So, health insurance is in the news. And so is Americans' feelings about it. I got to wondering how we ended up with this terrible health insurance system in the United States. I uncovered a fascinating story about the marketing campaign that sunk Truman's national health insurance program in the 1940s. I also discovered some interesting parallels to popular marketing messages among today's influencers, gurus, and marketers. Today's episode is a little trip through history that will hopefully pu...
Dec 12, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast A problem, question, or challenge is often more than meets the eye. But we're biased to accept how an issue is initially framed. We acquiesce to the original terms. That's called acquiescence bias. When we don't counteract our acquiescence bias, we miss opportunities to get to the root cause or think creatively about a challenge. Today, I share 3 ways to resist acquiescence bias as you consider your next moves, goals, or plans. Footnotes: "In Your Spare Time" from No Time to Spare by Ursula K. L...
Dec 05, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Do you see your software? Do you see how it influences how you run meetings, brainstorm ideas, fulfill your responsibilities, and communicate with others? Do you see how its text boxes, radio buttons, tabs, search results, and menus train you to think? Do you see it, or do you just use it? Footnotes : " The impossible dream of good workplace software " on Decoder " Practico-inertia " by Rob Horning ★ Support this podcast ★...
Nov 21, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Stop me if you've heard this before: we're overloaded and overwhelmed by information. There's more content than you could ever hope to consume. More scientific theories, philosophical concepts, and art forms than you could ever hope to engage with. Enter personal knowledge management (PKM). It's a modern term for an ancient practice—how one collects, preserves, and utilizes knowledge worth remembering. In this episode, I speak with Sari Azout, the founder of Sublime, an app for personal knowledg...
Oct 25, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast In management cybernetics, there are 3 types of systems: simple, complex, and exceedingly complex. The systems we pay the most attention tend to be, you guessed it, exceedingly complex. In this episode, I explore what that means for how we do our work and run our businesses—and what happens when we forget that people are exceedingly complex systems, too. Footnotes: Cyberboss by Craig Gent Thinking In Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown " Practicing the ...
Oct 17, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast You've probably heard of a scarcity mindset. Maybe you've even been accused of having one! In this short, I explore the false binary of scarcity and abundance mindsets to propose a third way: resourcefulness. Footnotes: " Thought-terminating cliché " on Wikipedia Adam Tooze on The Ezra Klein Show Information on the US tax gap " Breaking boundaries to creatively generate value " in The Journal of Business Venturing Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer This is a significant revision of a pie...
Oct 10, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast We're constantly bombarded by data. And it's easy to think that with the right clues, we could answer the ultimate questions of life, the universe, and everything. But data aren't facts. They're not a secret code. Data are media—they mediate our interactions with the world around us. To make them useful and meaningful, we need a critical framework for working with data as media. That's what I've got for you today—a deep dive on how predictability, relevance, and actionability can help us see dat...
Sep 26, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today's episode is about tips. As in gratuity. Wait, wait, wait! Where are you going? I know, you probably don't receive tips for your work. Maybe you don't live in the US, and you're thinking, 'What is this American BS about tips?' Well, when I first heard about Trump's (and then Harris's) proposal to eliminate federal taxes of tipped income, my brain went a hundred different places: how many people would it impact, how much savings are we talking about, what will this do to the proliferation o...
Sep 20, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast If a chatbot writes your novel, did you really complete NaNoWriMo? Two niche internet panics caught my eye over the last couple of weeks: a bungled AI policy by the organization that promotes National Novel Writing Month and a viral story about people hiring Strava surrogates to run for them so they can claim the kudos. And those two stories got me thinking about the ways that we delegate away the intrinsic value of other activities. So with the help of a 1935 essay by Walter Benjamin, let's unp...
Sep 12, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Inspired by the current vibe shift, I'm interrupting my rebroadcast of the Self-Help, LLC series with an interlude about values—personal values, business values, American values, even Christian values. And it's about what is so often misunderstood about values. Values aren't chains; they are wings. ★ Support this podcast ★
Aug 22, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is the 6th installment in the Self-Help, LLC series, which originally ran in October 2022. Today's episode has been revised and re-engineered! 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 they 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,...
Aug 15, 2024•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast How influencers, well, influence the way we see the world, our work, our families, and ourselves? And how does the spectacle we immerse ourselves in daily contribute to our perfectionism, anxiety, or fear? In the fifth installment of Self-Help, LLC, I talk about all that and more with Sara Petersen. This is an edited version of an episode that originally ran in October 2022. There’s an influencer for every thing these days. Camping equipment? Sure. Nutritional supplements? You bet. Miniatures? Y...
Aug 08, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is the 4th part of my series Self-Help, LLC, which I'm replaying over the summer! Enjoy! 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, t...
Aug 01, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is an updated version of the 3rd installment in my series Self-Help, LLC, from 2022. Enjoy! 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...
Jul 25, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast I’m continuing my rebroadcast of a series I did a couple of years ago called Self-Help, LLC, and asked the question, "Are we all in the self-help business now?" Today’s episode is all about the aesthetics of self-help and what my guest Kelly Diels has dubbed the female lifestyle empowerment brand. If you’ve ever fussed with your hair or outfit before taking a selfie or sought out the perfect Instagram-worthy spot on vacation, this episode is for you. And if you haven’t? Well, hopefully, this epi...
Jul 18, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is Part 1 of a series from 2022 called Self-Help, LLC. This summer, I’ll be republishing this series as I work on new essays and episodes. There’s a good chance this series is new to you, and if its previous reception is any indication, I think you’ll love it! If you listened to it the first time through, I’d love to know how it hits differently today. *** It’s hard to escape the language and politics of self-help today. Whether you’re browsing your LinkedIn, Instagram, or even TikTok feed,...
Jul 11, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast For justice-minded people, navigating the world of work in the 21st-century economy can feel... impossible. A real no-win scenario. There's a constant tension between what's good for the communities we inhabit and what's good (and necessary) for us as individuals. But it's in this tension that we find a "margin of maneuverability"—a source of hope, possibility, and creativity. That's the theme of a new book called The Myth of Making It by Samhita Mukhopadhyay, a feminist writer and editor, and t...
Jun 13, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our podcast feeds and streaming services are full of real stories of real people. And not all of those stories feel... true . I mean, even if the facts are accurate, the way something is edited, packaged, and marketed can dramatically alter a story's impact. Artist and audio producer Jess Shane wanted to create a project that would expose some of the problematic elements of this booming (and highly profitable) industry. The result is a podcast series for Radiotopia Presents called Shocking, Hear...
May 23, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Okay, this isn't really an episode about speculative investing. Well, it is. But I'm not talking about crypto or meme stocks. I'm talking about the challenges of living and working as a speculative investment. Today's episode is a brief reflection on self-speculation, the "anticipatory, speculative self," and why the second person is so ubiquitous on social media. Footnotes: "Verified: Self-presentation, identity management, and selfhood in the age of big data" by Alison Hearn in Self-(Re)presen...
May 16, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast What would happen if you archived all of your Instagram content, announced that you had taken a job at a fictional wellness company, and then got fired for disclosing your experience with company-mandated colonic hydrotherapy? Well, Leigh Stein did exactly that. Leigh wears many hats—novelist, poet, cultural critic, book coach, publishing expert. And when she realized that she wasn't wearing the hat she wanted to wear on Instagram, she decided to have some fun with a satirical performance art pr...
May 02, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Good luck going anywhere today without running into a message about creativity. I was going to say, "anywhere online," but really, it's just about anywhere . We get creative in the kitchen. Creative in our workouts. Creative in bed. And of course, creative at work. Creativity is somewhat of a "cult object," as Samuel Franklin put it in his cultural history of creativity. Today, I want to get uncomfortably close to that cult object and ask, "What is our fascination with creativity hiding?" So joi...
Apr 25, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast I'm teaching a new workshop on May 15 & 16, 2024! It's called World-Building for Business Owners , and it's based on a process I've been honing for more than a decade. I'll help you apply creative, even playful thinking to your business strategy—and help you create an internally consistent business that causes fewer headaches, meets your needs more efficiently, plays to your strengths, and creates satisfying work. Click here for all the details or go to explorewhatworks.com/world ★ Support t...
Apr 19, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast "How do I want to live?" Philosopher Rahel Jaeggi says this question is bound up in the concept of alienation. Our disconnection and dissatisfaction keep us from answering that question—but they also keep us from asking it in the first place. So in this episode, Kate, Charlie, and I ask that question—and five more. We examine how work in the creator economy can reinforce competition and individualism when what we really need is solidarity and collective action. If you're curious what you can do ...
Apr 18, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast It seems the creator economy is booming. Or is it? And what even is the creator economy?? Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TechTalk are quite happy to advertise the ways they support creators with features and advice. Their aspirational creator hubs give the distinct impression that becoming a creator is akin to getting paid to be yourself. But that said, when Kate Tyson told me that she doesn’t think the creator economy should exist but that she couldn’t put that in writing, I told her sh...
Apr 11, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast The labor market has undergone a sea change in the last 20 years. A full third of US workers are part of the independent workforce, including gig workers, contract workers, freelancers, and sole proprietors. And yet, key provisions in our labor regulations do not cover independent workers. What's more, platform companies have further changed our idea of work. If you sell your labor on a platform, you're not an employee of the platform—you're an entrepreneur . Well, those entrepreneurs are starti...
Apr 04, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 abou...
Mar 21, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 positionin...
Mar 14, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Mar 07, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Feb 29, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Feb 22, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
