All Episodes
Displaying episodes 1 - 30 of 341 in total
EP 444: World-Building a More Sustainable Work Environment with Morgan Harper Nichols
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 f...
EP 443: Imagining a Radically Different World of Work
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 r...
Strange New Work Starts September 14!
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...
EP 442: When The Voice In Your Head Whispers... Meritocracy
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...
EP 441: Rules, Habits, and Opening Doors with Charlie Gilkey
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 cle...
EP 440: Adopting the Perennial Mindset for Work & Beyond with Mauro Guillén
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...
This is Not Advice: Metrics, Incentives, and the Seduction of Clarity
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 ...
EP 439: Expectations, Boundaries, and Making Work in Public with Randi Buckley
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...
EP 438: Counterfeit Financial Culture with Manisha Thakor
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, th...
EP 437: Leaving the Cult of Never Enough with Manisha Thakor
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 tackle...
This is Not Advice: How Flexibility is Used and Abused
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 flexibi...
EP 436: The Myth of Rugged Individualism—and Hope for Something More (Remix)
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 t...
EP 435: Self-Control, Surveillance, and the Body at Work (Classic)
So much of our modern discourse around productivity, empowerment, entrepreneurship, and personal growth includes messages about our bodies. These messages might not be...
This is Not Advice: Beyond Creating Versus Consuming
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...
EP 434: What do we really want from social media? with Jay Acunzo
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 ...
EP 433: What is Capitalist Realism? with Iggy Perillo
"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 o...
This is Not Advice: Accessibility Beyond the Checklist
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’...
EP 432: Queer Failure with Kate Tyson
"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 s...
EP 431: The Shoulds and Supposed-tos of Baking
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," ...
This is Not Advice: Who is Responsible for Adapting?
"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 ...
EP 430: Why Does Authenticity So Often Feel Fake?
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—...
EP 429: Maybe bigger isn't better?
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 Spotif...
EP 428: "You paid WHAT for that?!" Or, How Echo Chambers Distort Prices and How We Think
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 journalis...
This is Not Advice: Making Work That Can't Be Sold
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 ...
EP 427: The Trust-Profit Paradox
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 succ...
EP 426: This is Not Advice: It's Our World, AI Just "Lives" In It
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 solutio...
EP 425: [Dispatch] Gone Meta
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 s...
EP 424: How the Game We Play Changes Our Work
“This cancerous economic principle means that executives and venture capitalists have abandoned the concept of value within a business. Through decades of corporate gr...
EP 423: This is Not Advice: What can I do to grow my audience?
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 ...
EP 422: The "Risks" of Losing What You Never Had with Nathalie Lussier
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 thi...
