesco creator, Steph Barron Hall, onto the show.

Footnotes:

• Find Steph Barron Hall on Instagram (@ninetypesco)
• Learn more about working with Steph
• How to be Authentic by Skye Cleary
• Learn more about the Enneagram and find your type
• The Nine Types of Rest
• Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee
• “Double consciousness”
• “Looking glass self”

Essay versions of each episode are posted at explorewhatworks.com every Thursday. Or, sign up FREE at explorewhatworks.com/weekly to get them delivered straight to your inbox.

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Our quest for self-improvement requires us to decide who (or what) to trust with our time, energy, and money. What book do you decide to read next? Which coach do you hire? What accounts do you follow? Our consumer choices seem endless—so finding someone or something to put your trust in might feel like an Olympic feat.

On the flip side, as business owners or independent workers whether explicitly or implicitly in the business of self-help, our goal is to cultivate trust. Why would someone trust us with their business, their marriage, or their hopes and dreams for the future?

In this episode, I sit down with sociologist Patrick Sheehan to talk about his study of career coaches and the role they play with job seekers. We examine the roles that both credentialed and experience-based experts play in society and why uncertainty and instability might inspire us—for better or worse—to put our trust in prophets rather than priests.

Footnotes:

• Edelman Trust Barometer 2022
• “Confidence in US Institutions Down; Average at New Low” Gallup
• “Fatigue, traditionalism, and engagement: the news habits and attitudes of the Gen Z and Millennial generations” American Press Institute
• “We’ve stopped trusting institutions and started trusting strangers” by Rachel Botsman (TED Talk)
• “The Change Rules of Trust in the Digital Age” by Rachel Botsman (HBR)
• “Where did all the coaches come from?” by Patrick Sheehan (Work In Progress Sociology)
• “The new economy as multi-level marketing scheme: career coaches and unemployment in the age of uncertainty” by Patrick Sheehan (Work in Progress Sociology)
• “Gun Culture and Wellness Culture Come From the Same Place” by Alan Levinovitz (Huffington Post)

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It’s not only self-help or entrepreneurship products that are sold as tools for “empowerment” today. It’s just about everything: makeup, clothing, workout equipment, vitamins, office supplies… Whole brands are built around the promise that a purchase won’t just solve your problem, it’ll make you a better, more fulfilled person. But empowerment isn’t for sale—only the status quo.

In this episode, I talk with writer and coach Kelly Diels about empowerment marketing and what she calls the “female lifestyle empowerment brand.” You’ll also hear from independent beauty writer Jessica DeFino about how empowerment is leveraged by the beauty industry.

Footnotes:

• Learn more about Kelly Diels
• Learn more about Jessica DeFino
• Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino
• Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom
• How to be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment by Skye Cleary
• Helen Gurley Brown as quoted in Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee
• “The Rhetoric of the Image” by Roland Barthes

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It’s hard to escape the language and politics of self-help today. Whether you’re browsing your LinkedIn, Instagram, or even TikTok feed, there’s a very good chance that the first post you see offers up some idea for living a better life or growing a more successful business. Shoulds and supposed-tos are cultural currency. We gain social capital sharing advice or “giving value.” And that’s left me wondering: are we all in the self-help business now?

Today’s episode kicks off an 8-part series called Self-Help, LLC which will explore that question from a number of different angles. In this episode, I’m taking a close look at a particular construction of personal growth and entrepreneurship culture: winners and losers.

Footnotes:

• Dr. Rick for Progressive
• Why does the insurance industry have so many mastcots? on Planet Money
• Self-Help, INC by Micki McGee
• More about Marshall McLuhan (”The medium is the message”)
• Nixon’s universal health care plan proposal
• Reaganism & Thatcherism
• The Old is Dying & the New Cannot be Born by Nancy Fraser

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Self-help is everywhere. But for a long time, I tried to avoid it. "I just focus on business," I'd say. What I didn't realize back then was how much the structure, grammar, and discourse of personal growth permeate every layer of a business—and the entrepreneur behind it.

Self-help sells. It's an $11 billion industry that's predicted to go to $14 billion in the next 3 years.

And that's only counting products and services that are sold under the banner of "self-help." Even bigger than the explicit "live your best life" market is the valence of messaging, media, and cultural ventures that orbit it. In fact, there is a very good chance that, in one way or another, you and your work are part of the greater self-help ecosystem.

You don't have to be a life coach, motivational speaker, momfluencer, or day planner designer to produce products and services that tap into the desire for a better, easier, or more fulfilling life. You might be a copywriter that leverages personal growth messaging in the copy you write. You might be a non-profit director that leverages donors' desire to "make a difference" to raise funds. You might be a management consultant that helps companies build better workplace cultures so employees feel a greater sense of purpose.

Or, like your humble podcast host, you might one day make the startling discovery that: yes, you wrote a self-help book after more than a decade of declaring that you help people build better businesses, not better lives.

I've gotten really curious about the business and politics of self-help. What makes self-help-inspired messaging so effective? Why are we constantly on the lookout for better ways to live and work? What compels us to follow aspirational Instagram accounts? Are we all in the self-help business?

Next up on What Works, I have an 8-part series called Self-Help, LLC. It's a look at how the gospel of self-improvement shapes our lives, our work, and the businesses we're building

I talk with writer Sara Petersen about Momfluencing, sociologist Patrick Sheehan about the coaching industry and backlash to credentialed experts, and brand strategist India Jackson about how our bodies are shaped by self-help. I also talk with Nine Types Co founder Steph Barron Hall about the draw of self-knowledge on Instagram, coach and writer Kelly Diels about the female lifestyle empowerment brand, and coach and author Jadah Sellner about the politics of hustle culture.

My intention is that this series gives you a fresh perspective on what you create, what you consume, and how the underlying values of self-help culture influence them both. We'll dig into the business models behind explicitly self-help ventures and examine how less explicit personal growth businesses build on self-help's logic.

The first episode in this series—Winners and Losers—drops September 6. Make sure you hit "follow" in your favorite podcast player and share the show with a friend who loves to think critically about the world we live in.

★ Support this podcast ★

The economy seems like a monolithic entity we measure, manage, and adapt to. But really, economics (as a field) and the economy (as a system) is really just an agglomeration of human decisions. What’s in? What’s out? What’s up? What’s down? And most importantly: Why? In this episode, I talk with Stacey Vanek Smith, a co-host of NPR’s The Indicator from Planet Money and this summer’s guide for Planet Money Summer School. We talk about how someone with no economics background can get so obsessed, how the economy is a profoundly human system, and, of course, inflation.

Footnotes:

• Planet Money Summer School
• “GDP & What Counts” (Summer School 2)
• “Why is the Fed so boring?”
• The Indicator from Planet Money
• More about Stacey Vanek Smith

Episodes of What Works are published as articles every Thursday. Get them delivered straight to your inbox at explorewhatworks.com/weekly

Leave a review, browse old episodes, or leave a voicemail at whatworkspodcast.com

Pre-order What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting at explorewhatworks.com/book

★ Support this podcast ★

What’s a Big-G Goal? Well, those are the kind of milestone targets we set. At that time, my Big G Goals were about how many new members I could enroll or what kind of stages I could speak on. At another time in my life, writing a book was a Big G Goal of mine. And before that, completing a Ph.D. was my Big G Goal. They’re the kind of goals that make you feel validated for about 24 hours after you achieve them—or make you feel like a failure if you don’t.

Well, "a failure" was exactly what I felt like. So I went back to the drawing board. I wiped the slate so clean that I started to question whether Big-G Goals were helping me make my life better or whether they were simply squeezing me into stories someone else was telling.

My new book, What Works: A Comprehensive Framework to Change the Way We Approach Goal-Setting, arrives on November 1. But you can pre-order wherever you buy books: explorewhatworks.com/book

My guess is that, as a listener of this podcast, you’re interested in approaching life and work in new ways. You think critically about the shoulds and supposed-tos you grew up with. You notice how it always seems to be “up to you” to fix yourself, rather than questioning whether you’re broken at all.

You question conventional ideas of success and achievement. You notice when conventional wisdom starts to infringe on your values.

This book is for you.

I can guarantee you that it’s different than any other book on goal-setting—because it’s not really about goal-setting at all. It’s not a thinly veiled pep talk. It’s not about turning structural problems into your personal to-do list.

What Works will change the way you think about goal-setting—but it will also change the story you live in. Life and work don’t have to be structured around the next achievement or milestone.

What Works will help you take on the big questions that bubble under the surface of most advice on success and productivity—the philosophical, cultural, and political discourses that unconsciously shape how we think.

But in the end, What Works will also offer you a practical framework you can use to discover what works for you.

Pre-Order What Works today!

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How do you prepare your small business for economic ups and downs? Is a recession inevitable? And what even is a recession? In this episode, unpack why the economy cycles through periods of boom and bust. I also demonstrate how a similar cycle is at play in the online business space. And I offer some strategies for making sustainable business decisions—no matter what happens with the economy.

Footnotes:

• Gates of the Arctic National Park
• Caribou population cycles
• Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Sea by Bathsheba Demuth
• Beargrass
• Mast fruiting
• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• “Are recessions normal?” on Make Me Smart
• Economic cycles on Investopedia
• Spotted lanternfly and tree of heaven
• Timothy Snyder on the Ezra Klein Show
• “The best of all possible worlds” from Candide
• A history of recessions in the 20th and 21st centuries
• Rana Foroohar on the Ezra Klein Show

Article versions of episodes are posted at explorewhatworks.com every Thursday. To get those articles delivered straight to you, free of charge, go to explorewhatworks.com/weekly

Have a question about an episode of What Works? Is there something you've noticed online, in the news, or in your business that you're curious about? Go to zipmessage.com/whatworks! Leave me a message, and I'll try to respond in a future episode!

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Personal brand development is now a mainstay of college career preparation. Young social media influencers are well-versed on the language of personal branding. It seems cultivating your personal brand is a prerequisite for navigating the 21st-century economy. Public image has a long history, of course. But how has our relationship with ourselves changed since we started to put so much effort into emphasizing the most marketable parts of our identities? This episode tackles the history of personal branding, the labor of self-branding, and why so much value is being created in the “social factory.”

Footnotes:

• “Sentimental ‘Greenbacks’ of Civilization”: Cartes de Visite and the Pre-History of Self-Branding by Alison Hearn (The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture)
• “Cartes de Visite,” Art Gallery of New South Wales (YouTube)
• The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act by Isaac Butler
• “Meat, Mask, Burden: Probing the Contours of the Branded Self” by Alison Hearn (Journal of Consumer Culture)
• The Anti-Capitalist Chronicles by David Harvey
• EP.385: Who do you work for? on What Works
• Connect with Tyler McCall on Twitter
• “On the internet, we’re always famous” by Chris Hayes (The New Yorker)
• “The Problem with Personal Brands and the Labor of Authenticity” by Tara McMullin

Essay versions of each episode are available every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. To get them delivered straight to your inbox, sign up free at explorewhatworks.com/weekly

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“You could make money with that!” That’s probably the first thing you hear when someone discovers you’re an excellent baker, or designer, or potter. Even if your hobby is collecting super hero figurines, someone has probably suggesting “monetizing” that interest. There is all sorts of historical, economic, and sociological context for this. But in this episode, I talk with someone who typifies not getting paid for what you love to do: my husband, Sean McMullin. You’ll hear how Sean’s extended family in Utah and Montana, as well as his time living in an Iñupiat village in rural Alaska, shaped how he thinks about work he doesn’t get paid for.

Footnotes:

• More about the Iñupiat people
• “I grew up in a church led by a prophet” by Meg Conley
• YellowHouse.Media
• Sean McMullin on Instagram

Essay versions of each episode are published every Thursday at explorewhatworks.com. Get the delivered straight to you by signing up at explorewhatworks.com/weekly

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“Positive thinking” comes in many forms: New Thought, the prosperity gospel, manifestation teaching, self-help guides, and more. It’s hard to argue with thinking positive thoughts! But when positive thoughts become a substitute for curiosity and inquiry about real challenges, positive thinking can lead us away from real solutions. In this episode, I explore my own encounters with the world of positive thinking and how facing reality has actually given me more hope.

Footnotes:

• More about Mary Baker Eddy
• More about Ernest Holmes and The Science of Mind
• More about Norman Vincent Peale* The Power of Positive Thinking
• Mary Kay Ash on YouTube
• Confidence Culture by Shani Orgad and Rosalind Gill
• Rhonda Byrne on YouTube
• “Farm-To-Table: Reciprocity in Every Seam” (Christy Dawn ad)
• “Manifestation, eugenics, and flower oil” by Meg Conley
• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
• At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell
• Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

Essay versions of each episode are available at explorewhatworks.com each Thursday. Get them delivered straight to you by signing up at explorewhatworks.com/weekly

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Who doesn’t love to get paid? So we’re going to talk about how that actually happens. Not the dollars and cents of getting paid, but the form and structure. In the previous two episodes, we examined our relationships to work—both paid and unpaid. And it got me thinking about how we actually account for the ways paid work, well, pays—and especially how that impacts business owners and independent workers. I’m talking the difference between wages and profit, how surplus labor creates profit, and specifically how I structure my own pay in order to have a better perspective on my work.

Footnotes:

• Surplus Labor in Radical Economics
• Karl Marx via The School of Life
• “The ‘Cult’ of Passive Income” via Tiffany Ferguson

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It seems like every business owner or freelancer I know wants to quit social media. But very few people are actually doing it. It seems easier to imagine the end of your business than the end of social media, to paraphrase Mark Fisher. There’s something about our relationship to social platforms that makes them feel inescapable. And, perhaps without even noticing, it’s started to see like we’re working for them more than working for ourselves. In this episode, I unpack our relationship to platforms and who profits from our labor. And it starts in an unusual place: the recent Etsy strike.

Footnotes:

• “Etsy sellers will go on strike in April and ask customers to boycott” on The Verge
• “Why Etsy sellers are going on strike” on Yahoo Finance
• “16,000 shops join Etsy strike” via KERO
• Rob Kalin speaking to the World Economic Forum
• Mark Zuckerberg testifying before the House Energy & Commerce Committee
• “How Facebook (Meta), Twitter, social media make money from you” via Investopedia
• Tyler McCall on Instagram and Twitter

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I grew up expecting to love what I did for a living. I was encouraged to choose a career that I was passionate about. But when I did, I bumped up against the stark reality that work I loved didn’t pay the bills. At least not in any straightforward way. In this episode, I explore the context of “doing what you love” and how it shapes the way we build our businesses or careers today.

Footnotes:

• Analysis of wages during the 90s (BLS)
• Eupsychian Management by Abraham Maslow
• Target Commercial: “Come in for workout gear, leave feeling empowered.”
• Dan Olsen on The Ezra Klein Show
• The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
• “The Passion Paradigm: Professional Adherence to and Consequences of the Ideology of ‘Do What You Love’” by Lindsay DePalma
• “Down with Love: Feminist Critique and the New Ideologies of Work” by Kathi Weeks
• Work Won’t Love You Back by Sarah Jaffe
• More about Lou Blaser and Midlife Cues
• “To My Brothers and Sisters In The Failure Business” by Seymour Krim
• Works Progress Administration

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“Rugged individualism” is the very language we speak in America. It shapes the way we approach work, family, and society. And rugged individualism has a direct impact on the decisions we make about our businesses and careers. In this short Extra Context bonus, I unpack where rugged individualism comes from and highlight a different way forward.

Footnotes:

• Rugged Individualism Monologue by Terry Smith
• "The Myth of Rugged Individualism” by Robert Reich
• “We’d Like To Thank You, Herbert Hoover” from Annie
• Individualism and Economic Order by Friedrich Hayek
• Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
• “The Philosophers: Loneliness & Totalitarianism” on Vox Conversations

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No one likes being asked for a refund. In fact, I find the thought of it stomach-churning. And when what’s being refunded is the product of your time, experience, and expertise… it’s tempting to put every obstacle you can think of between a customer and a refund. In this episode, I’ll take you on a journey from the 17th century all the way through the modern era of online business refund policies to answer the question: What makes for a fair refund policy?

Footnotes:

• About Josiah Wedgwood
• “Josiah Wedgwood: An Eighteenth-Century Entrepreneur in Salesmanship and Marketing Techniques” by Neil McKendrick
• “Beyond The Pottery: The Creative Giant, Josiah Wedgwood” on YouTube
• “They Broke It” by Judith Flanders
• “What a Hundred-Year-Old Department Store Can Tell Us About the Overlap of Retail, Religion and Politics” by Tobias Carroll
• “Many (Un)happy Returns? The Changing Nature of Retail Product Returns and Future Research Directions” Journal of Retailing
• Online Outlier & Regina Anaejionu
• More on “caveat emptor” (the buyer beware)
• “Is the customer always right?” The Merck Report, June 1915
• “Is the customer the enemy?” by Chris MacDonald
• “The Customer As Enemy” by Michael Schrage
• Kaye Publicity & Dana Kaye

Full written versions of each new episode are available on Fridays or sign up for What Works Weekly to receive them in your inbox.

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At the end of 2021, I stepped away from my business: left our community, off-boarded my employee to another company, and focused on my mental health. Over the next 4 months, I wrote a book and thought about what might be next for me and my work. In this episode, I share what I’ve been up to in that time and what I might do in the months to come.



Resources:



* What Works: A Comprehensive Framework For Changing The Way We Approach Goal Setting* NYU’s Intro To Creative Nonfiction course* Catapult’s Writing Pitches That Land Bylines* How Your Personal Priorities Shape The Way You Design Your Business



Essay versions of new What Works episodes are posted on Thursdays. Sign up for What Works Weekly to get it in your inbox!


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I’m sure you’ve heard it before: underpromise and overdeliver. But is that really the best way to do business? Or does it just give us a permission slip for self-exploitation? When does overdelivering become overcompensating? And when does being generous just morph into entrepreneurial martyrdom? I sat down with sales coach Allison Davis to talk about overdelivering, generosity, and when it all gets to be too much. We talk pricing and scope of work—but we also talk about familiar relationship patterns and how they play out in our expectations for ourselves or others.



Resources:



* Allison Davis* Down Girl: The Logic Of Misogyny by Kate Manne* Kate Manne on Forever35* Living A Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed* EP 371: How does emotional labor impact our work?


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I’m bringing our Time & Money series to a close this week by exploring why we choose squeezing more in over taking time off. I share how The Squeeze works, why work gets more intense over time, and some of the economic incentives that keep us from making different choices.



Resources:



* “Feeling The Squeeze? Why Your Business Feels So Tight” by Tara McMullin* “Busy vs Squeezed: How To Tell The Difference & Why It Matters” by Tara McMullin* “Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren” by John Maynard Keynes* Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher* Protestant Ethic & The Spirit Of Capitalism by Max Weber* “When Time Is Money: Contested Rationalities of Time and Challenges to the Theory and Practice of Work” by Barbara Adam* Can’t Even by Anne Helen Petersen* Wintering by Katherine May



Love the show? Share What Works with a friend: pod.link/whatworks



Or leave a tip!


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A lot of the work we do today doesn’t much look like “work.” The divide between work-life and life-life is flexible and porous. So what does that mean for the way we spend our time? Or how we earn a living? In this episode, I share designer, coach, and consultant Anne Ditmeyer’s story of rethinking how she works thanks to a big move to Paris. And, I argue that perhaps we need a radically different way of thinking about what work is—instead of a better “work-life balance.”



Resources:



* Learn more about Anne Ditmeyer* Lost In Work, by Amelia Horgan* Episode 349 with Brittany Berger


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The systems we operate in all have different incentive systems: our business models, the social media platforms, our economy, the culture at large… And many of these incentive systems have become simplified and gamified—changing the way we view the results of our work and the goals that we hold. In this episode, I explore how the philosophy of games can help us identify when we’re just trying to “game the system” instead of taking effective action based on our own values and goals.



Resources:



* C. Thi Nguyen at the Royal Institute of Philosophy* Nguyen on The Ezra Klein Show* How Twitter Gamifies Communication* *What Tech Calls Thinking* by Adrian Daub* *Games: Agency As Art* by C. Thi Nguyen


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Most of us learn the value of our time in our first jobs. Even as we get more experience and our hourly jobs turn into salaried jobs or freelance projects, the specter of selling your time for a particular wage looms. In this episode, I talk with Wealth Over Now founder & Money Files host Keina Newell about how she thinks about the intersection of time and money. I also offer up a light history of wage work and how that history influences as business owners.



Resources:



* Wealth Over Now — Keina Newell* Money Files — Keina’s podcast* What is the domestic system?* What is the Fair Labor Standards Act?* Further reference: Labor writers Kim Kelly & Sarah Jaffe in conversation* EP 341: Taking Better Care Of Each Other with Kate Strathmann* Games Against Humanity: C Thi Nguyen on the Conspirituality podcast






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I’ve been talking about the “new economy” since about 2010. But more and more, I recognize that the economic possibilities created through the internet aren’t nearly as new or innovative as I’d first thought (and hoped). It seems that the old economy is just making itself over as the not-so-new economy. In this episode, I explore 3 processes of the old economy—speculation, financialization, and liquidation—to pinpoint how they’re showing up in our digital world of independent work.



I weave together the housing market, creator economy, Great Recession, and crypto promises to help you situate yourself in this strange, not-so-new world. At times, it’s a bleak story—but ultimately, understanding where we’re at gives us a better opportunity to make different, more humane choices.



Resources:



* CNBC Interview with NewNew Founder Courtne Smith* Investopedia on financialization* *The Big Short* by Michael Lewis* Michael Lewis on 60 Minutes* “How the financial crisis changed jobs” from Marketplace* Gig Economy explainer via Marketplace* NFTs explainer via Marketplace* “How Money Became The Measure Of Everything” by Eli Cook* “The complicated reality of doing what you love” by Marian Bull* Greater Fool Theory on Investopedia* “I crowdfunded a novel using cryptocurrency” by Elle Griffin


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There’s more than one way to measure success—and there’s more than one way to measure time. How do you account for the time you spend working? And is it really the most effective—for you—to spend it? In other words, what constitutes quality time when it comes to the way you work? I talked with business operations coach Elisabeth Jackson about how she changed her overwork habit, how she measures quality time for herself & her clients, and why she doesn’t love the word “productivity.”



Resources:



* Find out more about Elisabeth Jackson* More about Frederick Winslow Taylor* *Lost In Work*, by Amelia Horgan* EP 373: The Eggbeater Effect, listen or read


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We spend money on lots of tools designed to save us time and work. But all too often, those tools just end up raising our expectations. Why do work in less time when you could do more work in the same amount of time?! In this episode, I examine “the egg beater effect” and why we should, just maybe, lower our expectations a bit.



Resoures:



* You’re Wrong About: The Stepford Wives* More Work For Mother by Ruth Schwartz Cowan* Episode 371: What is the creator economy? with Gina Bianchini* Episode 364: The Abundant Value Of Virtual Assistants with Janice Plado Dalager* Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren by John Maynard Keynes


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“Time is money.” Ben Franklin gave us that chestnut in 1748—and ever since, we’ve been trained to think of our lives as opportunities for making a buck. This week, we start a series exploring the “time is money” construction. But before we think through how we spend our time, we’re going to think through money: what it really is, how we relate to it, and some of the factors that make it “weird.” I talk with Paco de Leon from the Hell Yeah Group and author of the brand-new book, Finance For The People.



Resources:



* Finance For The People, by Paco de Leon* The Hell Yeah Group* The Nerdletter


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Emotional labor is an under-appreciated, under-compensated type of work. But it’s essential for navigating the 21st-century economy. Entrepreneurship almost always brings with it a need for managing our emotions to lead and care for others. And this expectation is only doubled when the entrepreneur is a woman or marginalized person. What’s more, the type of marketing that many of us are told to do today is thick with emotional labor: showing up with confidence, using your personality as leverage, banking on your sense of self. It’s no wonder so many business owners are burning out. In this episode, I tackle: What is emotional labor? And how does it impact our work as entrepreneurs?



Resources:



* The Managed Heart by Arlie Russell Hochschild* The Impact Equation by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith* What Is The Creator Economy? With Gina Bianchini* The emotional labour of academia in the time of a pandemic: A feminist reflection by Michelle Newcomb


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What is the creator economy? And why are so many creators… miserable? Mighty Networks founder Gina Bianchini was the first person I knew talking about the creating economy. She’s passionate about helping entrepreneurs, organizers, and creators see why building independently beats trying to amass huge audiences on the usual platforms. In this episode, we talk about what the creator economy is, how the game is rigged, what’s making creators miserable, and how she sees a different way forward. Plus, we’ll discuss research from the massive independent study that Mighty Networks commissioned.



Resources:



* How “Building An Audience” Is Different From “Finding Customers”—And Why It Matters* What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub* Lost In Work: Escaping Capitalism by Amelia Horgan* The New Creator Manifesto (Research on the creator economy)* Mighty Networks* Creators Calculator* Subscribe To What Works Weekly



Looking for a transcript? I’m publishing every episode in essay form on Thursdays at explorewhatworks.com!


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The way we set goals often invites a load of comparison and competition. We can even create a moral hierarchy of more and better. In this episode, I explore the roots of moralizing around the goals we set, borrowing from Dr. Devon Price, Max Weber, Kate Manne, and Simone de Beauvoir.



Resources for diving deeper:



* *Laziness Does Not Exist* by Dr. Devon Price* Max Weber* Morality* Kate Manne on the immorality of diet culture* *You Belong* by Sebene Selassie* Simone de Beauvoir & The Ethics of Ambiguity


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“What does growth without striving look like?”



Rita Barry posed this question 3 years ago, and it’s stuck with me ever since.



In this episode, I talk with Rita about the journey she’s been on to answer that question as her company has exploded. We dive into validation-seeking, social conditioning, and identifying what you really want in the face of so much “common sense” about what success looks like.



You’ll hear Rita’s story, plus commentary from writer Anne Helen Petersen (via Librairie Drawn & Quarterly) and psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe (via Renegade Inc).



Find out more about Rita Barry at ritabarry.co



This year on What Works, I’m exploring how we can navigate the 21st-century economy with our humanity intact. Read articles, listen to the archives, and sign up for What Works Weekly at explorewhatworks.com


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In This Episode:



* Why Darden Creative founder Tamera Darden decided to shut down her business at the end of 2022—and how that decision evolved* How she wrestled with the practical, emotional, and financial questions around this big decision* The experience that led her to reclaiming her original vision for the business* How she’s planning to move forward and what it means for the way she works in her own business





How do you know when it’s time to quit?



It’s a question I’ve been asked countless times over the years. Sometimes, the question is asked in frustration or sadness. A business owner will tell me they’ve tried everything; they’ve tried everything; they’re at a loss about what to do next.



Other times, the question is asked sheepishly, with almost a tone of guilt. The business owner will tell me that they’ve been successful, maybe even more successful than they dreamed. But that something isn’t right. They’re unhappy or just feeling the pull of a new challenge.



Either way, knowing when to quit is almost never clear cut.



When I sat down with Tamera Darden a couple of months ago, we were scheduled to talk about values and how her business has operationalized those values. But in our pre-show warm-up, she told me she’d decided to shut down her business at the end of 2022.



So we pivoted. I let her know we were doing this series on letting go & beginning again and offered, if she was ready, to talk about her decision.



We went there. I was struck by her willingness to occupy uncertainty and liminality. And I was impressed by her self-confidence, even when things weren’t quite crystal clear.



I told her to let me know if anything changed in the 8 weeks or so before our conversation would actually go live.



A few weeks ago, she sent me a message. She needed to make an update. Her decision had evolved.



I hesitate to say she’s changed her mind—you’ll hear why.



Instead, she asked more abundant questions about what was next for her, why she felt compelled to shut down the business, and what other options could look like.



What follows is both parts of that conversation. It’s a rare look into the reality of how entrepreneurial decisions evolve if we let them.



Tamera Darden is the founder of Darden Creative. She’s a photographer, creative director, and business mentor with a vision for helping Black women-owned businesses thrive.



Changing your mind is hard. Doing so in a public forum is even harder.



I believe very strongly we owe it to ourselves to normalize coming to new conclusions based on new information, questions, or perspective. I hope this conversation creates some space for you to let your own positions evolve.


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In This Episode:



* Creative grief worker & curator Charlene Lam shares how grief impacts us—as humans, leaders, and business owners* How she discovered a passion for understanding grief and helping others process after the death of her mother* The practical exercises she uses to process feelings of loss





Toward the end of 2020, I started to hear the murmurs of something I’d come to learn was called “ambiguous loss.”



Of course, 2020 was full of loss and grief. There were goals, events, and—of course—people who were no longer with us.



But there was also an amorphous, chronic type of grief that set in. The murmurs spoke softly of pain and exhaustion that couldn’t be attributed to any one particular loss.



In 1999, Pauline Boss coined the term ambiguous loss for exactly this kind of feeling. In a conversation with Krista Tippett, Boss said:



“We like to solve problems. We’re not comfortable with unanswered questions. And this is full of unanswered questions. These are losses that are minus facts.”



For me, the ambiguous loss of the last 2 years has been felt as a sort of ongoing liminality. I’ve felt stuck between the life, goals, and identities that were part of my pre-2020 life and the next life, goals, and identities that have yet to take form. And while this is my sense of a personal ambiguous loss, I think it also mirrors the ambiguous loss we’ve faced as a society.



As the pandemic has worn on and social change has stagnated, we keep catching glimpses of what might be on the other side.



But the promises that “it’ll be over soon” have become ever harder to believe. We’re stuck between our pre-2020 world and the world that has yet to come into focus.



Grief in general, and ambiguous loss in particular, might seem like an odd topic for a business podcast. But it was conversations with small business owners that made me realization how important talking about grief is for us.



Business owners like us go through all sorts of experiences that can bring on a sense of loss or grief: the failed launch, a canceled event, the lost opportunity, an unmet goal, the loss of a team member, or the end of a working relationship. But our natural optimism as entrepreneurs, as well as a culture that doesn’t make much room for grief, means that we rarely pause to observe and process the transition.



So last December, we decided to devote this December to letting go, processing grief, and beginning again. At the end of last year, this topic felt urgent—but now, this topic feels timely.



While I think we’re all still feeling deep uncertainty about what’s next, we have a little distance from the onslaught of fear. I’ve talked to a bunch of people who finally feel like they have the capacity to make a decision about moving on and process what that means for them.



Today, I want you to meet Charlene Lam, a creative grief worker, as well as a business mentor, content marketing strategist, and curator. She’s the creator of The Grief Gallery and Grief. Grit. Grace., where she writes, speaks, and curates exhibitions that help people process their grief.



Charlene and I talk about what grief is and how we process it—as well as how grief shows up for us as business owners and what we can do to let go of what was and begin again with a new vision.


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I always hesitate to talk about practicing an “abundance mindset…”



…because it so quickly veers into positive vibes only, charge what you’re worth, girl, wash your face territory.



And to my mind, that territory is steeped in scarcity and its cousin, precarity.



Abundance isn’t about ignoring unpleasant feelings or people who ask hard questions.



When we do that, we’re essentially signaling that our positive vibes are so precarious that something challenging or unpleasant could cause us to lose our high. Practicing abundance, instead, invites us to wrestle with hard things without fear of losing our way.



Abundance isn’t about charging what you’re worth because abundance knows that markets are fickle and that human experience can’t be quantified in hourly rates or flat fees.



While I readily acknowledge that “charge what you’re worth” has helped lots of people ask for more, it also reinforces scarcity thinking in the form of “getting what’s yours” or “they’re out to get me.”



Abundance also isn’t about equating endless hard work with deserving more abundant rewards.



It’s certainly not about sucking it up. This kind of thinking reinforces that there’s a limited supply of resources out there and you better get up before dawn to grab your bit.



Truthfully, I’m not sure I can define abundance succinctly.



What it means to me is a present knowing that I am enough, that I have enough, and that there is enough time, attention, and support to live a meaningful life and do meaningful work. I can’t say that this is my mindset at all times—far from it.



But in the times when I’m feeling most hopeless or desperate, it’s the mindset that I eventually bring myself back to. It’s the Truth that’s guided difficult decisions and unlocked completely unexpected paths forward. An abundance mindset—when I’m truly in it—shifts my perception and presents new possibilities.



Maybe one way to think about it is that an abundance mindset isn’t so much an answer to the problems of scarcity, urgency, and precarity, but a series of questions that remind you there is always a way forward.



Throughout this month, my goal has been to speak some of those questions out loud. Hopefully, you’ve experienced at least a small shift in perception as a result.



Today, we’ll round out this series with 3 more stories about interesting questions and new ways forward. You’ll hear from sales coach Allison Davis, business strategist AnnMarie Rose, and Athena Village founder Kelly Pratt. Listen for the shift in perception that allowed them to see a new possibility for their work and businesses.


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In This Episode:



* Consultant and virtual assistant Janice Plado Dalager joins Tara for a conversation about the unique skill set that virtual assistants and other support professionals bring to small businesses* How VAs end up mistreated by entrepreneurs—and the gendered and racialized components of these relationships that make mistreatment more likely* Why emotional labor is an undervalued skill for support pros, as well as why it should be a key part of how this work is compensated* How small business owners can check their own behavior to make these working relationships more humane





Back in 2016, the odd-job platform TaskRabbit ran a series of ads in New York City subways.



Imagine a photo of a thin, white woman in upward facing dog pose on a yoga mat. She’s blissed out. Above her, the poster reads “Mopping the floors” in trendy, pseudo handwriting script. Below her, the TaskRabbit tagline reads “We do chores. You live life.”







The ad campaign communicates the promise of letting your chores disappear into someone else’s workload.



We do chores, you live life: Who is “you?” And who is “we?”



Do the folks who are mopping floors ever get to be the “you” who lives life while someone else does the chores?



I’m Tara McMullin and this is What Works, the show that explores entrepreneurship for humans.



Independent work, the gig economy, online business—they’ve all been sold to us as ways to transcend old class divides. They promise a more level playing field for offering your time and skills. No fancy resume needed, just a willingness to put in the work.



Of course, this is far from the truth.



Michael Zelenko puts it this way in an article for The Verge:



Instead of establishing partnerships within a community, the gig economy and TaskRabbit’s ads reaffirm a class divide, between the “You” — whose life is defined by recreational activities — and the “We,” whose lives are devoted to doing your chores.



Rather than leveling the playing field, gig work and the ever-increasing push to classify more workers as independent contractors has, in effect, reestablished a servant class. Now, however, it’s not just elites and the aristocracy who get access to servant labor—it’s anyone with a smartphone and a few extra bucks to spend on takeout or housework.



The more times I get my groceries delivered, the more I see my time, work, and self-care as more important than running errands. It’s a short jump to start to see those who are running my errands as less important than me. Less deserving of the good life.



And, in classic upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey fashion, the more I use these services, the easier it is to allow the people doing them to be invisible. Sarah Jaffe, the author of Work Won’t Love You Back, recently talked about the culture of entitlement to service that we have in the United States on The Ezra Klein Show. She suggested that our sense of freedom hinges, in some ways, on being able to get what we want, when we want it—without consideration for those who are making it happen.



And this is where I want to pivot to talking about micro entrepreneurship and digital small business. ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode:



* Why Michelle Ward decided to retire as the When I Grow Up Coach to go all-in on the 90-Day Business Launch* Why a complicated business model (and her peer mastermind) made the decision pretty clear* How she made the transition and the impact its had on revenue* How she’s reprioritizing business & life so she’s focused on what she really values





Small business owners are famously susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy.



If you’re not a familiar, sunk cost fallacy is the idea that the more we sink our time, money, and other resources into a project or idea, the more likely we are to stick with it even when it’s not working.



Our resources are limited—or at least feel that way. So we’re attached to them. Deciding to invest precious resources into an idea then creates an attachment to that idea. The more attached we become, the less likely we are to willing detach.



The more resources we sink into a project—and the more attached we become—the fewer choices we seem to have about how to move forward.



This is the work of a mindset of scarcity and limitation.



Now, I don’t want to give short shrift to the drain on material resources any project, idea, or business can be. We can invest money in growth—and not see it shift into a return. We can invest time in a new offer—and not see it sell. We can forgo our own compensation to make a big move—and have it not work out.



Those situations all suck. And the drain on resources is very, very real.



However, where the scarcity narrative starts to wreak havoc is in our perception of choice. Is it possible to peer through the thick fog of disappointment and still see an array of possibilities in front of you?



Maybe even an array of opportunities?



Now, it’s easy to see how the sunk cost fallacy applies when things aren’t going well. But the sunk cost fallacy also applies when things are humming along, doing just fine.



In fact, I’d wager that it’s harder to see different opportunities and make the choice to pursue a new way forward when things are working. When the investments you’ve made are paying off, it’s harder to walk away.



But that’s just what today’s guest has done.



I’ve known When I Grow Up Coach Michelle Ward almost as long as I’ve been working for myself. So when she emailed me a couple of weeks ago to ask if she could come on the pod to talk about how she’d retired the When I Grow Up Coach brand and gone all-in on her 90-Day Business Launch program, I said: hell yeah!



This is a story about wrestling with long-term success and the decision to go a different way. It’s also a story about recognizing that, any time you make a big move, things like money and marketing won’t magically stay the same. And finally, it’s a story about recognizing abundant long-term opportunity over short-term consistency.



Now, let’s find out What Works for Michelle Ward!


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Have you heard?



The average human attention span is now shorter than a goldfish’s! Thanks, internet. TV journalists and politicians talk to us in sound bites, assuming we don’t have the attention for more nuanced analysis. Boomers bemoan fast media like TikTok and Instagram. It seems like attention might be one of our scarcest and most precious resources.



But I’m starting to wonder whether attention is really a scarce resource. Perhaps what is truly scarce are media and messages worth paying attention to. Before I get into the latter, let’s debunk the former.



It turns out that the panic over our attention spans being less than a goldfish’s is a pseudo-scientific soundbite in and of itself.



Actual research psychologists say they don’t really study “attention span” as a discrete component of how we think. Instead, attention span is relative. How long we can pay attention to something depends on the task, our level of interest, and the varied circumstances we bring to a given situation. For instance, I might be able to work on an essay for hours at a time because I’m fascinated by the subject and in a creative flow. But on another day, even though my interest hasn’t changed, I might not be able to sustain 5 minutes of distraction-free work because I didn’t get enough sleep or I’m feeling anxious about something.



What’s more, according to a BBC article debunking this “common knowledge” about goldfish and attention spans, goldfish do actually have the ability to pay attention! Scientists have been studying fish for over 100 years to get a better idea of how memories are formed and how learning happens—precisely because fish are able to “pay attention” long enough to do both.



So, it turns out that scientists agree that given the right task and the right circumstances, we have an abundance of attention.



That’s not to say that we don’t also have personal, neurological, and systemic challenges with paying attention. But it is to say that, as marketers, we don’t need to fight for our own slice of attention tartlet. How, then, could we approach marketing and business-building differently?



Business owners tell me about how hard it is to reach people on a regular basis. How hard it is to get people’s attention. These business owners try to keep up with the algorithm changes, the trends that are going viral, and the memes that get noticed. This complaint is a red flag 🚩. That’s a meme joke.



Algorithms and memes aren’t the way to access an abundance of attention.



And when gaming the algorithm and leveraging the memes does pay off? That attention is precarious—fleeting. The attention we do get paid is more like an impulse purchase rather than a long-term investment. Many people today have a greater supply of money than they do time. So getting someone to pay attention—which is a function of time—might be harder than getting them to pay currency.



And yet, it’s understood that the work we create for the payment of attention doesn’t have to be as high quality as work that people pay money for. Quality attention requires quality work. When we make work designed to satisfy the demands of the algorithm, we’re rarely making work that satisfies the interests of the people we want to connect with. Just because something gets likes or reach doesn’t mean people are really paying attention.



Today, the mediascape is very different from when I became a blogger and social media user back in 2009.



Platforms were real channels for sharing whatever it was that you wanted to put online. ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode:



* How Angie Browne‘s career has evolved into embracing her whole identity as a coach & consultant* Why she’s exploring big questions about our identities and how we work* What she did to establish how she wanted to work with clients and companies in this chapter* The story she’s rewriting a personal story she’s been telling for years





We all have an abundance of identities.



I’m a woman. A wife. A mother. I’m a business owner, a writer, a podcaster. I’m a runner, a yoga practitioner, a paddle boarder. I’m an introvert, a book lover, and a new cat parent.



I am many other things, too.



The professional world—as built by white men—has been a place where we leave our other identities at the door. We transform into whatever the job requires of us and try to ignore the rest.



There’s a passage that really encapsulates this in a book I read earlier this year—Having and Being Had by Eula Biss. She writes about a conversation she had with her mom:



“The hardest part of working isn’t the work, my mother tells me, it’s the passing. She means passing as an office worker—dressing the part, performing the rituals of office life, and acting appropriately grateful for a ten-hour shift at a computer.”



When we opt to forge our own path as business owners, it’s easy to imagine that we’ll escape these rituals, avoid assimilating to the expectations of the office. And sure, some of them we do escape from. But there are plenty we end up sticking with—like trying to be grateful for spending 10 hours in front of a computer. And there are others we adopt as part of our new work: the rituals of social media, networking, email responsiveness.



It’s not so much that dressing the part, performing the rituals, or adapting to your work environment is a bad thing.



It’s there also needs to be space for the identities, responsibilities, and personal needs we have outside our job descriptions or client agreements.



Making that space is one way we practice abundance. It might mean rearranging your schedule. Or, it could be a clause you add to your contracts that acknowledges that missing an appointment or rescheduling because of a family need is not the end of the world. It could be a having a colleague you do a mutual mental health check with each week. Or, it could be as simple as acknowledging the transitional space at the beginning of meetings before you get down to business.



This week, my guest is Angela Browne, a coach for luminaries and a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant for organizations. Part of our conversation is about the way she’s learned to bring her whole self into her work—whether in her former work as a head teacher or in her roles.



But another key part of our conversation revolves around abundant curiosity—the kind that is willing to ask bold questions without needing to have definitive answers.



My hope is that this conversation will inspire you to consider how you can both make space for your many identities in the way you work and make space for abundant curiosity.



Now, let’s find out what works for Angie Browne!


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I am a fast person.



I walk fast. Cook fast. Write fast. Talk fast. Work out fast. It’s like I’m always moving towards some urgent need or trying to escape some impending disaster. So I’ve been working on slowing down for the last few years.



To do that, I have to be mindful. I have to be present enough to notice that I’m zooming around and get curious about why. Then, I can take a beat and slow down the tempo.



I say that like it’s easy, or like I even remember to do it on a regular basis. I don’t.



I find it hard to look around at the world—the news, the market, my family, my community—and not feel the pressure of urgency.



Things change so fast today, yes. But the problems we face and the opportunities in front of us are also urgent.



It’s not just the speed with which things happen. It’s the fleeting window of possibility we have to make changes or seize the moment.



In her book Emergent Strategy, adrienne maree brown writes:



“There is such urgency in the multitude of crises we face, it can make it hard to remember that in fact it is urgency thinking (urgent constant unsustainable growth) that got us to this point, and that our potential success lies in doing deep, slow, intentional work.”



Maybe we could call it strategic FOMO. The fear of missing out on the chance to change course, solve a challenge, make things better.



Of course, good strategy is never created quickly. Changing course, solving challenges, making things substantively better is slow work.



Otherwise, it’s not strategy—it’s just another crappy repair on top of a history of band-aid solutions.



Slowing down is key to building a business that operationalizes and embodies its values.



When you slow down, you can ask yourself better questions, gather diverse perspectives, get curious what’s really needed, and take time for quality.



And that’s really why I’ve been working on slowing down. I’ve become acutely aware of the friction and dysfunction that making a fast decision causes. I can easily see how speed has made it harder to make sustainable, humane choices.



I’ve also become aware at just how lovely it can feel to pause and check in. To say, “let’s revisit that next week.” To luxuriate in exploring how things could be done in ways that epitomize my values and honor my capacity.



Today, you’re going to hear from 4 other business owners who have also found that slowing down has helped them operationalize their values in their businesses.



You’ll hear from Sarah Cottrell, the founder of Former Lawyer, Gracy Obuchowicz, a self-care consultant for companies & organizations, Yvette Ramos-Volz, a glass artist & aromatherapist, and Jennie Morris, the founder of Vegologie.



Each one is finding ways to create the necessary space to check in with their core values before making decisions about their business—big or small. By slowing down, they make their values a core operational consideration, ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode:



* Why brand strategist Alice Karolina created the ethical move, which helps small business owners navigate building more ethical marketing and sales systems* How the ethical move evolves as they practice reflection and collaboration* Why Alice prioritizes moving slowly when it comes to building the business* What they’re discovering as they incrementally investigate what building a business that prioritizes ethics looks like





I had always thought I was running a pretty values-driven business.



I cared about people and tried to operate always assuming the best of them. I developed programs in the spirit of experimentation—a core value for me. And I utilized transparency and honesty in my marketing and sales processes.



But at the same time, I didn’t ask a lot of questions. If someone told me it was totally fine to do X, Y, or Z marketing tactic, I believed them.



I operated my business that way through October 2016. Then, I had a wakeup call and a lot of questions. Like many people, I had so many questions about how the United States had gotten to that point. I had questions about the deep betrayal that I felt as a woman and the deep betrayal that wasn’t at all new for women of color, LGBTQ folks, immigrants, and disabled people.



And all of those questions started to trickle down into my business. I started to see ways that I was inadvertently replicating power structures I wasn’t okay with. And I started to see how it’s so easy to turn a marketing campaign into a misinformation campaign.



I wanted to figure out how to do things differently.



I have learned so much over the last 5 years. And I’ve changed a lot of the ways I personally operate—as well as the operations in my business. We regularly explore what it looks like to live and work our values as a community.



And one thing I’ve wrestled with in all that change and learning has been why we’re doing things differently and why we endeavor to do better. It’s easy to let “wanting to do better” become wanting to follow the right rules, get the language just right, or make sure that you speak up in just the right way when something horrific happens.



This is a pattern that so many white, straight, women like myself fall into. And I know it’s one that I could easily fall into being the rule-loving, achievement-oriented person I am.



Last year, one of my commitments was a reminder for me to examine my pattern of defensiveness.



I talked about it a bit here on the podcast. This year, one of my commitments reminds me to speak up, to not avoid conflict, just because I have something difficult to say. As I’ve worked through those patterns and altered my habits, I’ve gotten pretty clear on what I do want and don’t want when it comes to doing business differently.



What I do want is to regularly examine the work I put out into the world to make sure it leaves room for human experiences that are different than mine. I don’t want to exclude or hurt people by virtue of the way I do business or even share my own story.



What I don’t want is to live in fear of saying the wrong thing, getting called out, or being cancelled.



And the good news is that by focusing on leaving room for other people’s experiences and taking steps not to hurt people with the language I use or the stories I tell, I don’t have to live with that fear. ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode



* How Future Proof Skills Lab founder Liz Wiltsie has build her business on her North Star values & the movements she belongs to* How she makes room for difference, both in her own business and in her work with clients* What she’s decided not to do with her business because of her values





Imagine yourself sitting at a table. In front of you, there are all your favorite art supplies. Maybe there are paints, crayons, or pastels. Maybe there are stacks of magazines and illustrated books you can cut up for a collage. Maybe your art is music and your favorite instrument is on the table. Or maybe, like me, your favorite art supply is a tablet—one you can draw & paint with as well as create written art.



On their own, the art supplies don’t amount to much, right? The value of a tube of paint, a trumpet, or a pen is based on what we have the potential to do with it. Art supplies are tools and raw materials for creating. We imagine something and start to make it, or we get inspired and follow that inspiration.



Our values can also be raw materials for what we create in the world.



They give us something to work with, make with, imagine with.



The strength in our values isn’t simply in knowing them or putting them on our websites—their strength is in what we do with them.



What’s more, we can express those values in different ways.



Just like you and I will create something completely different with the same palette of paint, you and I might build very different businesses even if we’re working from the same set of values. The way I build my business model or core competency based on a value for community care is going to be different than the model or competency you build out based on your value for community care.



So maybe now, you imagine sitting at a table with your values in front of you. They’re the raw materials you have to play with. Also at the table is what you have to offer and who you’re offering it to. Now, you get to make art!



That might sound like a simplistic or even naive way to think about business-building. But let me tell you: it works. And not only that, it makes choices like how to market, what price to set, or how sell much much easier too. Starting with your values as raw materials helps you shape your business, instead of letting shoulds & supposed-to’s shape it.



My guest today is a perfect example of this. Liz Wiltsie is the founder of the Future Proof Skills Lab and the host of Sustainably Human At Work. She’s a trauma-informed, abolitionist skill builder on a quest to support small business owners to create more intentional, imaginative, and connected workplaces.



Liz and I talk through the values her business is built on, as well as the movements her business uses as the focal point of her work. Plus, she sheds some light on how both our needs and our values end up manifesting in different ways, as well as how that applies to the workplace.



Now, let’s find out what works for Liz Wiltsie.







Some of the thinkers Liz mentioned in our conversation:



Janaya Future KhanJake ErnstJames-Olivia Chu HillmanDrive by Dan Pink


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In This Episode:



* The key values that coach Mara Glatzel has built her business on* How her human-first approach to business gives her a framework for caring for herself and for her clients* The belief systems she’s worked on unlearning to better fulfill her values* How being “well-resourced” gives her what she needs to respond when things get stressful





Years ago, I was the trainer at the Borders Books & Music I worked at.



It probably won’t surprise you that I loved this role. I poured over the training manuals. I thought about better systems for acclimating a new bookseller to a store with some 90,000 titles. I took seriously my job to communicate company policy, as well as the special privilege of working for a company with a mission and values like ours.



You can imagine me now putting air quotes around “special privilege.”



Understandably, I couldn’t remember the company’s mission and values now. So looked them up and found them on an old Blogspot blog from around the time I reciting them to my trainees in the fluorescent-lit breakroom.



Ready for this inspiring list? As of 2005, the values for Borders Group, Inc were: Leadership, Results orientation, Respect, People development, A positive workplace, and Customer service.



Yeah. Nothing innovative there. You could probably look in the training manual for most mass retailers and find something remarkably similar.



That’s the thing about company values, right?



They seem to be there to sound good, to tell trainees that the company cares about more than profit. We roll our eyes or tune out completely. In practice, these values mean nothing.



They mean nothing because they are rarely operationalized in any meaningful way. When Borders said they valued “respect,” how does that translate to the daily work of the average bookseller or warehouse employee? And who or what is doing the respecting? My fellow booksellers and I respected each other—for the most part, it was a great group of people to work with. But did I feel respected by corporate? Rarely.



That’s not to say that I don’t believe any large corporation is capable of operationalizing their values. Patagonia, for instance, has a set of values that is designed to impact its decisions as a company and the daily work of employees. Patagonia’s values are more like directives: build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to protect nature, not bound by convention.



Damn, that’s good.



I can imagine sitting in a meeting about product development, or warehouse operations, or marketing and actually using those directives to guide both strategic direction and execution.



And essentially, that’s what I mean when I talk about operationalizing your values.



It’s taking what you say is important to you & your company and turning it into material decisions, procedures, and ways of working. It’s finding ways to get creative with “the way things are done” so that the way you’re actually doing things reflects what matters to you.



I think this is of unique concern to small business owners because we have incredible potential for doing things differently—and so often just don’t.



Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much we take existing systems and ways of working for granted—and then find ways to operate within those conventions that make us feel lik... ★ Support this podcast ★

Systems have a reputation.



If you’ve ever thought to yourself, as I have, “Oh, I’m just not a systems person,” you might know what I mean.



Often, the way we talk about systems is tangled up in talk about software, procedures, rules, and a sort of legalistic structure for “this is how we do things here.”



When you say, “I’m not a systems person,” you’re likely expressing the kind of claustrophobic feeling that comes from being confined to a set of rules—even if they’re rules you yourself created!



When you say, “I am a systems person,” you might very well be expressing the relief that having clear instructions and a solid expectation of how a goal is accomplished can deliver. Systems are a way of easing anxiety for you.



I can easily find myself in both camps.



I might identify as a “systems person” in the morning and “not a systems person” by the afternoon.



And I’ve noticed that, for me, there’s a moral component to how I’m feeling about systems at any given time.



When I’m feeling like a systems person, I get the moral high ground of being someone who follows the rules and does things “the right way.” When I’m feeling like I’m NOT a systems person, I get the moral high ground of being a creative, think-outside-the-box kind of person.



Of course, it’s just as easy to get down on myself about either side of the moral equation too. When I’m feeling especially systems-oriented, I often feel I’m not as creative as I should be. When I’m feeling creative, I often beat myself up for not following the rules.



I have no idea if my moralizing about my waffling identity around systems is normal or not. But I suspect that I’m not alone.



I bring all this up because I think it’s easy get caught up in moralizing about the way we run our businesses. It’s easy to translate “this is how we do things” to “this is the right way” to “I’m good because I do things the right way” or “I’m bad because I don’t do things the right way.”



Morality, suffice to say, is also a system—it’s a cultural system for understanding what is good and what is bad, as well as what makes someone a good person and what makes someone a bad person. And like every paternalistic either/or system I can think of, moralizing tends to do more harm than good.



Maybe you don’t see your identity around systems and your business as a moral issue. I might be way off in left field here!



But, I gotta tell you, I hear a lot of confessions from business owners.



They confess that they have procedures but don’t follow them. They confess that they don’t have a marketing system. They confess that they’re so tied to their procedures that they can’t think strategically about whether what they’re doing is actually creating the results they want. They confess that they’re stuck in analysis paralysis because they’re looking for the best system for achieving their goal.



In other words, I hear confessions of perceived sins on either side of systems as a moral issue.



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In This Episode:



* Tara explains how using a system-thinking approach to money makes it easier to invest in the growth of your business* Why cash flow is a 3-dimensional way to think about your business’s money* How the different components of a cash flow system work together to create a desired outcome* Why managing for cash flow creates the conditions to live out feminist values in your business





It’s easy to think 2-dimensionally about the money in your business: revenue and expenses. But 2-dimensional thinking makes it much harder to find the money to grow. If you can start to think 3-dimensionally (revenue + expenses + time), then you can expand your opportunities.



Managing for cash flow gives you a way to see the interconnected components of money in your business. Plus, it’s a way to powerful financial systems and live out feminist & anti-colonialist values.



Find this episode in article form by clicking here.


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In This Episode:



* Why Coach Pony founder Christie Mims uses 2 “competing” sales funnels to accommodate for different ways of buying* How she melds both sales automation and a human approach to produce 7+ figure sales* The nuts & bolts of what both sales funnels entail and how they actually work together* Plus, why Christie’s approach is inspiring but, ultimately, might not be the best approach for you





How reliable are your sales?



How steadily do new customers buy? How loyal are your retainer clients or repeat customers?



Every business owners wants to feel confident when it comes to sales. Not just how to close a sale, but really how the chance to make a sale presents itself, how the process evolves, and how that final decision gets made.



Can you engineer a more reliable sales system?



Yes, you sure can. But it’s not the “if this, then that” kind of process that many reductive sales courses try to sell you on.



It would be awesome if I knew that every time I did a particular task, I could count on a sale. It would be awesome if I knew that stringing together a series of specific actions would supercharge my sales.



But so many things impact the way people buy… that it’s impossible to reduce sales to a single process or procedure.



That said, we can still dance with our sales systems!



So let’s return to Donella Meadows’s article on dancing with systems. Meadows encourages us to “celebrate complexity.”



Now, you might be thinking…



“But Tara, what about building simple business models? What about creating simple marketing procedures?”



I’m glad you asked! The reason we actively build simple structures, models, and procedures for our businesses is because the world is a complex place. When we focus on simplicity in how we design our businesses, we really can celebrate complexity in the world and our customers’ lives.



Meadows writes:



There’s something within the human mind that is attracted to straight lines and not curves, to whole numbers and not fractions, to uniformity and not diversity, and to certainties and not mystery. But there is something else within us that has the opposite set of tendencies, since we ourselves evolved out of and are shaped by and structured as complex feedback systems.



When it comes to sales, I believe our goal is to create the simplest system that celebrates the reality of complexity in the environment.



So what makes the environment we’re selling in so complex? Timing, trends, current events, seasons, budgets, competition, competing messages, personal histories, family needs…



The list could go on and on.



Every customers brings their own complex set of influences to the table when they interact with your business—especially in the sales process.



This is one of the reasons that “sales funnels” so often fail. A sales funnel is usually built from the business’s perspective—a perfect scenario of “if this, then that” actions that assume a lot about the people who are going through that funnel.



But no matter how niche your target customer or client is, ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode:



* Why Sean McMullin & Lou Blaser, from YellowHouse.Media, switched their project management software from Notion to Clickup (and why it’s not the right move for everyone!)* How they’ve reduced their podcast management procedure from 75 sub-tasks to 11 umbrella tasks* Why streamlining the procedure has allowed them to bring a more customized approach to each podcast they produce* How focusing on the system behind podcast production has helped them create a lot more capacity for new clients





A couple of months back, I read a downright beautiful article about systems.



Yes, you heard that right: a beautiful, thoughtful, and useful article about… systems.



It was written by Donella Meadows, an influential environmental scientist and leading thinker on systems change in the 20th century.



The article outlines 14 principles for *dancing* with systems. But today I want to focus on the first: get the beat.



When we talk about business systems, it’s easy to default to software, automation, or project management.



But a system is much more organic than that.



And if we don’t allow for a system’s inherently organic nature, we miss out on really understanding that system in order to work with it, dance with it.



Meadows explains that a mistake we so often make when we approach systems is that we see understanding the system as a way of predicting and controlling its output.



She writes, “The goal of foreseeing the future exactly and preparing for it perfectly is unrealizable.”



I get that that might be frustrating—especially as we see data and the ability to instantly connect with customers as modes for the ultimate in business predictability.



It can also be a relief.



If the goal of understanding systems isn’t to control them or predict their output but to dance with them and learn from them, we don’t have to be so hard on ourselves!



And that brings me to Meadows first dance step—get the beat. The mistake I see business owners make with systems is that they try to impose systems on their businesses. They create or build systems for different areas of their businesses.



But that negates the systems already at work in a business. And inevitably, trying to create a system instead of investigating a system, leads to frustration.



Meadows writes, “Before you disturb the system in any way, watch how it behaves.”



So let’s say you want to work on your marketing system. If you start with a blank page and start building something from scratch, you’re missing out on all of the data & feedback that already exists in your marketing system as it is now (whether you know it’s a system or not).



If instead, you map out your existing marketing system, no matter how haphazard or messy, you can start to ask some really interesting questions about that system:



* How did we get here?* How else could this work?* What might happen if we don’t make a change?* What are the long-term ripple effects of allowing this system to continue to play out... ★ Support this podcast ★

Personal strengths are like a photo filter.



Imagine you’ve got a photo that’s… fine. You upload it to Instagram or VSCO or some fun photo editing app.



And then you scroll through the filters until you find one that brings the picture to life. With the tap of a button, you can make the photo go from washed out colors to… black & white, or soft shades of peach and pink, or punchy shades of blues and greens.



Your filter might up the contrast or even everything out a bit.



Personal strengths can do the same thing for your business strategy, marketing tactics, or the way you deliver your offer.



So what happens when we start to use personal strengths as a filter for business?



First, it becomes much easier to make decisions about what steps to take next. The strengths filter makes it easier to see whether one path or another is going to work better for you.



But second, your strengths filter can help you find creative ways to do some of those shoulds and supposed-tos that just feel so meh.



What if you approach email marketing through the filter of relationship-building?



That’s going to look pretty different than an email marketing strategy based on ideation or analysis.



What if you create an online course but filter it through of teamwork?



That’s going to look pretty different than an online course based on focus or competition.



What if you prioritize networking but filter it through humor?



That’s going to look different than networking based on discipline or strategy.



And when you apply your strengths filter to come up with creative ways of reimagining these actions and systems, not only will they feel more natural to you, they’ll be more effective too.



I’ve got four more stories of business owners leveraging their strengths for you today. And the thread that runs through each of them is how using personal strengths as a filter allowed them to make components of their businesses more natural and effective.



You’ll hear from Lysa Greer, Mary Knox Miller (Nonprofit Video Lab), Dr. Nayla Bahri, Mytili Jagannathan, and Lisa Townsend on how they’ve leveraged their strengths.






★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode:



* Why writer Kris Windley decided to learn how to illustrate her articles* How doodling has helped her work with her ADHD* How she finds the idea or image she wants to illustrate for each piece* The metaphor she uses to think about skill-building





I’ve become a bit obsessed with the concept of “sensemaking.”



Really, I’ve been obsessed with it my whole life, I just didn’t have a name for it.



Sensemaking is the process of taking sensory information and situational knowledge and creating a framework for meaning and decision-making.



Okay, I know, that sounds kind of heady. But really, we do it all the time.



Imagine you venture into the kitchen after a long day in your home office. The kitchen is torn apart. You see dishes stacked on the counter, cupboard doors open, and pantry items covering the table. You smell a slightly chemical citrus scent in the air. Your spouse isn’t there to ask what the heck is going on.



Quickly, you deduce that they got the idea to deep clean the kitchen and had to step away for a bit. The job is almost finished but there’s still a ways to go and you’re hungry for dinner. You take the initiative to order pizza.



That’s sensemaking.



You went from “what the heck is going on here?” To “dinner is on its way” in less than 60 seconds.



Anyhow, I’ve always got my eye out for a new way to make sense of the world. A framework, a script, a visualization, a map, a diagram… I love these tools. And I make good use of them in my own head.



But my sensemaking tools don’t always make it out of my head.



In the last year or so, I’ve really started to recognize that I have a unique strength for explaining how I make sense of things and that my frameworks are helpful for others, too.



Score another for neurodivergence!



That said, it’s taken some practice find my public sensemaking rhythm. The way I write and speak has evolved quite a bit in a short time—at least from my perspective.



But the other thing that’s shifted for me is the ability to turn ideas into a visualizations and graphic representations. I’ve never thought of myself as very good at visual art or graphic design—even though I wished I was.



Then, I had a conversation with writer, developmental editor, and communications consultant Kris Windley. Kris told me all about how she’d been learning how to draw to support her writing—and that helped manage her attention & focus as she navigates ADHD.



I don’t think I can overstate how much this got my wheels turning. It wasn’t until January that I really got to work on the project finding ways to illustrate my ideas. But once I got started, I couldn’t stop!



Here 8 months later and almost a year after that conversation, I feel like I have a really powerful tool in my toolkit. And that that tool leverages a strength I had only been using at half-power.



This episode is a rebroadcast but, if you follow my non-podcast work, I think it will have new meaning for you now—as it does for me. And regardless, I think it’s really encouraging to hear about how Kris has intentionally and methodically introduced this new skill into the way she works!
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In This Episode:



* Why coach Reva Patwardhan counts her intrinsic sense of belonging as one of her top strengths* How “deep processing” allows her to work with high-achieving women in unexpected ways* How she’s learned to work with her ADHD instead of against it* What she’s discovered at the intersection of neurodivergence and being a woman of color





I think a lot about belonging.



In fact, “belonging” is an ongoing conversation between our community advocate, Shannon, and I.



We talk about belonging because one of the biggest concerns that prospective Network members and new members have is whether they will belong. They ask if there are people like them in the community: people with a similar business model, people from the same industry, people who come from the same background they have.



On one hand, these questions are easy to answer. Typically we can say, “Yes! There are people like you here.” But on the other hand, a sense of belonging isn’t just a factor of who you’re in proximity with.



A sense of belonging isn’t situational. It’s intrinsic.



And if through trauma, oppression, toxic relationships, injustice, or cruelty you’ve lost your sense of belonging, it doesn’t matter how much the people around you are like you. You can still feel separate and other.



Belonging isn’t a switch you can turn on and off. At least not in my experience.



One of the threads of that ongoing conversation that Shannon and I have about belonging is indeed about my experience—and about how her experience is pretty different.



A couple of years ago, we reached the joint revelation that we have different default settings when it comes to belonging. When she walks in a room, she assumes she belongs. And in a uncommonly positive result of confirmation bias, she typically starts to confirm her belonging in all sorts of social and situational ways.



When I walk in a room of people—which I try to avoid at all costs—I assume I don’t belong. I assume I’m missing the memo on something everyone else has known for all time. I feel cut off and I shut down. My own confirmation bias starts to pick out all the reasons why I do not belong in that room with those people.



While that probably sounds pretty awful, and it is, I believe that it’s also caused me to build a strength in leadership.



As a leader, I interact with a group in a different way. It’s understood that I am on the outside, not belonging in the same way to the group as others. And similarly, being on the outside, gives me a better perspective on the group and their challenges. So it works out pretty well.



Sebene Selassie writes about a similar phenomenon in her extremely excellent book, You Belong. Sebene examines the benefits of living in the margins of society. She writes, “If we imagine each circle is made up of people who are facing inwards, the closer you are to the center, the less you see. Conversely, if you are in the outermost circles, you have the greatest perspective.”



Are there real issues with being in the margins of society? Absolutely: lack of access to resources and lack of participation in decision-making chief among them.



But operating on the outside gives us perspective we can use to do real good in the world.

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In This Episode:



* How Work Brighter founder Brittany Berger leverages her unique strengths to create a custom approach to productivity and structure* Why she tracks her mood and energy to make her working time more effective* How she’s reimagined traditional productivity “rules” through the lens of neurodivergence and chronic illness* How her obsession with pop culture has become a strength for creating compelling content



How do you operate in a world that’s not designed for you?



How do you make sense of instructions that weren’t written for you?



How do you navigate expectations that weren’t set with you in mind?



These are big, personal questions and, thankfully, we’ve started taking a look at the answers at a cultural level and not just at the individual level.



But until we see some serious change to a culture that privileges white, male, thin, neurotypical, heterosexual, cisgendered, hierarchal, and non-disabled ways of living, we’ve got some adapting to do.



It’s easy to think that these adaptations are a constraint. A limitation of what’s possible.



And honestly, sometimes they are.



But often, these adaptations are leveraged as strengths.



Truthfully, I didn’t think these questions belonged to me for a long time. I thought I’d been gifted with talent, intelligence, and at least a bit of charisma and that I really should be able to make it all work pretty easily.



It wasn’t until I ran straight into a wall of burnout after college that I started to question whether that was really true.



It’s been 16 years since I hit that wall. Since I sat on my professor’s couch and cried that I just didn’t know if grad school was the next step for me. Since my mom took the truck up to Syracuse to move down the furniture we’d already moved into my grad school apartment.



And over those 16 years, I’ve tried to fix myself. I’ve tried to become the kind of person who operates in this world naturally, who follows the instructions to a T, and who easily meets and exceeds expectations.



But last year, I got curious.



As I talked about some of my own breakthroughs and personal successes in terms of learning to manage myself better and execute on ideas, I got gentle messages from folks urging me to be careful about not taking neurodivergent experiences into account in the way I explained what I was working with.



At first, my reaction to these messages was the deep concern that comes along with inadvertently harming someone or making them feel like they don’t belong.



But then, once I understood their own experiences better, I started to wonder: is my experience really that different than theirs? Or rather, do my experiences fit the norms as neatly as I’d like them to?



I found myself wanting to reply that I appreciated their messages, truly, and this doesn’t come easily to me. It’s the hardest work I’ve done in my life.



Over time, the evidence grew and grew. No, my experience didn’t fit the norms. It might be different than other people’s but my sense that I didn’t belong to the shoulds and supposed-tos of culture, relationships, productivity, or emotions became clear.



At the same time, I was hearing even more women talk about themselves and their experiences in ways that felt haltingly familiar... ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode:



* Why Let’s Do The Books founder Mark Butler has been working on getting out of the way for his team* How he’s evolved the way he works to take a break from creating chaos while still leaning into his strengths for experimentation and ideation* Why he’s focused on finding the space to quiet his mind* How he’s created an environment where his team members can really thrive in ownership of their work





Entrepreneurs have a reputation for having control issues.



They also have a reputation for being real idea people.



And what happens when you combine those two qualities? Well, it can be total chaos.



Chaos can be building a system then immediately trying to quote-unquote improve it.



Chaos can be hiring up a team but never really letting them do their jobs.



Chaos can also be trying do 10 different things at once and juggle them all yourself.



It’s not easy when it feels like your life or business are in chaos.



It’s hard to find the space to take a mental break, let alone some time away from work.



My buddy Mark Butler, has been working on lessening the chaos from the last few years and so I knew he was the perfect person to round out this series on taking a break.



Mark is the founder of Let’s Do The Books, as well as a CFO for 7 and 8-figure coaching businesses. He’s generous, rigorous, super fun to hang out with, and makes for great bear bait (that’s a story for another time).



Mark is actively working on quieting his mind, exploring how to create the best conditions for his team members to thrive, and learning when to get the heck out of the way—or else allow chaos to creep back in.



We talk about all of those things—plus how his high value for family influences the direction he’s taking his work-life.



Strap in.



Let’s find out what works for Mark Butler.


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In This Episode:



* Why Jessica Abel believes carving out space to work on experimental and creative projects is key* The strategy she recommends for buying the time you need to do creative work* How she measures creative projects in “developmental markers” and “success markers”* And why she’s committed to building a team that helps her make room for big picture thinking and creative projects





It’s one thing to get your business to a point that’s stable and sustainable.



It’s another to make room for big projects like writing a book or building a new offer.



And it’s yet another thing to carve out the space to work on a creative project that may or may not ever bring financial benefits.



It’s those big projects—the business-related and the not-so-business-related—that so many business owners dream of being able to spend time on.



Sometimes, we put them on our calendar—block out a week or even a long weekend—but then life happens.



Some quote-unquote emergency bleeds into the time we’ve set aside.



Other times, we dwell in the daydreaming. Pinterest boards are curated. Research is done. Ideas are floated past significant others or mastermind groups.



But nothing material ever comes of it.



While Tara will gladly tell you that I’m a huge fan of daydreaming, I also want to make at least some of those dreams real.



Last week, when I talked with Jacquette Timmons about finding the perfect blend of your work days and weeks, I mentioned that one of the things in my particular blend is working on art throughout the days.



I love that I’ve developed a working life that allows me to simultaneously kick butt & take names producing podcasts at the same time I’m exploring my passion for visual art.



It’s taken commitment, experimentation, and a lot of work on business systems—not to mention some serious mindset work!—to get to that place.



And that’s exactly what I wanted to talk with today’s guest about.



What does it take to be able to carve out the time and energy to pursue big creative projects?



Jessica Abel is the founder of The Autonomous Creative and the creator of The Creative Focus Workshop. She’s also a cartoonist, author, and educator. She helps all kinds of creative people juggle the work that pays with the work they dream about.



Our conversation isn’t so much about taking a break from work entirely. It’s about taking a break from one kind of work to focus on the projects we so rarely make time for.



Jessica and I talk about how her work has evolved over the years and how she’s able to juggle so many projects herself, as well as the patterns she’s noticed among creatives, the routines that can help us make sense of our time, and how she paces herself.



Now, let’s find out what works for Jessica Abel!


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In This Episode:



* Why financial behaviorist Jacquette Timmons is more interested in finding the right blend that finding a balance between work and life* How she approaches the way she engages with work to stave off burnout* Why rest is part of the work she does* How the structure of a business contributes to whether we’re able to find the right blend for ourselves



Reminder, this month, Tara is taking a break from hosting and handing the mic over to her husband & business partner, Sean McMullin:





I have a confession, dear listener.



I was once late to the start of a group coaching call because I was… taking a nap.



Through some combination of oversight and calendar failure, I missed that I had a call that I needed to be on until Tara woke me up!



So embarrassing.



And while I’m committed to making sure that never happens again, I’m equally committed to continuing to take naps in the middle of the day. Taking a nap in the middle of the day is one thing I’ve done to find the right blend of work, rest, and recharging that works for me.



It’s a small way that I take a break almost every day.



At different times in my journey with YellowHouse.Media, I’ve been overwhelmed and overworked. It felt like there were never enough hours in the day or days in the week. And that is not okay with me.



So I started to make changes. I changed the time I got started in the morning, I changed the project management tool we use, and I changed how I interacted with clients.



Soon enough, I wasn’t just feeling less overwhelmed and overworked. I had time for a nap! I also had time to take breaks periodically throughout the day to work on my art.



Solid systems, strong client relationships, naps, and art is the perfect blend for my day.



You probably have your own ideal blend for how you spend your time—whether working or otherwise. Maybe you save working on your big projects until after 10pm. Maybe you take 1 week off per quarter. Maybe you don’t schedule calls on Mondays or Tuesdays.



And if you don’t have found the right blend for you yet, now is the perfect time to think about what it might be and start experimenting you way to it.



Today, I have a conversation with one of my oldest business friends for you on exactly this subject.



Jacquette Timmons is speaker, coach, and financial behaviorist who helps people make human choices with their money.



I wanted to find out what taking a break and taking care of herself meant to her. And eventually the conversation got to this topic of finding the right blend—so that whether you’re working, resting, exercising, eating, or exploring your other interests, you feel satisfied and fulfilled with the way you’re spending your time.



Now, let’s find out what works for Jacquette Timmons!




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In This Episode:



* Sean McMullin asks Break The Ceiling host Susan Boles what she’s learned about creating a business that runs itself* Why maintenance mode is key to creating the space to experiment and try out new ideas without breaking your business* How to view your business in smaller pieces to create your own minimum viable maintenance mode* Why creating the systems you need to take a break before there’s a crisis is critical



This month’s series is all about “taking a break”—so Tara is taking a break from hosting and handing the mic over to her husband, producer, and business partner, Sean McMullin. Take it away, Sean!





I never want to do work I can’t walk away from.



When Tara and I started YellowHouse.Media, it was really important to me that we set it up in such a way that—eventually—it could run itself. We had built this great life together. We could travel, explore, and pursue interests outside of work—and I was only going to be game for this whole entrepreneurship thing if it wouldn’t completely disrupt that life.



We actually talked about our initial approach to building a business that could work without us in Episode 232. And later in September, we’ll talk again—this time with our production coordinator Lou Blaser—about our latest steps in making that happen.



It’s taken some serious time and intention to get to the point where taking real time off or dramatically reducing hours for an extended time is possible.



But here we are.



Last week, we took our first trip of this Hot Vax Summer. And later this month, we’re driving out to Montana to enjoy a month in the mountains again. We’ll still be working but the business will largely be in maintenance mode.



Which brings me to today’s topic. When Tara and I decided I’d take over for her this month and explore the topic of taking a break, I immediately knew the first person I wanted to talk to.



My friend and YHM podcaster Susan Boles. Susan is the founder of ScaleSpark and the host of Break The Ceiling.



She has an eye for efficiency, systems, and automation that makes her the perfect candidate for talking about how to put a business in maintenance mode.



And, Susan, like many others, was forced to wrestling with the reality of building a business made for maintenance mode when the pandemic hit and schools closed.



During our conversation, you’ll hear that story and why it’s so important to her to have a business that runs in maintenance mode. You’ll also hear how Susan can fall prey to shiny object syndrome and other distractions just like any other business owner, as well as how she’s combating self-sabotage and how she balances work as a creative outlet with taking breaks.



Now, let’s find out what works for Susan Boles!






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Do you ever get the feeling you’re white-knuckling it through business ownership?



Like if you just squeeze the wheel hard enough and focus on what’s in front of you, you can keep your business from ending up in a serious fender bender (or worse)?



I’ve certainly felt that way. All throughout 2020, I felt like my extreme vigilance was the only thing between my business and an 8-car pileup. And we didn’t get hit nearly as hard as many businesses.



It’s a burden, being able to control situations with my hyper-vigilance, but it’s my lot in life. — Tina Fey, Bossypants



That hyper-vigilance can look like needing to have my fingers in every project or having to touch base with every customer. It can look like working 10 hours a day or checking in on the weekends. It can look like not going on vacation for fear of things crumbling without me or always leaving my inbox open throughout the day.



This last year involved every one of those habits at one point or another. Sometimes all at once.



Truthfully, I’m still burnt out from The Year Of White-Knuckling.



And I need a break. That’s why, if you’re reading this at the time it’s published, I’m unplugged and on vacation. Note from writing self to vacation self: seriously, let go—don’t work this week.



Of course, “taking a break” isn’t just about taking a vacation. It might mean making space for a creative project. Or making time to work on your business. Or taking Fridays off. Or putting your podcast on hiatus. There are so many ways to take a break from things that drain us (even if we love them) but hyper-vigilance is not the way you do it.





Last year notwithstanding, I’ve led my business to a pretty peaceful equilibrium.



We have strong systems, predictable cycles of work, and a dreamy community of customers who cheer when we take some time off.



But I also catch a glimpse of my former hyper-vigilant self every time I see Sean worry about our clients on the weekends or try to make vacation plans around reliable access to the internet every morning.



While it would be wonderful to work in a world where taking a break meant just shutting down the computer on a Friday with no preparation and not giving work a second thought for 10 days, taking a break takes some work.



There is work to be done on the business—I’ll get to the specifics in just a moment—and there is also mental work.



Now, if you’re not the anxious, hyper-vigilant business owner that I am, maybe mentally preparing for a break isn’t so hard. I have no idea what that’s like. Feel free to skip ahead, though.



For all the worriers out there, probably the most helpful mental shift I’ve made over the years is learning that:



There is no amount of worry or hyper-vigilance that will stop something bad from happening.



I can’t not take a break because I believe checking email every day averts all potential problems.



Ish happens.



Even the best systems, happiest customers, and most independent team members won’t stop the random problem from breaking through.



But just because I can’t stop a problem from happening doesn’t mean that a problem will happen. I can take a few days or a few weeks off without there being a problem that... ★ Support this podcast ★

I did not like group work as a student.



I much preferred to take on a project myself. I wanted complete control over the vision for that project, its execution, and all of the details along the way.



And when I say I “preferred,” what I really mean is that I still prefer to do things on my own.



However, building a business has taught me that I’m not going to build what I want to build without group work.



All this month, we’ve been exploring the possibilities for teaming up as we run our businesses. We explored hiring & managing with Podge Thomas, and I shared how I cope as an anxious, introverted, and autistic boss with Annie Schuessler. We explored how we can expand the visions of our businesses to ask how they can help us take better care of each other–and not just meet individual goals for success–with Kate Strathmann.



And we explored how to guide ourselves through the process of asking for and receiving support from others with Shulamit Ber Levtov.



This week, we’re going to wrap things up by exploring 5 things that are only really possible when we team up.



As I mentioned, group work is not my thing. And, I’ve realized that the things I’m most passionate about pursuing and creating are things that can only be done as part of a group. I need a team to build community. I nurture community to transform small business ownership. I need a team to help people express themselves & their ideas with podcasts. Heck, I need a team to produce this podcast!



A lot has been written about the promise of “solo entrepreneurship” over the years. And 8 years ago, I wrote about how I believed that solo entrepreneurship is a myth. Businesses aren’t built in a bubble, I wrote.



The only reason it feels like we can build a business on our own is because we have so many ways of working together. Only we take those ways of working together for granted.



The reason social media can work for marketing? It’s because we’re all collaborating on the content we put there–intentionally or not. The reason so many of us can sell to individual consumers or entrepreneurs with no middle man? We’ve all agreed that supporting each other is a key part of creating the world we want to live in.



The reason the technology we use to run our businesses gets better and better? We’re all a part of the feedback loop driving innovation.



The more we can draw out how we’re all a part of an implicit collaboration, a quiet team of supporters, the more we can ease into the power of making those collaborations explicit.



Entrepreneurship isn’t actually group work.



It’s a huge opportunity to take better care of each other. An opportunity to make our little corner of the world a better place through the vehicle of business. And we just won’t do that alone.



Today, I have 5 ways we can team up to do bigger and better things.



SEO consultant Meg Casebolt shares a story about teaming up to create a truly unique experience. ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode:



* How mindset & resilience consultant Shulamit Ber Levtov became interested in the mental health challenges women face in entrepreneurship* Why she took a month off from work to prevent experiencing a full burnout last year* The methods she uses to identify what she needs and how she’s feeling* Why she always starts with getting her emotional support needs met first* How she crafts clear boundaries and direct communication about what she really needs





When was the last time you asked for help?



The last time you tried to solve a problem by asking for guidance instead of throwing yourself into Google? The last time you told someone about something that was really weighing on you, not looking for answers but just reaching out for empathy and understanding?



I can’t remember the last time I did. So if you’re having a hard time picturing it, I’m right there with you.



I’ve been my identity around being the one with the answers, the one who has it all together.



Of course, much of that has been a mask for how utterly out of place and clueless I feel most of the time.



The more I can present myself as a smart, successful, and altogether resourceful leader the less likely I am to consciously worry about being rejected.



Today, we’re talking about cultivating emotional resilience and accessing support as a small business owner.



In their book, Burnout, Drs Emily and Amelia Nagoski term the collection of symptoms we face as the ones who have to have it all together as Human Giver Syndrome.



The “human giver” idea comes from philosopher Kate Manne who uses it to make a distinction between the expectations put on women, along with people of color, queer people, immigrants, and other marginalized groups, and the expectations put on white men. Human givers are the people who human beings rely on for moral support, emotional labor, admiration, attention, and care.



The Nagoskis suggest that human givers who give and give without the ability to take time to receive support for their own labor and stress are on a fast track to burning out.



I think this same dynamic can play out with business owners—no matter their gender.



Under-resourced business owners are often relied on for moral support, strategic direction, project management, post mortem analysis, and planning with little ability to receive support on those tasks—or many others.



What’s more, our culture valorizes entrepreneurs who do this work day in and day out, for long hours, with no breaks. Of course, none of that valor translates into a better safety net and more abundant collective resources for business-building.



Now, I’m in way trying to make entrepreneurs the subject of sympathy. The upside to building a business, even as an under-resourced business owner, can be immense.



But that doesn’t lessen the strain of making that upside reality.



It’s hard. And it’s lonely. And it often goes unrecognized.



Even though I am one of the many business owners who has a hard time setting aside my I’ve-got-it-all-together identity to ask for & receive support, I have created a container where people to do this on a daily basis.



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