Podcasts about love your work

Simon Squibb is not your average entrepreneur. After tragedy saw him leave home at the age 15, Simon went into survival mode - he started a gardening business with no actual experience or knowledge of the industry. 19 businesses later, Simon is a multimillionaire. He's since taken to social media to ask people about their dreams via TikTok and he's founded the ‘Elevator of Dreams' concept alongside Richard Branson. He's used his insight to craft a new book - What's Your Dream? Find Your Passion. Love Your Work. Build a Richer Life. "I was forced to be an entrepreneur - it wasn't really my path at that moment in my life, I'd never thought about becoming an entrepreneur, no one had ever taught me at school what an entrepreneur was or how to create something in your mind and make it real. I was just like everybody else...but this entrepreneur muscle woke up in my brain." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Simon Squibb is not your average entrepreneur. After tragedy saw him leave home at the age 15, Simon went into survival mode - he started a gardening business with no actual experience or knowledge of the industry. 19 businesses later, Simon is a multimillionaire. He's since taken to social media to ask people about their dreams via TikTok and he's founded the ‘Elevator of Dreams' concept alongside Richard Branson. He's used his insight to craft a new book - What's Your Dream? Find Your Passion. Love Your Work. Build a Richer Life. "I was forced to be an entrepreneur - it wasn't really my path at that moment in my life, I'd never thought about becoming an entrepreneur, no one had ever taught me at school what an entrepreneur was or how to create something in your mind and make it real. I was just like everybody else...but this entrepreneur muscle woke up in my brain." LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly, looking at everything and calling out Yes! No! The swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and petals, wants only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work. — Mary Oliver, "Yes! No!" Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays, Beacon Press, Boston, 2003, p. 27   In this week's release of A Leadership Beyond, hosts Adrienne Guerrero and Tom Rosenak welcomed Michele Stowe, founder of Skyrocket Coaching, to discuss her continuous journey of aligning work with her core life values. Michele's story offers valuable insights for leaders seeking to create healthier work environments, achieve success with personal balance. During the interview, Michele shared valuable insights about leadership and energy management along with other insightst: The impact of energy: Nonprofit C-suite leaders are experiencing unprecedented challenges in today's environment. One client told her, "I just don't want to keep leading in unprecedented times," having navigated through the pandemic and continued uncertainty. There are always trade offs and we must learn to make choices with greater intentionality. Intentional role modeling: Leaders must be thoughtful about how they spend their time and demonstrate this to their teams. By showing employees that there are various ways to restore energy—whether through hiking, playing music, or spending time with family—leaders create space for everyone to find what works for them. Understanding cultural dynamics: Michele emphasized the importance of recognizing the cultural dynamics at play in an organization—including geographic, sector-specific, company, and generational differences in work expectations—and determining whether one's values align with that culture. After interviewing 100 nonprofit C-suite leaders with more than five years in their roles, Michele developed a framework for effective leadership: The Listen, Lead, and Love Your Work framework which she shares during our conversation. Michelle's story reminds us that leaders have the power to shape both their own work experiences and their organizational cultures. By listening deeply, modeling self-care, finding joy in work, and establishing meaningful measures of success, leaders can create environments where both they and their teams thrive. To follow and connect with Michele: Website: Skyrocket Coaching Linkedin: Michele Stowe A Leadership Beyond exists to support the alignment between the business strategy and people strategy - to drive results with people not at the expense of people (Talent Optimization). Subscribe to our podcast to join the Leadership Beyond Community of Conversation and hear insights from thought leaders and human development experts leading the way in the field of Talent Optimization.  We are grateful to you and always eager to hear from you! To learn more visit https://aleadershipbeyond.com

We're featuring another great episode from Kate Volman, this time from her show Create for No Reason

Dreams were never part of the equation for entrepreneur Simon Squibb. After leaving home at age 15, he started a landscaping business that led to another and another until becoming a multimillionaire. It was never about having a dream and now he says, he got that wrong. Squibb has become a one-man Shark Tank, investing in start-ups, helping other people understand the power of their dreams and identifying the myths that hold people back. His new book is called What's Your Dream?: Find Your Passion. Love Your Work. Build a Richer Life.

Work with Purpose: How to Thrive By Finding Meaning in Your Role In this episode Rachid discusses how to find meaning in work. He explains that aligning your job with your core values can transform it from a mundane routine into a source of purpose and satisfaction.  Rachidd outlines eight practical strategies: identifying core values, connecting your role to the bigger picture, seeking opportunities for growth, building positive relationships, redefining success, practicing gratitude, bringing your whole self to work, and helping others find meaning.  Each strategy is accompanied by examples and practical applications to help listeners integrate these principles into their professional lives.  Rachid encourages self-reflection and intentional action, emphasizing that meaning often comes from small, consistent choices that resonate with one's values and passions. How to Find Meaning at Work Identify Your Core Values Connect Your Role to the Bigger Picture Seek Opportunities for Growth Build Positive Relationships Redefine Success on Your Own Terms Practice Gratitude for Your Work Bring Your Wholeself to Work Help Others Find Meaning  

What happens when a seasoned career takes an unexpected turn in the middle of a global pandemic? I found myself facing that very question, jobless and searching for purpose. Join me as we unpack midlife career journeys with career expert Julie Bauke, who brings over 25 years of experience to the table. Together, we explore the challenges and opportunities for women over 50 in a rapidly evolving workforce that now includes Gen Z. Julie's insights reveal how viewing our careers as a series of chapters can empower women to leverage their skills and experiences, even after career interruptions.Feeling stuck or uncertain about your career path? You're not alone. In this episode, we tackle common feelings of discontent, transforming them into starting points for self-discovery and career fulfillment. By reflecting on what truly matters in your professional life, we share strategies for taking actionable steps toward a more satisfying career. Whether it's embracing the fear of failure or choosing change over stagnation, this conversation is about understanding where you are and where you want to be, offering clarity and determination for the journey ahead.Our discussion goes further, addressing the critical aspects of salary negotiations and the power of mentorship. With a focus on intergenerational relationships, we highlight how younger professionals can benefit from the wisdom of seasoned mentors. Julie shares strategies for successful salary negotiations, stressing the importance of market data over personal financial needs. We aim to equip all women with the tools they need to take control of their careers, emphasizing readiness for unexpected changes in the job market. Through stories and advice, we aspire to inspire women to confidently navigate their career paths and embrace their inherent value.You can find Julie Bauke at:https://thebaukegroup.com/https://www.instagram.com/julieonthejob/https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliebauke/Send us a text_________________________________________Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolanHave questions about Faster Way? Feel free to reach out.mfolanfasterway@gmail.comFollow Asking for a Friend on Social media outlets:https://www.instagram.com/askingforafriend_pod/https://www.facebook.com/askforafriendpod/Please provide a review and share. This helps us grow! https://lovethepodcast.com/AFAF*Transcripts are done with AI and may not be perfectly accurate.**This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.

What does career success mean to you? Not the glossy, societal version—but one that lights up your zone of genius and provides the income you need to thrive. With 85,000 hours of your life spent at work, how do you make them really count? Erica Sosna, career coach and founder of The Career Equation, has the answers.In this episode, Erica shares the four key questions that unlock a career equation, how to figure out where you're at now, and strategies for crafting a mission statement that aligns work with skills, earning potential, and personal goals. At the heart of it all is the big question: what does “enough” look like, and what strategies lead to achieving it in your career?Erica's story is nothing short of incredible. Two years ago, she faced a life-changing accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down. She tells Melanie how her Career Equation mission statement became her North Star for staying focused on recovery, helping her rebuild her life, career, and income from the ground up. Truly inspiring.Whether you're making a career comeback, tweaking your current job, or dreaming up a whole new direction, this episode is packed with practical advice and fresh ideas to help you shape a career—squiggly or linear—that truly works for you.Guest: Erica Sosna Website: The Career Equation Book: The Career EquationSelf-directed course: Your Career PlanThe Enoughness with Melanie Rickey.Produced and edited by Steve Hankey. The podcast is recorded at 1 Warwick in Soho, a welcoming club for members and visitors alike, and the home of The Enoughness with Melanie Rickey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when two forces, your home life and your work life —both central to your identity—need you with equal urgency at the exact same moment? Well, chaos happens. Or guilt. Or angst. Or sheer, utter exhaustion. Or...all of the above. In this episode, Suzy gets into a heart-to-heart with Jennifer, a woman who finds herself caught in a battle between two of her deepest values: her unwavering commitment to work and her devotion to her family. It's a struggle Suzy knows all too well—because once upon a time, she was Jennifer. Her battle scars lead her to counsel Jennifer with an answer you may not expect.Want more Becoming You? Learn about the Discovery Day: The Becoming You Experience. You are always growing and evolving and so are we. Sign up for the Becoming You newsletter for fresh new content in one tidy package.  Social You can follow and tag Suzy on: - Instagram: @suzywelch - Linkedin: @suzywelch - TikTok: @suzywelch - YouTube: @suzywelch_ - X: @SuzyWelch

คอลัมน์ “สดแต่เช้า”ปีที่4 (299) จงรักงานของคุณ (Love Your Work) “สำหรับมนุษย์นั้นไม่มีอะไรดีไปกว่ากินและดื่ม กับ ชื่นชมผลจากการตรากตรำของเขา นี่แหละข้าพเจ้าเห็นด้วยว่าเป็นมาจากพระหัตถ์ของพระเจ้า”‭‭ ~ปัญญาจารย์‬ ‭2‬:‭24‬ ‭THSV11‬‬ “There is nothing better for people to do than to eat, drink, and find satisfaction in their work. I saw that even this comes from the hand of God.”‭‭ ~Ecclesiastes‬ ‭2‬:‭24‬ ‭GW‬‬ พี่น้องที่รัก1. ถ้าคุณไม่มีงานทำ จงไปหางานดีมีคุณค่า ที่ทำแล้วมีความสุข และลงมือทำโดยไม่ต้องคิดถึงเรื่องค่าตอบแทนเป็นประเด็นหลัก 2.ถ้าคุณมีงานทำอยู่แล้ว จงขอบคุณ ซาบซึ้ง กับงานที่ได้ทำ จงอย่าบ่น อย่าเลี่ยง อย่าอู้ หรือ อย่าทำแบบซังกะตาย จงเรียนรู้ที่จะชอบงานของคุณ และทำงานนั้นให้สนุกและดีที่สุด แต่หากว่าทำอย่างไรก็ไม่สนุก คุณก็สามารถเลือกงานใหม่ที่มีคุณค่าและคุณพอใจหรือชอบมากกว่า และลงมือทำอย่างมีความสุข ใช่ครับ คุณต้องเรียนรู้ที่จะชอบงานของคุณ เพราะว่า… “ 1.ถ้าคุณไม่ชอบงานของคุณ คุณต้องลงทุนพลังงานเป็นสามเท่า หนึ่งเพื่อบังคับตัวคุณเองให้ทำงาน สองเพื่อต้านทานแรงบีบบังคับให้ทำงานนั้น และท้ายสุดก็เพื่อทำงานนั้น 2.ถ้าคุณรักงานของคุณ ความปรารถนาที่จะทำงานของคุณ จะเป็นดุจลมที่บันดาลนาวาของคุณให้แล่นไป โดยใช้เชื้อเพลิงน้อยลง 3.ถ้าคุณชอบงานของคุณ ก็เหมือนกับคุณไม่ได้ทำงาน เพราะเมื่อคุณชอบงานใด งานนั้นก็ไม่ใช่งานอีกต่อไป แต่เป็นความเพลิดเพลินบันเทิงใจ! 4.ถ้าคุณชอบงานของคุณ คุณก็จะทำงานและทำงาน โดยไม่มานั่งนับกาลเวลาที่ผ่านไป แล้วคุณจะได้เกี่ยวเก็บและสุขใจ กับรายได้ที่เพิ่มพูนเป็นทวีขึ้น!” พี่น้องที่รัก ขอให้เรา1.กินดื่มอย่างมีความสุข2.ให้สนุกและหาความอิ่มใจในงานที่ตัวเราทำ3.ขอบคุณพระเจ้าสำหรับสิ่งดีที่มาจากพระหัตถ์ของพระองค์ (ผ่านงานที่เราทำ)4.ให้คนรอบตัวและสังคมได้รับประโยขน์จากงานที่เราทำ‭‭ (ปัญญาจารย์‬ ‭2‬:‭24‬ ) …จะดีไหมครับ?~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ธงชัย ประดับชนานุรัตน์23มกราคม 2025#YoutubeCJCONNECT #thongchaibsc#คริสตจักรแห่งความรัก #churchoflove #ShareTheLoveForward #ChurchOfJoy #คริสตจักรแห่งความสุข #NimitmaiChristianChurch #คริสตจักรนิมิตใหม่ #ฮักกัยประเทศไทย #อัลฟ่า #หนึ่งล้านความดี #SoulFoodPodcastsSpotify

Have you ever had a review session with a client and they're just not feeling the work you've created? We've been there! In this episode Jen and Esther talk about some of their experiences with push-back and how they worked through the problems to create better solutions for their clients.Links Mentioned:The Anti-Anxiety NotebookInbox Question:"How do you present your initial designs to the client? What do you include– how many logo/secondary logo ideas, how many fonts (and where to get fonts/legalities), do you photoshop a mock-up and include that with the package? Like what do you do lol" — Mackenzi ChapmanConnect With Us:Our Free Facebook CommunityOur WebsiteOur Resources PagePodcast InstagramSupport us on PatreonTags:designer, design, brand design, brand identity design, design studio, design business, graphic design, brand designer, better podcast, brand designer podcast, logo design, brand identity design

Stop dragging yourself to a job you hate and start loving your work—even when it's tough. In this transformative episode, I'll share the exact mindset shifts that have helped countless clients find purpose and joy in their careers. Bonus: Get my “Love Your Workshop” completely free! https://nicolebz.kartra.com/page/love-your-work How you can help Western North Carolina → https://linktr.ee/mindfulgeek

In this week's podcast episode, I share ways to keep the balance, prevent burnout, and enjoy the process of building your dreams. Tune in to learn practical tips for recharging and setting boundaries that work for you. ➡️ Interested to turn your Instagram side hustle into a profitable full-time online business? Click here. Follow along for more 'Jules': ✨ Instagram ✨ TikTok ✨ Youtube Please make sure to leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it would help a lot to keep the show going!

Today on Karl and Crew, we explored the path to personal growth as followers of Christ, drawing inspiration from Psalm 139:23-24. Here, King David helps us emphasize an often-overlooked discipline that could be the key to spiritual maturity. We also discussed ways to experience God in the workplace. Our guest, Robert Dickie, shared his valuable insights as a career advisor, CEO, and host of the podcast Taking the Leap. We showcased his book, "Love Your Work: 4 Practical Ways You Can Pivot to Your Best Career." Check out all the highlights of today's show on the Karl and Crew podcast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do you love your job? If you're looking for a more satisfying career or experiencing an unwanted change, join us to hear how you can move forward by following a step-by-step process to a more satisfying career. This conversation is designed to help you see work differently and to pursue it like you never have before.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of XYPN Radio, we welcome back Ashley Foster, CFP®, founder of NXT:GEN Financial Planning. You might remember Ashley from Episode 321 in 2021, where he shared his journey transitioning from the insurance industry to the fee-only financial planning world. Today, Ashley gives us an inside look at the firm he built, which now serves over 50 clients, focusing primarily on young to mid-career veterinarians. Ashley's passion for helping people shines through as he discusses the unique benefits he provides to his clients, from securing higher-paying positions to achieving personal alignment through life planning. His energy is infectious, and listeners will be inspired to think about demonstrating value to their prospects through thoughtful website design, engaging conversations, and a deep understanding of their client's financial situations and careers. Ashley also shares a personal glimpse into his life as a proud pet parent to his beloved cat, Frank. He talks about how building his firm and helping others live their best lives has enabled him and his veterinarian wife to do the same. Don't miss this episode, packed with insights and inspiration for financial professionals and anyone looking to create meaningful impact in their careers and lives.   What You'll Learn From this Episode: Approaching financial planning from a life planning standpoint to help align your clients with their long-term goals. Charging what you are worth at the outset and when to raise your fees. Enjoying your niche and the clients you are working with will keep you inspired and avoid burnout. Focusing on asset accumulation for the client in the early stages can eventually lead to an AUM fee structure and generate more income for you and the client. The advantages of niching down while also considering the necessary steps to continue to attract leads from the smaller pool of potential clients. Building a lifestyle and business you enjoy will inspire your clients to live their desired lifestyle. Owning your own business will allow you to be there for the people and things that matter most to you.  

Who are you? What do you do? And—most important, does it bring you joy? Whether you call yourself an accountant, a zoologist or something else, the label doesn't define you, and yet… We spend so many of our waking hours in our career roles, but how much time do we spend exploring how well they serve us? How much have you thought about your career? In this episode of the Awaken Your Wise Woman podcast, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, a licensed professional therapist, founder of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md., and a mid-life women's life coach, and Wamite Muthara, founder of Career Safari, talk about new ways to look at life and work. Listen in as they discuss how they've found career paths that bring them joy, what inspired them and what it's like to align your career with your better self. “I get energized and inspired by any woman, any person, who takes a moment to bet on themselves, who takes a chance on aligning their purpose and their gifts.” — Wamita Muthara Listen and learn: What a “hybrid professional” is and what it's like to be one The feelings, thoughts and experiences that might nudge us away from a traditional career Why you don't have to rearrange your life overnight Why it's important to see past the job title How Career Safari started and how it has evolved The unexpected benefits of restructuring your career How we can get lured into forgetting ourselves and our needs Why you're your mor effective when your work is aligned with your authentic self Key questions to ask yourself about your life and work You can find all the resources for this and very episode here.

On today's show, Rebecca talks with two women who have taken their passions and turned them into their life's work. Skye Bellarmine's advanced studies have earned her a degree in life skills. Her intuitive empathy has enabled her to learn from and rise above life's challenges. She has turned that into a book about narcissism. Jill Lublin is a Master Publicity Strategist and International Speaker. Her innovative influence marketing and publicity techniques consistently increase bottom line results for her clients. She will share how publicity intersects with kindness. As always, you can find our host, Rebecca Hall Gruyter at the www.RHGTVnetwork.com or at www.yourpurposedrivenpractice.com. Our guests are also online. Skye's online home is: https://starskyepress.com/. You can find Jill online here: https://JillLublin.com.

On today's show, Rebecca talks with two women who have taken their passions and turned them into their life's work. Skye Bellarmine's advanced studies have earned her a degree in life skills. Her intuitive empathy has enabled her to learn from and rise above life's challenges. She has turned that into a book about narcissism. Jill Lublin is a Master Publicity Strategist and International Speaker. Her innovative influence marketing and publicity techniques consistently increase bottom line results for her clients. She will share how publicity intersects with kindness. As always, you can find our host, Rebecca Hall Gruyter at the www.RHGTVnetwork.com or at www.yourpurposedrivenpractice.com. Our guests are also online. Skye's online home is: https://starskyepress.com/. You can find Jill online here: https://JillLublin.com.

SEASON 9 The 2024 Leader Daily Leadership Tips and Discussions Today's pod talks about being a "drifter" as Napoleon Hill writes about in his book "Outwitting the Devel." If you think you may be a drifter, this episode will help you or possibly, somebody you know. Paul is back in the recording studio and is bringing new challenges, discussions, leadership tips, and stories. Season 9 will be a little different. After a 2-month break, Paul is going to be focused on not only giving tips about how to be a great leader, but also a leader who is respected, a leader who people want to follow, a leader who can confidently navigate their way through both personal and professional challenges, a leader who is not afraid to share their faith while living it out, a leader who knows his/her purpose and lives to fulfill that purpose every day, and a leader who has no regrets! As always, I value your feedback and comments, especially your perspectives and opinions. Please share them with me by emailing them to Paul@CLCTeam.com  Lots of new stuff to come... please consider subscribing, sharing with a friend, and giving me a review o whatever platform you listen on.  Have a great day and Lead Well! “Run To Your Challenges!”

Support the Thoughts on Illustration Podcast at http://patreon.com/tomfroeseHave you hit a dead end with your work? Are you bored of your style? Or maybe, like me, you feel even worse about the art you've been making lately? This past year has brought a few blows to my professional and personal creativity, and at the end of 2023, I was feeling pretty crappy about my own work. I've come to this point many times in my career, and usually I just shrug it off and keep going. But this time was different. In this episode I talk about how I was able to climb out of a hole of artistic despair and rekindle my love affair with my work. By listening to this episode, I hope you will learn how to rediscover the joy in your own practice. If it hasn't happened to you yet — listen to this one and put it in your back pocket.

LifeBlood: We talked about how to love your work, why too few of us enjoy what we do, how work teaches us about ourselves, self-knowledge and the importance of constantly assessing where we're at, and how to get started, with Greg Martin, host of the Lifetime at Work podcast.        Listen to learn how to explore your career options! You can learn more about Greg at LifeTimeAtWork.com, and LinkedIn. Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood.Live, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook or you'd like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood.Live.  Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood

If you work from home - you don't need to go straight from Bed to Business! We're starting your day in the best way. LINKS Follow Nova Podcasts on Instagram @novapodcastsofficial. CREDITS Host: Casey Donovan @caseydonovan88.Writer: Amy Molloy @amymolloy.Executive Producer: Anna HenvestEditor: Adrian WaltonSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ken Rusk Revisits His Book - Blue Collar Cash: Love Your Work, Secure Your Future, and Find Happiness for Life. This is episode 619 of Teaching Learning Leading K12, an audio podcast. Ken Rusk is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and blue-collar advocate showing that there's no degree required for comfort, peace, and freedom. Ken spent his younger years digging ditches and working in construction. He never went to college. Instead, he made goals, planned, and worked hard for thirty years. Now, Ken is a very successful entrepreneur with multiple businesses and revenue streams. Ken Rusk specializes in mentoring and has coached hundreds of young people in areas such as short-, mid-, and long-term goal setting, life visualization, career paths, and sound financial planning. He is passionate about helping people achieve their dreams regardless of their educational background or past. We talked last on November 30th, 2021. That was episode 433. It's going to be great to catch up with Ken. We are focused on Ken's book - Blue Collar Cash: Love Your Work, Secure Your Future, and Find Happiness for Life! So much to learn! So much to think about! Before you go... Could you do me a favor? Please go to my website at https://www.stevenmiletto.com/reviews/ or open the podcast app that you are listening to me on, and would you rate and review the podcast? That would be so cool. Thanks! If you are listening on Apple Podcasts on your phone, go to the logo - click so that you are on the main page with a listing of the episodes for my podcast and scroll to the bottom. There you will see a place to rate and review. Could you review me? That would be so cool. Thank you! Hey, I've got another favor...could you share the podcast with one of your friends, colleagues, and family members? Hmmm? What do you think? Thank you! Thanks for sharing! Thanks for listening! Connect & Learn More: www.kenrusk.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-rusk-2656a7175/ https://www.facebook.com/KenRuskOfficial/ https://www.instagram.com/kenruskofficial/ https://twitter.com/KenRuskOfficial Length - 50:02

In this episode of Beltway Broadcast, your Metro DC Chapter of ATD hosts Stefan Falk. Stefan is an internationally-recognized executive coach, human performance expert, and the author of Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before. A McKinsey & Company alumnus specializing in leadership and corporate transformation, he has trained over 4,000 leaders across more than 60 different client organizations in North America and Europe. In this episode, Stefan discusses how to rewire your brain to focus on exciting outcomes and shares tools and advice on how to be happy working any job.  If you'd like to learn more about Stefan, visit his website. For more info about the Metro DC Chapter of ATD, visit DCATD.org.  Episode Credits: Series Announcer: Julie Waters Hosts: Christina Eanes, Stephanie Hubka, and Halyna Hodges

Today, we're going to be talking about why You Deserve It: How to Love Your Work as You Achieve Your Goals.  Executive and Career-Life Coach, Randi is all about helping professionals become re-energized by their work and attain career fulfillment, without compromising what matters most.  She knows the importance of finding balance in her coaching: giving you the push you need to take action and overcome obstacles, while simultaneously holding space for you when you need a pause to breathe.  After spending 30 years in the corporate world, Randi has walked the same path as her clients.  She dives into discussions on accomplishments, competing priorities, promotions, leading, motivation, and making you happy both with her clients, and on her own podcast The Fulfilling Career, Happy Life Podcast.  When Randi's not working, you can find her recharging her batteries by spending time outdoors, practicing yoga, reading, or catching up with friends.  Welcome, Randi!Support the showCheck out Petite2Queen for more great interviews, podcasts, and blogs to help you achieve more, faster!https://www.petite2queen.com/​

After nearly eight years of the Love Your Work podcast, I'm quitting. Here's why, and What's Next. Podcasting is a bad business This is not the immediate reason I'm quitting, but it is at the root: Podcasting is a bad business. When the indirect benefits of an activity run out, it's hard to keep doing it if it's not making money. I realized long ago podcasting is a bad business, but I kept going for other reasons. I'll explain why in a bit. Though I didn't start my podcast with dollar signs in my eyes, I did at least hope I would grow to earn money doing it. I've earned about $32,000 in the eight-year history of Love Your Work. More than half of that has been from Patreon supporters, many of whom support for reasons other than the podcast. During that time, I've spent: $1,008 on hosting $11,749 on assistance with editing and publishing $241 on equipment And some other expenses, for a total of about $13,000 In raw numbers, I've made a “profit” on the podcast. But, as I broke down in my latest income report, my “wage” was about $6 an hour. My podcast comprised about 5% of my income over these eight years, and took much more than that portion of my time and energy. Of course, I don't think about whether the podcast was worth it in terms of an hourly rate. Creative work happens in Extremistan, not Mediocristan, and I've made massive life choices to be free to explore creatively without worrying so much what I'm earning in the short-term. Ways to make money podcasting But there are many different ways to make a podcast a solid business, and none of them worked for me, for various reasons. Here are some of these business models, as they apply to the “thought-leader” space (I'll ignore the more entertainment/infotainment space that podcasts like Gimlet's inhabit). Be so massively famous, you can pick-and-choose advertisers, while demanding a lot of money. This is where Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan are. They both started with large platforms, and applied whatever talents that helped them earn those platforms to make their podcasts huge. After more than fifteen years as a creator, I have a modest platform, but orders of magnitude smaller. Build a “content machine” that manufactures ad slots. I won't name names, but you've heard these podcasts. They're formulaic and don't seem to discern much who they have as a guest, nor what sponsors they accept. This business model is why my inbox is still full of pitches – they think I actually want more guests, because more guests would mean more ad slots. It takes a very rare set of circumstances for me to be excited to interview someone. Share information that directly helps people make money. If you have tactical and actionable information that's useful to professionals in a specific industry, you can charge for premium podcast content. I'm not as interested in the tactical and actionable as I am in the abstract and exploratory. Cover a niche topic. If you have a leading podcast about a very specific topic, advertisers within that niche will be willing to pay high rates to reach that audience. I didn't want to build my podcast according to a specific topic – more on that later. Have a “back-end” business. If you have a thriving consulting business, or training programs to sell, you can attract more clients and customers through your podcast. As I wrote in my ten-year reflections, “I want to make a living creating. I don't want creating to be merely a marketing strategy for other things. Is that completely insane?” I flirted with success in a few of these business models. Early on, I hoped my podcast would be famous enough to pick and choose advertisers at high rates. For a while, it looked like I had a chance. I was approached by a podcast network, and I had some reputable advertisers such as LinkedIn, Skillshare, Casper, Audible, Pittney Bowes, and University of California. Various times, I thought I was on the cusp of my “big break” – such as when Love Your Work was featured on the Apple Podcasts home screen. But the more I tried to go the “get famous” route, the louder the siren-song of the “content machine” route got. There were plenty of opportunities to do “interview swaps” with hosts I wasn't interested in interviewing. There were a few advertisers that had money, but whose products felt sleazy. Joining a podcast network would have pressured me to crank out content even if I didn't feel like it. There was (and still is) the never-ending stream of pitch emails for guests. I had too much wax in my ears to go the “content machine” route. Not included in my lifetime revenue-estimates for Love Your Work is money I made through the “back-end business” route. I was somewhat comfortable with this model, but I haven't made a course in years, as I've been focused on writing books. And as bad a business as people say writing books is, it's better than making a podcast. The podcast has helped me sell books in more ways than one. One way is that people who listened to the podcast bought my books. The other way is, making my podcast helped me write my books. This brings me to the reason I kept making my podcast, even after I realized it wasn't a good business. Make for what making makes you In my sixteen years experimenting with different business models as an independent creator, I've settled on one thing that works: Make for what making makes you. If making a podcast, writing a book, sending a weekly newsletter – you name it – merely makes you money, and doesn't make you who you want to be, what's the point? Sure, sometimes you don't feel like creating, and you do it anyway. Yes, sometimes you pick one project over another because you think it will be more lucrative. But you can only redirect the river that is your creativity so much before it overflows and returns to its natural path. I learned from my guests When I started Love Your Work, and was struggling to make it big enough to work with an ad model, even if I wasn't bringing in lots of ad revenue, I was still connecting with and learning from my guests. It was an incredible privilege to have in-depth conversations with people like Seth Godin, Elise Bauer, and David Allen. It was like having my own personal advisory board of heroes. Talking to them helped me learn how to go off the beaten path and find my calling. I was able to find patterns in their stories that I could apply to my own life and career. I would be a completely different person today if I hadn't had those conversations. It was time to explore But there came a point when doing interviews was no longer serving me the way it once had. It was when I had gained the confidence – thanks to my previous guests – to explore further my own ideas. That's when I stopped interviewing guests, so I'd have more time to explore. Love Your Work shifted from my personal advisory board to my personal sounding board – a sort of “open mic,” where I fleshed out ideas. I got to see how it felt to effortfully explore each idea. I got to hear how they sounded when I read them aloud. I got to feel how they resonated (or didn't) with others. It helped me write my books A couple years after I started Love Your Work, I started writing a book called Getting Art Done. Getting Art Done turned out to be three books, two of which I've published. Love Your Work has been there to help me explore the ideas in these books. The Heart to Start was full of conversations from my early guests, and came from my very real struggles in gaining the confidence to take my ideas seriously enough to pursue them. Mind Management, Not Time Management came from my very real struggles to harness my creative energy and push my ideas forward. As I work on the final book in the Getting Art Done trilogy, Finish What Matters, I'm asking myself, What struggle does this book come from? Clearly, I've finished a lot of creative work: three books, over two-hundred consecutive weekly newsletters, and over three-hundred episodes of this podcast. But as I've dwelt on that final word in the title, matters, I'm asking myself if I'm really working on what matters? Love Your Work and Getting Art Done have been an exploration in creative productivity. But at some point, writing about Resistance becomes a form of Resistance. I don't feel I've reached that point yet, but I don't want to. If I'm going to learn enough to write Finish What Matters, I have to really test my ideas of what matters. I've probably explored enough ideas, through Love Your Work, that I want to develop further in Finish What Matters. But for the time being, I need space to explore what matters. That's the biggest reason I'm quitting Love Your Work. I had considered doing so in the past, but I kept hoping I'd know What's Next before I quit. I've come to realize that I can't know What's Next until I have the space to explore. What's Next is finding What's Next It's a little scary to have that void. But it's also exciting. Furthermore, I've faced The Void many times before: when I started on my own, after finishing each book, and a little bit after each podcast episode or newsletter. What's scarier now than facing the void is that I'll stick with what's safe, and distract myself into dying with my best creations inside me. I could just say I'm taking a break, or not say anything at all and stop until I felt inspired to make a new episode. I've talked before about how I struggle to burn my boats and close doors. So, I'm calling it quits, knowing I could always drop another episode in the feed down the line if I wanted to. But I hope I find something that matters more, before that ever happens. Thank you for listening! Thank you for listening to Love Your Work. Thank you especially to my Patreon supporters, who can of course feel free to stop supporting, or keep supporting for the bonus content, and to support What's Next. To learn What's Next once I find it, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter at kdv.co. One last time, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Image: Pierrot Lunaire by Paul Klee About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email New bonus content on Patreon! I've been adding lots of new content to Patreon. Join the Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/quit-podcasting/

LifeBlood: We talked about how to love your work regardless of what you do, why we need a greater sense of urgency, how organizations can improve results by focusing on humanity, and the three-step process for making it happen, with Catherine Bell, Founder of the Awakened Company, entrepreneur, speaker and author.       Listen to learn why loving your work is up to you! You can learn more about Catherine at AwakenedCompany.com,  CatherineBell.com, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. Get your copy of The Awakened Company HERE Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood.Live, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook or you'd like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood.Live.  Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood

You've probably heard that, in a blind taste test, even experts can't tell between white and red wine. Even if this were true – and it's not – it wouldn't matter. I was in Rome last month, visiting some Raphael paintings to research my next book, and stopped by the Sistine Chapel. I've spent a good amount of time studying what Michelangelo painted on that ceiling. There are lots of high-resolution images on Wikipedia. But seeing a picture is nothing like the experience of seeing the Sistine Chapel. You've invested thousands of dollars and spent fifteen hours on planes. You're jet-lagged and your feet ache from walking 20,000 steps. You're hot. When you enter, guards order you to keep moving, so you won't block the door. They corral you to the center, and you can finally look up. When you hear wine experts can't tell between white and red wine, you imagine the following: Professional sommeliers are blindfolded, and directed to taste two wines. They then make an informed guess which is white, and which is red. In this imaginary scenario, they get it right half the time – as well as if they had flipped a coin. If it were true wine experts couldn't tell between white and red wine, the implication would be that the experience of tasting wine is separate from other aspects of the wine. That the color, the shape of the glass, the bottle, the label, and even the price of the wine are all insignificant. That they all distract from the only thing that matters: the taste of the wine. There's some psychophysiological trigger that gets pulled when you tilt your head back. Maybe it stimulates your pituitary gland. When you have your head back and are taking in the images on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, you feel vulnerable. (You literally are vulnerable. You can't see what's going on around you. You'd be easy to physically attack.) What you see is overwhelming. As you try to focus your attention on some detail, some other portion of the imagery calls out and redirects your attention. This happens again and again. After a while, your neck needs a rest, and you return your gaze to eye-level. And this is almost as cool as the ceiling: You see other people with their heads back, their eyes wide, mouths agape, hands on hearts, tears in eyes. You hear languages and see faces from all over the world. You realize they all, too, have invested thousands of dollars and spent fifteen hours on planes. They, too, are jet-lagged and hot and have walked 20,000 steps. You can look at pictures of the Sistine Chapel ceiling on the internet. You can experience it in VR. In many ways, this is better than going to the Sistine Chapel. You can take as much time as you want, and look as close as you want. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars and fifteen hours on a plane, take time off work, or even crane back your neck. But seeing the Sistine Chapel ceiling on the internet or even VR is only better than seeing it in person, in the way that a spoonful of granulated sugar when you're starving is better than a hypothetical burger in another iteration of the multiverse. We've seen an explosion of AI capabilities in recent months. That has a lot of people worried about what it means to be a creator. Why do we need humans to write, for example, if ChatGPT can write? The reason ChatGPT's writing is impressive is the same reason there's still a place for things created by humans. Anyone old enough to have been on the internet in the heyday of America Online in the 1990s will remember this: When you were in a chat room, most the conversations were about being in a chat room: How long have you been on the internet? Isn't the internet cool? What other chat rooms do you like? Part of the appeal of the question “ASL?” – Age, Sex, Location? – was marveling over the fact you were chatting in real-time with a stranger several states away. Or maybe you remember when Uber or Lyft first came to your town. For the first year or two, likely every conversation you had with a driver was about how long they had been driving, about how quickly the service had grown in your town, which is better – Uber or Lyft?, or which nearby cities got which services first. The first few months ChatGPT was out, it was seemingly the only thing anyone on the internet talked about. But it wasn't because ChatGPT's writing was amazing. ChatGPT is a bad writer's idea of a good writer. It was because of the story: Wow, my computer is writing! Now that much of the novelty of ChatGPT has worn off, many of us are falling into the Trough of Disillusionment on the Gartner Hype Cycle. We're realizing ChatGPT is like a talking dog: It's impressive the dog can appear to talk, but it's not talking – it's just saying the words it's been taught. ChatGPT is very useful in some situations, but not as many as we had originally hoped. What made us talk about the internet while on the internet, talk about Uber while in Ubers, and talk about ChatGPT while chatting with ChatGPT was the story. Once the story behind the internet or Uber wore off, we started to appreciate them for their own utility. Part of what's cool about seeing the Sistine Chapel ceiling in VR is that – we're seeing it in VR. But even if that weren't impressive, what would still be impressive about the paintings would be more than just that they're amazing paintings. It's incredible to us a human could paint such a massive expanse. We think about the stories and myths of Michelangelo, up on that scaffolding, painting in isolation. Part of our appreciation of the Sistine Chapel ceiling lies outside the ceiling itself. While marveling at it, we can't help but think of Michelangelo's other masterpieces, such as the David or the Pietà. Lloyd Richards spent fourteen years writing Stone Maidens, and had almost no sales for decades. Suddenly, he sold 65,000 copies in a month. He was interviewed on the TODAY show, and got a book deal with a major publisher. How did he do it? His daughter made a TikTok account. The first video showed Lloyd at his desk, and explained what a good dad he was, how hard he had worked on Stone Maidens, and how great it would be if he made some sales. Then the #BookTok community did the rest. Stone Maidens is apparently a good book. But it's no better today than it was all those years it didn't sell. Most the comments on Lloyd's TikTok account – which now has over 400,000 followers – aren't about what a great book Stone Maidens is. They're about how Lloyd seems like such a nice guy, or how excited each commenter is to have contributed to his success. The study that started the myth that wine experts can't taste the difference between white and red wine didn't show that. The participants in the study literally weren't allowed to describe the two wines the same way – they couldn't use the same word for one as the other. It wasn't blindfolded – it was a white wine versus the same wine, dyed red. The study wasn't about taste at all: Participants weren't allowed to taste the wine – they were only allowed to smell. And wine experts? That depends on your definition of “expert”. They were undergraduate students, studying wine. They knew more than most of us, but were far from the top echelon of wine professionals. Most damning for this myth was that the same study casually mentions doing an informal blind test: The success rate of their participants in distinguishing the taste of white versus red wine: 70%. That this myth is false shouldn't detract from the point that even if it were true, it wouldn't matter. What the authors of this study found was not that wine enthusiasts couldn't tell between white and red wine, but that the appearance of a wine as white or red shaped their perceptions of the smell of the wine. Once you bake a cake, you can't turn it back into flour, sugar, butter, and eggs. You can't extract the taste of a wine from the color, the bottle, your mental image of where the grapes were grown and how the wine was made, or even the occasion for which you bought the wine. Something made by an AI can be awesome, either because it's really good at doing what it's supposed to, or because you appreciate it was made by an AI. Something made by a human is often awesome because of the story of the human who made it, and the story you as a human live as you interact with it. If you want to be relevant in the age of AI, learn how to bake your story into the product. Because AI can't bake. Image: Figures on a Beach by Louis Marcoussis About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email New bonus content on Patreon! I've been adding lots of new content to Patreon. Join the Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/ai-cant-bake/

We trust the food we eat, the drinks we drink, and the air we breathe are safe. That in case they're unsafe, someone is working to minimize our exposure, or at least tell us the risks. In The Triumph of Doubt, former head of OSHA David Michaels reveals how companies fight for their rights to sell harmful products, expose workers to health hazards, and pollute the environment. They do it by manufacturing so-called “science.” Most this science is built not upon proving they're not causing harm, but by doing whatever they can to cast doubt. Here, in my own words, is a summary of The Triumph of Doubt: Dark Money and the Science of Deception. Products we use every day cause harm Chances are you've cooked on a pan coated with Teflon. Teflon is one of many polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. When introduced in the 1940s, they were considered safe. We now know they're linked with high cholesterol, poor immune function, cancer, obesity, birth defects, and low fertility. PFAS, it turns out, have such a long half-life, they're called “forever chemicals.” PFAS can now be found in the blood of virtually all residents of the United States, and have been found in unsafe levels worldwide – in rainwater. You've probably heard that, in moderation, alcohol is actually good for you. But even one drink a day leads to higher overall mortality risk. More than one drink, greater risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer. Alcohol is a causal factor in 5% of deaths worldwide – about 3 million a year. 13.5% of deaths between ages 20–39 are alcohol-related. If you're in pain after an injury or surgery, your doctor might prescribe for you an opioid. But the rise in opioid addiction is responsible for the first drop in U.S. life expectancy in more than two decades. It's sent shockwaves throughout society. It's helped launch the epidemics of fentanyl and heroin overdoses, and the number of children in foster care in West Virginia, for example, rose 42% in four years. You might love to watch professional football. But NFL players are nineteen times more likely to develop neurological disorders, and thirty percent could develop Alzheimer's or dementia from taking so many hits. The “product defense” industry sows doubt How have they done it? How have companies been able to manufacture and sell products that cause so much harm, for so long? They do it by defending their products, when the safety of those products are questioned. On the surface, that's not so bad. But besides lying and deliberately deceiving, they abuse society's trust in so-called “science,” and our lack of understanding of how much we risk when we move forward while still in doubt. The tobacco industry is a pioneer of product defense There's an entire industry that helps companies defend their products from regulation: It's called, appropriately, product defense. The tobacco industry is most-known for its product defense. In 1953, John W. Hill of the PR firm Hill & Knowlton convinced the tobacco industry to start – one floor below his office in the Empire State Building – the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC). The TIRC was supposed to do rigorous scientific research to understand the health effects of smoking, but mostly they just attacked existing science, doing what they could to sow doubt. Just a few years earlier, in 1950, a study had found heavy smokers were fifty times as likely as nonsmokers to get lung cancer. With the help of the TIRC, it would take a long time for these health risks to influence public policy. About thirty years later, most states had restricted smoking in some public places such as auditoriums and government buildings. Smoking had proliferated in American culture when cigarettes had been provided in soldiers' rations in WWI. Michaels describes one surgeon who, in 1919, made sure not to miss an autopsy of a man who had died of lung cancer, because it was the chance of a lifetime. He didn't see another case of lung cancer for seventeen years, then saw eight within six months. All eight had started smoking while serving in the war. Today, more than a century after cigarettes were widely introduced, we've finally seen a massive reduction in smoking in the U.S. We can fly on planes and go to restaurants and even bars, without being exposed to secondhand smoke. The sugar industry has been at it even longer Predating the product defense efforts of the tobacco industry is actually the sugar industry. The Sugar Research Foundation was started in 1943. Scientific evidence first linked sugar with heart disease in the 1950s. In 1967, as Dr. Robert Lustig told us, Harvard scientists published in the New England Journal of Medicine an article blaming fat rather than sugar for heart disease. Fifty years later UCSF researchers discovered the scientists had been funded by the Sugar Research Foundation – which they hadn't disclosed. Even more misleadingly, they had disclosed funding that actually made them look more impartial – from the dairy industry. Companies and industries set up “astroturfing” organizations The Sugar Research Foundation and the Tobacco Industry Research Committee are are early examples of “astroturfing” organizations. This tactic of the product defense industry involves setting up organizations with innocent- or even charitable-sounding names, then doing low-quality research to defend a company or industry's interests. The American Council for Science and Health has published articles opposing regulation of mercury emissions, and attacked science finding harm in consumption of sugar and alcohol. When the National Football League was first looking into the effects of playing their sport, they formed the MTBI. the “M” in MTBI gave away their stance: TBI stands for Traumatic Brain Injuries, and this committee formed for finding the effects of brain injuries was called the Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries committee. The alcohol industry set up the Alcoholic Beverage Medical Research Foundation. The first board of directors included Peter Stroh, William K. Coors, and August A. Busch III. Their first president, Thomas B. Turner, was former dean of Johns Hopkins University Medical School, a tie of which they made good use in promoting their agenda – more on that in a bit. The American Pain Foundation ran campaigns to make pain medication more widely available for veterans, running ads reminding patients of their “right” to pain treatment. Astroturfing organizations are funded by “Dark Money” Astroturfing organizations are funded by so-called “Dark Money”. In other words, they do whatever they can to hide where their funding comes from, lest their biases become obvious. The American Council for Science and Health claims much of their funding comes from private foundations, but investigative reports have found 58% of it coming straight from industry, and that many of those private foundations have ties to corporations. Leaked documents show a huge list of corporate donors including McDonald's, 3M, and Coca-Cola. The NFL's MTBI committee's papers included a statement saying, “none of the Committee members has a financial or business relationship posing a conflict of interest.” Yet the committee consisted entirely of people on the NFL's payroll: team physicians, athletic trainers, and equipment managers. Documents collected by the New York Times revealed that administrators at the The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism wanted to do a randomized clinical trial on the effects of alcohol. To fund the study, they went to industry, calling it “a unique opportunity to show that moderate alcohol consumption is safe.” They were going into the study with the conclusions already in mind, saying, “one of the important findings will be showing that moderate drinking is safe.” Several companies pledged nearly $68 million toward the $100 million budget. As part of the National Institutes of Health – a federal organization – the NIAAA was pitching this as a chance for the alcohol industry to use a government-funded study to prove their product was safe. Money directly from alcohol manufacturers was to be routed through the NIH Foundation, since it's illegal for private companies to fund government studies. When the Senate Finance Committee began investigating ties between the American Pain Foundation and pharmaceutical companies, the APF quickly dissolved, apparently knowing what would be found otherwise. Besides private foundations, straight-up lying, and routing money through a federal foundation, another way of keeping money “dark” is by taking advantage of attorney-client privilege. By having the law firm pay accomplices, even if there's a lawsuit, the documents are private. Using connections and flawed science to manufacture pseudo-events When corporations do get studies published about the risks of using their products, they're often low-quality studies. If they don't deliberately conceal their findings, they often use their connections to create what are essentially pseudo-events to prop up their flawed conclusions. Internal documents from DuPont show they knew the PFAS in Teflon was a problem. In 1970, they found it in their factory worker's blood. In 1981, 3M told them it caused birth defects in rats, and DuPont's own workers' children had birth defects at a high rate. In 1991, DuPont set an internal safety limit of 1 ppb. Meanwhile, they found a local water district had three times that amount. In 2002, they set up a so-called “independent” panel in West Virginia, and set a safe limit at 150 times their own internal safety limit – so they'd have less-strict standards for polluting their community's drinking water. In 2016, the Environmental Protection Agency set a safe limit of 70 ppt (trillion!) – less than one-one-hundredth DuPont's previous internal safety limit. The NFL did very little for many years to ask serious questions about the long-term effects on their players. When players Junior Seau and Dave Duerson committed suicide, they both shot themselves in the chest instead of the head, so their brain tissue could be studied after their deaths. The MTBI argued that players were clearly fine if they returned to play shortly after concussions. They abused the concept of survivorship bias, arguing that those who didn't drop out of football in college or high school and made it to the pros were more resistant to brain injury. The editor of the journal, Neurosurgery, which published MTBI's papers, was a medical consultant to the New York Giants, and later to the commissioner's office – a clear conflict of interest. I mentioned earlier the first president of the alcohol industry's ABMRF was a former dean of Johns Hopkins. When ABMRF published a study, the Johns Hopkins press office would issue a press-release, which would instantly make the study seem more credible. One of the studies that has proliferated throughout media and culture, finding that moderate alcohol use is actually good for you, was a door-to-door survey – a very flawed methodology. Non-drinkers in a study are likely to include people who don't drink because they're already sick, or are former abusers of alcohol. One of the main “papers” the pharma industry used to defend their positions that opioids had a low risk of addiction was, from 1980, a five-sentence letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. It's a letter, not a paper – there was no peer review. It has been cited hundreds of times in medical literature – often by researchers with ties to opioid manufacturers. TIME magazine unfortunately called it a “landmark study.” (This is a great example of a pseudo-event: the proliferation of flawed information throughout media made it accepted as true.) The double-standard in access to study data The papers that do get published by the product-defense industry are usually not original studies. They're often reanalysis of existing data. Industry takes advantage of the Shelby Amendment, which the tobacco industry promoted under the guise of concern over pollution. The Shelby Amendment requires federally-funded researchers to share any data they collect. In this way, industry can reanalyze the data in ways that arrive at any conclusion they want. So, “re-analysis” has its own cottage industry within product defense. When industry does conduct original studies, they don't have to share their data, and so it isn't subject to the same scrutiny. Manufacturing doubt in other industries The Triumph of Doubt goes on and on with examples of deception and collusion from various industries. Some other highlights: Volkswagen installed a device in their diesel cars to detect when their emissions were being tested. The device would activate, causing the car to pollute forty times less, only when being tested. Johnson & Johnson knew as early as 1971 their baby powder was contaminated with asbestiform particles – asbestos-like particles that cause cancer – but pressured scientists to not report them. Monsanto publishes many studies in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, which Michaels calls “a known haven for science produced by corporate consultants.” Many authors have done work for Monsanto, don't disclose their conflicts of interest, and have denied Monsanto had reviewed their papers – later litigation showed they had. Should chemicals be innocent until proven guilty? There's a concept called the precautionary principle. It states that when we know little about what the consequences of an action will be, we should err on the side of caution. If a new chemical is developed, we should wait before we let it get into our food and water. If a new technology is invented, we should wait until we introduce it to society. In criminal courts, a defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We like this, because we hate the idea of someone being thrown in jail despite being innocent. And we can physically remove someone dangerous from society and more or less stop them from continuing to harm others. Criminal harm can be halted, chemical harm cannot But this is also our policy for chemicals, drugs, and potentially dangerous activities. We have an extremely high bar for deciding something is harmful enough we should reduce our exposure to it. OSHA – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – has exposure limits for only 500 of the many thousands of chemicals used in commerce. Because the regulatory process is so onerous, Michaels says, in the half-century OSHA has been around, they've updated only twenty-seven of those 500. Yet, as with PFAS, even after we start reducing our exposure, the effects of harmful substances keep going. As one Stockholm University scientist has said about PFAS in rainwater, “We just have to wait...decades to centuries.” And, unlike a criminal court, where the only people motivated to keep from punishing a defendant are the defendant's lawyers and family members, huge networks of people stand to profit from harmful products – executives, shareholders, and entire industries have the incentives to conspire and collude. Balancing harm with innovation On the other hand, the precautionary principle can slow or halt innovation. Many products that may be harmful may also be useful. Teflon and other PFAS have a huge number of applications. Supposedly it's been replaced by other chemicals in cookware – though they're probably similar (taking advantage of loopholes in the slow regulatory process). Supposedly exposure potential from cooking is low – but you know now how hard it is to “trust the science.” As horrifying as some of these abuses of science are, you can't be horrified by them without at least some sympathy for those who didn't want to get the COVID vaccine: If a product is immediately harmful to everyone who takes it, that's easy to prove. But could it harm some people in the long term? It's nearly impossible to be sure. There's more money and power behind sowing reasonable doubt than behind exposing sources of harm. Meanwhile, it's easy to sow and abuse the existence of doubt, and that's why it's the main tactic used in product defense. There's your summary of The Triumph of Doubt If you liked this summary, you'll probably like The Triumph of Doubt. As a career regulator, Michaels comes off as somewhat biased, clearly partisan at times, a little shrill with his use of dramatic terms such as “Big Tobacco” and “Big Sugar.” Get ready for lots of alphabet soup, as you try to keep track of the myriad agencies and foundations identified by acronyms. Because of media's key role in the doubt-sowing Michaels writes about, I'll be adding this as an honorable mention on my best media books list. About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email New bonus content on Patreon! I've been adding lots of new content to Patreon. Join the Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/triumph-of-doubt/

Piyush Patel, the founder of Dream Big and the best-selling business author of Lead Your Tribe, Love Your Work. Patel has become an innovator in corporate culture as he grew his former company, Digital-Tutors, into a leader throughout the world of online training. Patel has worked with industry leaders including Pixar, Apple, Ford and NASA, and has been featured in Inc., Forbes, Fast Company, TechCrunch and Entrepreneur Magazine.  After selling Digital-Tutors, Patel continues to advise other companies and is an angel investor, helping start-up businesses make their mark. Patel spends his time helping companies grow their revenue by leveraging their greatest asset - their employees. Episode details are on the podcast landing page: https://www.fourstarleader.com/podcast.html

According to philosopher Isaiah Berlin, people think in one of two different ways: They're either hedgehogs, or foxes. If you think like a hedgehog, you'll be more successful as a communicator. If you think like a fox, you'll be more accurate. Isaiah Berlin coined the hedgehog/fox dichotomy (via Archilochus) In Isaiah Berlin's 1953 essay, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” he quotes the ancient Greek poet, Archilochus: The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one thing. Berlin describes this as “one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general.” How are “hedgehogs” and “foxes” different? According to Berlin, hedgehogs relate everything to a single central vision. Foxes pursue many ends, often unrelated or even contradictory. If you're a hedgehog, you explain the world through a focused belief or area of expertise. Maybe you're a chemist, and you see everything as chemical reactions. Maybe you're highly religious, and everything is “God's will.” If you're a fox, you explain the world through a variety of lenses. You may try on conflicting beliefs for size, or use your knowledge in a wide variety of fields to understand the world. You explain things as From this perspective, X. But on the other hand, Y. It's also worth considering Z. The seminal hedgehog/fox essay is actually about Leo Tolstoy Even though this dichotomy Berlin presented has spread far and wide, his essay is mostly about Leo Tolstoy, and the tension between his fox-like tendencies and hedgehog-like aspirations. In Tolstoy's War and Peace, he writes: In historic events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of history and predestined from eternity. In War and Peace, Tolstoy presents characters who act as if they have control over the events of history. In Tolstoy's view, the events that make history are too complex to be controlled. Extending this theory outside historical events, Tolstoy also writes: When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or because the boy standing below wants to eat it? Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in which all vital organic and elemental events occur. Is Tolstoy a fox, or a hedgehog? He acknowledges the complexity with which various events are linked – which is very fox-like. But he also seems convinced these events are so integrated with one another that nothing can change them. They're “predetermined” – a “coincidence of conditions.” A true hedgehog might have a simple explanation, such as that gravity caused the apple to fall. Tolstoy loved concrete facts and causes, such as the pull of gravity, yet still yearned to find some universal law that could be used to predict the future. According to Berlin: It is not merely that the fox knows many things. The fox accepts that he can only know many things and that the unity of reality must escape his grasp. And this was Tolstoy's downfall. Early in his life, he presented profound insights about the world through novels such as War and Peace and Anna Karenina. That was very fox-like. Later in his life, he struggled to condense his deep knowledge about the world and human behavior into overarching theories about moral and ethical issues. As Berlin once wrote to a friend, Tolstoy was “a fox who terribly believed in hedgehogs and wished to vivisect himself into one.” Other hedgehogs and foxes in Berlin's essay Other thinkers Berlin classifies as foxes include Aristotle, Goethe, and Shakespeare. Other thinkers Berlin classifies as hedgehogs include Dante, Dostoevsky, and Plato. What does the hedgehog/fox dichotomy have to do with the animals? What does knowing many things have to do with actual foxes? What does knowing one big thing have to do with actual hedgehogs? A fox is nimble and clever. It can run fast, climb trees, dig holes, swim across rivers, stalk prey, or hide from predators. A hedgehog mostly relies upon its ability to roll into a ball and ward off intruders. Foxes tell the future, hedgehogs get credit What are the consequences of being a fox or a hedgehog? According to Phil Tetlock, foxes are better at telling the future, while hedgehogs get more credit for telling the future. In Tetlock's 2005 book, Expert Political Judgement, he shared his findings from forecasting tournaments he held in the 1980s and 90s. Experts made 30,000 predictions about political events such as wars, economic growth, and election results. Then Tetlock tracked the performances of those predictions. What he found led to the U.S. intelligence community holding forecasting tournaments, tracking more than one million forecasts. Tetlock's own Good Judgement Project won the forecasting tournament, outperforming even intelligence analysts with access to classified data. Better a fox than an expert These forecasting tournaments have shown that whether someone can make accurate predictions about the future doesn't depend upon their field of expertise, their status within the field, their political affiliation, or philosophical beliefs. It doesn't matter if you're a political scientist, a journalist, a historian, or have experience implementing policies. As the intelligence community's forecasting tournaments have shown, it doesn't even matter if you have access to classified information. What matters is your style of reasoning: Foxes make more accurate predictions than hedgehogs. Across the board, experts were barely better than chance at predicting what would or wouldn't happen. Will a new tax plan spur or slow the economy? Will the Cold War end? Will Iran run a nuclear test? Generally, it didn't matter if they were an economist, an expert on the Soviet Union, or a political scientist. That didn't guarantee they'd be better than chance at predicting what would happen. What did matter is whether they thought like a fox. Foxes are: deductive, open-minded, less-biased Foxes are skeptical of grand schemes – the sort of “theories of everything” Tolstoy had hoped to construct. They didn't see predicting events as a top-down, deductive process. They saw it as a bottom-up, inductive process – stitching together diverse and conflicting sources of information. Foxes were curious and open-minded. They didn't go with the tribe. A liberal fox would be more open to thinking the Cold War could have gone on longer with a second Carter administration. A conservative fox would be more open to believing the Cold War could have ended just as quickly under Carter as it did under Reagan. Foxes were less prone to hindsight bias – less likely to remember their inaccurate predictions as accurate. They were less prone to the bias of cognitive conservatism – maintaining their beliefs after making an inaccurate prediction. As one fox said: Whenever I start to feel certain I am right... a little voice inside tells me to start worrying. —A “fox” Hedgehogs are: deductive, close-minded, more-biased (yet more successful) As for inaccurate predictions, one simple test tracked with whether an expert made accurate predictions: a Google search. If an expert was more famous – as evinced by having more results show up on Google when searching their name – they tended to be less accurate. Think about the talking-head people that get called onto MSNBC or Fox News (pun, albeit inaccurate, not intended) to make quick comments on the economy, wars, and elections – those people. Experts who made more media appearances, and got more gigs consulting with governments and businesses, were actually less accurate at making predictions than their colleagues who were toiling in obscurity. And these experts who were more successful – in terms of media appearances and consulting gigs – also tended to be hedgehogs. Hedgehogs see making predictions as a top-down deductive process. They're more likely to make sweeping generalizations. They take the “one big thing” they know – say, being an expert on the Soviet Union – and view everything through that lens. Even if it's to explain something in other domains. Hedgehogs are more-biased about the world, and about themselves. They were more likely than foxes to remember inaccurate predictions they had made, as accurate. They were more likely to remember as inaccurate, predictions their opponents made that were accurate. Rather than change their beliefs, when presented with challenging evidence hedgehog's beliefs got stronger. Are hedgehogs playing a different game? It's tempting to take that and run with it: The close-minded hedgehogs of the world are inaccurate. Success doesn't track with skill. Tetlock is careful to caution that hedgehogs aren't always worse than foxes at telling the future. Also, there are good reasons to be overconfident in predictions. As one hedgehog political pundit wrote to Tetlock: You play a publish-or-perish game run by the rules of social science.... You are under the misapprehension that I play the same game. I don't. I fight to preserve my reputation in a cutthroat adversarial culture. I woo dumb-ass reporters who want glib sound bites. —“Hedgehog” political pundit A hedgehog has a lot to gain from making bold predictions and being right, and nobody holds them accountable when they're wrong. But according to Tetlock, nothing in the data indicates hedgehogs and foxes are equally good forecasters who merely have different tastes for under- and over-prediction. As Tetlock says: Quantitative and qualitative methods converge on a common conclusion: foxes have better judgement than hedgehogs. —Phil Tetlock, Expert Political Judgement Hedgehogs may make better leaders As bad as hedgehogs look now, there are some real benefits to hedgehogs. They're more-focused. They don't get as distracted when a situation is ambiguous. So, hedgehogs are more decisive. They're harder to manipulate in a negotiation, and more willing to make controversial decisions that could make enemies. And that confidence can help them lead others. Overall, hedgehogs are better at getting their messages heard. Given the mechanics of media today, that means the messages we hear from either side of the political spectrum are those of the hedgehogs. Hedgehog thinking makes better sound bites, satisfies the human desire for clarity and certainty, and is easier for algorithms to categorize and distribute. The medium is the message, and nuance is cut out of the messages by the characteristics of the mediums. Which increases polarization. But, there is hope for the foxes. While the media landscape is still dominated by hedgehog messages that work as social media clips, there are more channels with more room for intellectually-honest discourse: blogs, podcasts, and books. And if many a ChatGPT conversation is any indication, the algorithms may get more sophisticated and remind us, “it's important to consider....” Hedgehogs, be foxes! And foxes, hedgehogs. If you're a hedgehog, you're lucky: What you have to say has a better chance of being heard. But it will have a better chance of being correct if you think like a fox once in a while: consider different angles, and assume you're wrong. If you're a fox, you have your work cut out for you: You may have important – and accurate – things to say, but they have less a chance of being heard. Your message will travel farther if you think like a hedgehog once in a while: assume you're right, cut out the asides, and say it with confidence. Image: Fox in the Reeds by Ohara Koson About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email New bonus content on Patreon! I've been adding lots of new content to Patreon. Join the Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/hedgehogs-foxes/

Many creators and aspiring creators struggle not because they don't have enough ideas, but because they have too many. Their situations, in summary, are “Too many ideas, must pick one.” Embedded in this belief are assumptions that, if challenged, can help you feel as if you have just enough ideas. In my recent AMA, I got a question I'm asked about creativity, probably more than any other: How can you pick a creative project when you have too many ideas? I've experienced, “too many ideas, must pick one,” many times. I still often do. I of course answered this question in the AMA, but here I'll answer more in-depth. This is the thought process I guide myself through when I'm in the land of “too many ideas, must pick one.” There are three assumptions embedded in, “too many ideas, must pick one.” All these ideas are equally likely to succeed. I'm equally capable of succeeding at each of these ideas. I can't work on multiple ideas at once. Let's look at each of those. Assumption 1: “All these ideas are equally likely to succeed” If you feel you have too many ideas, you must think they're equally likely to succeed, which is the first assumption. That might not sound correct at first, but think about it. If you were starving, and only allowed to eat one of various sandwiches, you would probably pick the biggest and most calorie-rich. You might not be able to tell so easily which is the biggest and most calorie-rich sandwich. In fact, there may be other factors that play into your decision. Maybe the avocado and pork belly sandwich is the most calorie-rich, but you're craving roasted duck in this moment, and there happens to be a roasted-duck sandwich amongst the selections. While satisfying your hunger is one objective of choosing a sandwich, there are other goals in mind, such as satisfying cravings, which may compete with one another. If you have a hard time deciding amongst all the sandwiches, you expect eating one sandwich to be equally likely to succeed as eating any of the others. As with projects, “success” may come in many forms. We'll get to that in a bit. Assumption 2: “I'm equally capable of succeeding at each of these ideas” If you feel you have too many ideas, you must think you're equally capable of succeeding at each of these ideas, which is the second assumption. If assumption one weren't correct, and you didn't feel each idea were equally likely to succeed, you would probably pick the one most likely to succeed. The avocado and pork belly sandwich would clearly be more filling than peanut butter and jelly. Now, if you weren't equally capable of eating each of the sandwiches, that would make your decision easier. If you're choosing between avocado and pork belly and peanut butter and jelly, but you're a strict vegetarian, the decision is easy. Same if you're not a vegetarian, but allergic to peanuts. But since you feel each idea is equally likely to succeed, and you feel you're equally capable of succeeding at all of them, you feel you have too many ideas. As with projects, you may have little information about your capability of succeeding, which is why, for all you know, your capability to succeed is equal across all ideas. We'll untangle that later. Assumption 3: “I can't work on multiple ideas at once” If you feel you have “too many ideas,” you feel they're equally likely to succeed and you're equally capable of succeeding at each of them. If you feel you “must pick one,” you feel you can't work on multiple ideas at once, which is the third assumption. In our sandwich scenario, you've been told you have to pick one sandwich. If there's no one else around and the sandwiches will go to waste otherwise, you might as well taste all the sandwiches, then pick one. Or eat a little of each, until you're full. But, in that case, you wouldn't finish any of the sandwiches. Challenging the assumptions With all three of these assumptions, you're in a deadlock. Your ideas are equally likely to succeed, you're equally capable of succeeding at each, and you must pick one. Well, how can you pick one if they're all equally appealing ideas? There are five questions that can help you challenge these assumptions: What is success? What is my risk profile? What am I good at? What's necessary to succeed? What pain do I pick? Let's look at each of these. Question 1: “What is success?” Success can come in many forms. Maybe you want to make the most money possible. Maybe you want the most freedom possible. Maybe you want to do what you're most passionate about. You may feel each idea is equally likely to succeed, because each idea is likely to get a different kind of success. One sandwich will fill you up, another will taste great, still another seems like the healthy choice. If you have a clearer picture of what forms of success are more important to you than others, your many ideas will no longer be “equally likely to succeed.” Question 2: “What is my risk profile?” Not only can success come in many forms, it can come with various risk profiles. One idea may have a big chance of bringing you mild success. Another idea may have a small chance of bringing you wild success. The overall expected value of each idea may be the same, but the risk profiles may be very different. Some are sure bets, some are wildcards. There are also various things you may risk in pursuing an idea. Mostly, what I call “TOM” – Time, Optionality, and Money. If you are young, healthy, and with no commitments, you have a lot of Optionality, but you might not have much Money. Making enough Money to live may take up much of your day-to-day Time. You can try a crazy idea, so long as it doesn't take up too much Time and Money. If you fail, you'll still have plenty of Optionality. Or, you might want to make some changes that reduce your Optionality, but free up your Time. For example, I live in South America, which limits my options for anything requiring physical presence, but it has reduced my need for Money, thus freeing up my Time. On the other hand, you may be in your sixties, retired after a successful career. You have plenty of Money and Time, but less Optionality than when you were in your twenties. You can only take on so many big projects in the rest of your life, and you may not have the energy you used to. But, you may feel you have nothing to lose by trying a wild idea. If you have a clearer picture of what your risk profile is, not all your ideas will seem “equally likely to succeed.” Question 3: “What am I good at?” Even if all your ideas seem equally likely to fit your definition of success and fit your risk profile, you're probably better at some things than others. If you have a clear picture of what you're good at, the assumption that you're “equally capable of succeeding at each of these ideas” will no longer make sense. It may be that you don't know what you're good at, likely because you don't feel you have information to tell you what you're good at. You probably have more information available than you think. Think about times in the past when someone was impressed with or complimented you on something you did, which came to you naturally. Or, ask your friends what they think you're good at. If you really don't have information on what you're good at, relative to your many ideas, then the third assumption, “I can't work on multiple ideas at once,” no longer makes sense. In this case, you can and should work on multiple ideas, to get an idea what you're good at. If you feel your ideas are too big to work on more than one, scale them back into smaller ideas. Don't fall for “The Fortress Fallacy,” like I talked about in The Heart to Start. Instead of building a fortress, try building a cottage. It's important to remember that what you're good at is not necessarily what you're best at, nor what you most enjoy. This will make more sense as we answer the last two questions that challenge the three assumptions. Question 4: “What's necessary to succeed?” In reality, you probably don't have a clear picture of how likely all your ideas are to succeed, nor how capable you are of succeeding at each. You have to ask of each, What's necessary to succeed? What's necessary to succeed at an idea is usually very different from what attracts you to the idea in the first place. You may love to play music. You may even love to play music in front of an audience. But will you love driving around the country, sleeping in a van, lugging gear, and dealing with curmudgeonly AV techs at each venue? You may love the idea of signing books for adoring fans at the local Barnes & Noble. But will you love sitting in a room by yourself, writing several hours a day? It's worth noting that what most people in a domain think is necessary to succeed may not be. Lots can change in the industry, and changes in the mechanics of media can open up opportunities to succeed without doing some things that were once necessary. For example, thanks to self-publishing, I don't have to write boring book proposals or get countless rejection letters to succeed as an author. Question 5: “What pain do I pick?” You may be really good at what's necessary to succeed at an idea that has a good chance of meeting your definition of success. But there may be some things necessary to succeed that you don't enjoy. That doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue the idea. No matter what you do, there will be some parts of it you aren't crazy about – especially at first. When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was draw. But making a living at drawing as an adult doesn't fit my risk profile, and what's necessary to succeed would interfere with parts of my definition of success: I can't travel if I have to lug around supplies and artwork, and if I do all my work on a computer, then I'm chained to a computer. I didn't used to like to write, but I found out I'm reasonably good at it. Forcing myself to write each morning was painful at first, but through building a writing habit, it's transformed into a strangely enjoyable sort of pain. Additionally, there are parts of making a living writing that I don't like, or at least didn't at first. My first one-star review shook me for days, but now I can brush them off relatively quickly. Same with angry emails from readers. I used to really hate bookkeeping, but now that I write monthly income reports, I actually look forward to tallying up my earnings. Do you really “have too many ideas,” and must you “pick one”? After all this, you may realize you don't have “too many ideas,” and you don't really have to “pick one.” If you don't feel you have enough information to form a clear picture of the odds of success and your capability of success, even after asking these five questions, then you need more information. You get more information not by choosing one idea, but by pursuing many. You'll more clearly see what has a chance of succeeding and what you're capable of succeeding at, and choosing one – or several – will become easy. Image: Stage Landscape by Paul Klee About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email New bonus content on Patreon! I've been adding lots of new content to Patreon. Join the Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/too-many-ideas/

Today I have a special episode for you. If you missed last month's AMA/Livestream, I'm delivering it right to your ears. In this AMA, I answered questions about: What's the best self-publishing platform, and how did I publish 100-Word Writing Habit, non standard-sized, outside of Amazon? Buenos Aires versus Medellín, which is better for mind management? How to pick a creative project when you have too many ideas? What's surprised me most in the past two years? What task management software do I use for mind management? How to focus on one project when you have multiple curiosities? How to keep from falling down a research rabbit-hole? How many half-formed ideas do I have captured somewhere? There are some parts where I refer to visuals, for the best experience, watch on YouTube. About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email New bonus content on Patreon! I've been adding lots of new content to Patreon. Join the Patreon »       Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/four-sources-of-shiny-object-syndrome/

Today's guest is Stefan Falk. Stefan is an internationally recognized executive coach and the author of Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before. Stefan is also a human performance expert for top business executives, special ops in the armed forces, and elite athletes, Falk has spent more than thirty years helping thousands of individuals, teams, and organizations become intrinsically motivated. He has held C-suite roles at several global companies, and has been responsible for driving corporate transformations valued in excess of two billion dollars. His leadership and human performance techniques have been developed in continuous cooperation with leading scientists in fields including neuroscience, behavioral science, and psychology.    Today we discuss: what intrinsic motivation is and why it's so important, how to get excited about a goal you want to pursue, why you must love what you do professionally, how to avoid the pain of failure, how to effectively navigate uncertainty and negativity, why achieving daily goals is so valuable, how to know when it's time to quit a job and much more. What to Listen For: 00:00 Intro 00:30 What is intrinsic motivation? 01:38 How to get a excited about a goal you are pursuing 06:45 Use time to your advantage  08:20 Staying intrinsically motivated while working out 10:41 Master the baby steps 14:30 Losing motivation is normal 19:04 Navigating uncertainty 22:55 Regulating your nervous system 25:06 Can helping others become problematic? 27:41 Dealing with failure  32:26 Should you love your job? 36:31 Is it time to quit your job? 39:10 The only time failure is truly painful 41:44 Use a calendar for negativity  46:33 Three things you should achieve daily  Episode Resources: Stefan | Website     ⚠ WELLNESS DISCLAIMER ⚠ Please be advised; the topics related to mental health in my content are for informational, discussion, and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your mental health professional or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding your current condition. Never disregard professional advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard from your favorite creator, on social media, or shared within content you've consumed. If you are in crisis or you think you may have an emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. If you do not have a health professional who is able to assist you, use these resources to find help: Emergency Medical Services—911 If the situation is potentially life-threatening, get immediate emergency assistance by calling 911, available 24 hours a day. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org.  SAMHSA addiction and mental health treatment Referral Helpline, 1-877-SAMHSA7 (1-877-726-4727) and https://www.samhsa.gov and https://www.samhsa.gov  

Shiny object syndrome can be evidence of a problem, or it can be a normal part of the creative process. If you can identify the four sources of shiny object syndrome, you can tell the difference between being lost, or simply exploring. Three first three sources are problems The first three of the four sources of shiny object syndrome hold you back from finishing projects. They are: ambition, perfectionism, and distraction. Ambitious shiny object syndrome is starting projects that far outpace your abilities and resources. Perfectionistic shiny object syndrome is endlessly tweaking a project that could otherwise be called done. Distracted shiny object syndrome is juggling so many projects, you finish none. Before we get to the fourth source, a bit more about these three most dangerous sources. Ambitious shiny object syndrome You probably have a friend with ambitious shiny object syndrome. One day they proclaimed they were writing an epic fantasy novel. A few months later, they had dropped that and had a new plan: a feature film. A few months after that, they were starting a health-tech startup. All the while, you were shaking your head, because your friend clearly didn't have the experience or resources to take on these projects. They were writing the epic fantasy novel, yet had never written a short story. They were working on the feature film, yet had never made a short film. They were working on the health-tech startup, yet had no experience in technology, the health industry, nor raising funding. Delusional optimism can be an asset. Maybe your friend will get lucky, and one of these projects will click. They're more likely to get struck by lightning. Instead, you know what's coming when you ask how the latest project is going. They've abandoned that, and are taking on something new. Conveniently, your friend always has a great excuse for why. They find a scapegoat: You can't get a million dollars for a feature-film without a rich uncle. They claim to have never been serious about it in the first place: Oh, that silly book? I was just dabbling. More likely, they shift the conversation to another subject: Oh my god, did you see the article about the celebrity! If they had made a public prediction about their potential success in the project, you could hold them accountable. Yet they didn't, so you have to take their word for it. Interestingly, you'll never hear, That was foolish taking on that – I didn't know what I was doing! Perfectionistic shiny object syndrome Or maybe you have a friend with perfectionistic shiny object syndrome. They endlessly tweak a project that could otherwise be called done. The “shiny objects” in this case aren't other projects, but rather details within one project. Your perfectionist friend has one project they've been clinging to for years. Their novel has been through eleven revisions. It started as a memoir, but after becoming an urban-fantasy novel, it's now a thriller. They had a great-looking cover for each of these. But they've changed some details about the plot since the latest world-building workshop they traveled to attend, and they want to try a different cover designer. But before they spend money on another cover, they want to decide whether they're going to publish in places besides Amazon, because that affects the design specs. So they're taking a cohort-based course so they can ask a successful author what she thinks. There's nothing you could tell your friend to get them to ship this project. By now, they could be on their third book, having learned lessons from the previous two. Instead, they've convinced themself it has to be perfect. Distracted shiny object syndrome Or maybe you have a friend with distracted shiny object syndrome. They're taking on projects they could conceivably complete, given their skills and resources. They don't seem to suffer from perfectionism, but you can't tell, because none of their projects get anywhere near the finish line. Instead, once they make a little progress on one project, they switch to another, then another. Once their screenplay is completed for their short film, they start recording demos for their album. Once they've recorded demos for their album, they write their memoir. Once they've finished a draft of their memoir, they're writing a business plan for a non-profit. This “friend” may be you, and it certainly has been me. Shiny object syndrome is difficult to cure, because these sources are often mixed together. You may take on projects that are too ambitious, but also be distracted by the many other projects you're taking on. The perfectionism that is keeping you from shipping one project, may divert you to one overly-ambitious project, or a mixture of smaller projects. The fourth source is only natural Yet there is a fourth source of shiny object syndrome that doesn't have to keep you from finishing projects: Natural shiny object syndrome. Natural shiny object syndrome is the diversions and dead-ends that are a natural part of the creative process. When you're being creative and innovative, by definition, you are going to try some things that don't work, or need to explore new areas with which you aren't familiar. [Projects are like halfpipes.] It's fun and easy to skate into a halfpipe – to start a project. But once you're trying to skate out of the halfpipe, you've run out of momentum. It's more fun and easy to skate into a new halfpipe – to start a new project, or tweak a new aspect of the existing project. But in the natural course of being creative and innovative, you'll also start new halfpipes. When Leonardo da Vinci developed his painting style, he skated into many halfpipes. To accurately depict light and shade in his paintings, he systematically studied the way light traveled through the atmosphere, and interacted with objects. This led him into other fields, such as optics, fluid dynamics, and geometry. Leonardo da Vinci's natural shiny object syndrome In fact, one of Leonardo's most pre-eminent observations in astronomy greatly informed his painting style. He correctly theorized that the light area on the dark side of the moon was created by light reflecting from the sun, off the earth. By understanding how light worked, he was able to make paintings with an unprecedented sense of realism. The “earthshine” caused by light reflecting from the earth is the same phenomenon that causes a lighter area within the shadow on the underside of the chin of the Mona Lisa. That's caused by light being reflected off her upper chest. Okay, so Leonardo had the other sources, too Leonardo of course was an infamous procrastinator. In addition to the natural shiny object syndrome he experienced, he also had shiny object syndrome from the rest of the four sources. He had ambitious shiny object syndrome, such as when, over the course of decades, he failed twice to cast in bronze the largest-ever horse statue. He had perfectionistic shiny object syndrome, such as the fact that he never delivered the Mona Lisa to his client. He instead carried it around fifteen years, until he died, and well after it could have easily been called done. He had distracted shiny object syndrome, which caused him to run around Italy, trying to please his clients in art, architecture, and engineering. Don't fight the fourth source You can do something about most sources of shiny object syndrome. If you have ambitious shiny object syndrome, take on smaller projects. You can use the surround and conquer technique. If you have perfectionistic shiny object syndrome, simply ship your project. Recognize the Finisher's Paradox. Like Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” If you have distracted shiny object syndrome, pick a project, and finish it. Build your shipping skills as you work your way up to larger projects. But even if you clear those sources away, you'll still have to live with natural shiny object syndrome. To connect ideas from disparate fields, you need to wander into them. To find out what works, you have to try some things that won't. Image: Main path and byways, by Paul Klee About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »       Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/four-sources-of-shiny-object-syndrome/

Writing a tweet is a microcosm of writing a book. If you think deeply and carefully about every word in a tweet, and what the tweet as a whole communicates, you can extend those skills to all your writing. In this article, I'll break down how to think about every word in a tweet, nearly tripling its performance. Step 1: The first-impression tweet The tweet we'll work on came to me like most tweets, a thought that popped into my head. It was this: Ironically, strong opinions are the ones that are easily argued against. I could have just tweeted that. But I've made a habit of instead writing down my first-impression tweets in a scratch file, and later working on them before publishing. Here's what my thought process looks like. As a tweet, this phrase is a little wordy, and weak. It starts somewhat nonsensically with an adverb: “Ironically.” What action is being performed ironically? Step 2: Improving word economy There are also some extra words that could be cut out. Do we have to refer to “strong opinions” again, by using the word “ones”? The word “that” is often not necessary, and it doesn't seem necessary here. If we cut out all those extra words, we end up with: Strong opinions are easily argued against. Step 3: Adding back in meaning That's shorter, more elegant, and economic. But now it's weaker. It's a simple statement of fact, without presenting what's remarkable about that fact, or how anyone should feel about it. At least when it said, “ironically,” it pointed out the irony that strong opinions are those that are easily argued against. Also, since I've removed the second reference to “strong opinions” by removing the word “ones,” the statement no longer pits “strong opinions” against other types of opinions. Before, I was implying the existence of opinions that weren't strong, and describing what was different about opinions that were. Our shortened statement is also in the passive voice, which makes it weaker. “Strong opinions are easily argued against,” by whom? Who is doing the arguing? It would be more direct to say: It's easier to argue against strong opinions. But still, this statement doesn't pit strong opinions against other types of opinions. Fixing that, we could instead say: Of all opinions, strong ones are easiest to argue against. Finally, I think we at least have an improvement over the original, “Ironically, strong opinions are the ones that are easily argued against.” It's more direct, and pits strong opinions against opinions at-large. It also has the important quality, in tweet format, of delivering the most surprising – or ironic – thing about the statement at the end. There's a bit of misdirection in this statement. We've addressed all opinions, homed in on the strong ones, which primes you to expect them to be lauded in some way. Instead, the statement points out the irony that what makes an opinion “strong” is that it's easy to argue against. Step 4: Tweaking for the audience But this tweet is still not ready. The most glaring problem is, nowhere in the tweet is the term, “strong opinions,” and, as a tweet, that's where its potential lies. “Strong opinions” is a term in the parlance of some sections of Twitter. This term became popular after Marc Andreessen appeared on Tim Ferriss's podcast, where he advocated for, “strong opinions, weakly held.” By trying to be economical with words in our tweet, we've broken apart this term. In our latest iteration, “Of all opinions, strong ones are easiest to argue against,” it's simply referred to as “strong ones.” Depending upon how prevalent the term “strong opinions” is in the minds of our audience members, we could stick with that more subtle hint. Sometimes that's more effective. In my experience, on Twitter, you have to bash people over the head with what you're saying to cut through the noise. So we could instead say: Of all opinions, strong opinions are easiest to argue against. We've replaced “strong ones” with “strong opinions.” It's less economical, but includes the term “strong opinions,” pits them against opinions at-large, and delivers the counterintuitive element at the end, like the punchline of a joke. Step 5: What are we trying to say? This is probably as economically as we can write this, meeting that criteria. But it's still not ready. Now it's not clear from this observation how the author wants us to feel about strong opinions. It's, ironically, not a strong opinion. Is the upshot that you shouldn't hold strong opinions? Is it that when you hold strong opinions, you have to be comfortable with the fact they are easy to argue against? What makes an opinion “strong,” anyway? Is it the force with with which you express the opinion? If so, the statement, “strong opinions, weakly held” would mean you express the opinion with force, but are quick to change it if presented with contrary evidence. Or maybe it means that you should take decisive action on your opinions, and if that action presents you with contrary evidence, you should change your opinion and act accordingly? Now we're starting to get to what I, as an author, really think – which is like an excavation to discover, Where did this idea come from in the first place? My personal opinion is that to hold a strong opinion, you have to be faking. There are few things any of us are qualified to have opinions about. Having a strong opinion is a very “hedgehog” way of being, and hedgehogs are scientifically proven to be wrong. Yet if you express your honest opinion – which is to be more like a “fox” than a hedgehog – you're essentially expressing no opinion at all. Instead, you're exploring thoughts around a potential opinion. Given the mechanics of media today, few who see what you have to say when expressing your fox-like opinion will interact with it. And because few will interact with it, fewer will see it. So in a way, to be fox-like in media is doing oneself a disservice. Your message doesn't get seen, and since nobody can disagree with your non-opinion, you learn less. It's beneficial to masquerade as a hedgehog on social media, but be a fox in your private intellectual life. What's our angle? It's at this point in revising a tweet, where I often step back and write plainly the sub-text of what I'm trying to say. One angle is, In your pursuit of learning, you have to pretend to have strong opinions, because strong opinions are the easiest to argue against – which helps you collect information. Another angle is that When you express a strong opinion, be ready to be disagreed with, because strong opinions are by definition the easiest to argue against. So now I have two potential angles: “You should pretend to have an opinion.” “When you express your opinion, be ready for criticism.” Since this is a tweet, the sub-text of the tweet is very important. Because of the social mechanics of Twitter, people will not like or retweet something that makes them look bad. The “You should pretend to have an opinion” angle is weak, because to retweet something that espouses being inauthentic is to admit to being inauthentic, and that's socially repugnant – even if our angle has merit. Also important, it's not socially-repugnant enough to get people to argue, which would be another way of driving engagement. The “When you express your opinion, be ready for criticism,” angle is somewhat stronger. It would be a small flex to like or retweet this, because it would show that you're a person resilient enough to expose yourself to criticism, a quality which has social clout in some circles. Moving forward with that best angle, in the clearest way possible, we could say: When you share strong opinions, you will be criticized. Because strong opinions by definition are the easiest opinions to disagree with. Besides the fact it's much longer, there's something weak about this tweet. I think it's that it makes strong opinions not look good. Why have them if they're so easy to disagree with? As someone with a fox cognitive style, to me it doesn't feel right. So ultimately it seems, I believe a third angle: “Strong opinions aren't good.” If we put that simply, we're back to “Of all opinions, strong opinions are the easiest to argue against.” That still doesn't express clearly how I feel about strong opinions. It's just a statement of fact. Step 6: Applying rhetoric Maybe we can make this more economical, while also expressing more clearly my feelings about strong opinions, if we use a rhetorical form. Rhetorical forms are time-tested structures in language that add meaning beyond the simple content of the words. “Antithesis” is a good rhetorical form for tweets. Mark Forsyth in The Elements of Eloquence describes antithesis as “X is Y, and not X is not Y.” We won't use that exact formula, which would essentially be “Strong opinions are easy to argue against, and weak opinions are hard to argue against.” Instead, let's pit the word “strong” against its antithesis, “weak” – which is part of why the phrase “strong opinions, weakly held” is so memetic. As it happens, the idea of a “weak argument” is a commonly-used metaphor, so we can add extra power to our phrase by tapping into that existing idiom. With those elements in mind, we end up with: Strong opinions are weak arguments. That's about as good as we can do. We've reduced the phrase from eleven words to only five. It's now clearer what I think of strong opinions, and it presents the irony I wanted to point out in the first place. Was all this work worth it? So, how did this tweet do? I published it, making sure to record a prediction that I was 70% sure it would get fewer than 1,500 impressions (in 48 hours). It actually got 1,081. One month later, I published the unedited tweet I presented at the beginning of this article. I was 70% sure it would get fewer than 1,000 impressions. It got 384. The data suggest that through all that excruciating detail – more than 1,500 words about writing only five – I nearly tripled the performance of this tweet. The tweet still didn't go viral, which isn't the point of thinking of language in this level of detail. The real point of this exercise is that if you make a habit of thinking carefully about language, you internalize much of this process, which makes all your writing better. Image: Flower Myth, by Paul Klee About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/how-to-write-a-tweet/

If you've been searching the Internet for different businesses to start, chances are you've found thousands of ways to make money online. But there may be an equal or greater opportunity to make money right in your own hometown with a good old-fashioned “blue-collar” business idea. We commonly associate hefty paychecks with briefcases and neckties – but it turns out there's plenty of money to be earned by those who sport hard hats and coveralls. In this episode, we've invited a blue-collar entrepreneur. His name is non-other than Ken Rusk. He is a best-selling author, entrepreneur, and blue-collar advocate showing that there is no degree required for comfort, peace, and freedom. As a mentor, he helps people achieve their dreams. As an advocate and author, he teaches the value of blue-collar jobs and trade skills. He has been featured in numerous publications such as Forbes, USA Today, CNN, Wall Street Journal, and many more! In this episode, Ken will be sharing: 1) The Top 5 Paying Blue-Collar Jobs 2) The 5 Steps To Achieve Any Goal 3) The Best Method To Jump From The 'Somedayer' Club to 'Todayer Club' Learn more about Ken: Website: https://www.kenrusk.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-rusk-2656a7175/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kenruskofficial/ Get Blue Collar Cash: https://www.kenrusk.com/blue-collar-cash/ Take The Path: https://www.kenrusk.com/the-path/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theraygacyshow/message

Every message is shaped by the mechanics of media. Whether it's a tweet, a TikTok video, a news article, or a movie, the characteristics of the medium determine how it's made, how it's consumed, and whether it spreads. If you understand the mechanics of media, you can more effectively communicate in a wide variety of mediums, and protect yourself from being manipulated by media. The message is the mechanics of media As media theorist Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” In Understanding Media, he wrote: The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium...results from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs.... In other words, it's not the content of the medium we should be worried about, but the way the characteristics of that medium determine its content – the mechanics of media. The five characteristics of media I propose that there are five characteristics present in any medium, which determine these mechanics. These characteristics affect the creation, consumption, and distribution of media. (In other words, what message is delivered, how that message is received, and whether or not that message spreads.) Those five characteristics are: Incentive Sensory Physical Social Psychological The mechanics of media are so complex, these characteristics naturally interact with one another. I'll give a brief introduction of each, then show how these characteristics work in the popular mediums of podcasts, Twitter, and TikTok. 1. Incentive The Incentive characteristics of a medium are sources of motivation, whether money or otherwise, that shape the creation, consumption, and distribution of messages in that medium. The creator of a piece of media is motivated by various incentives, such as money and relationships. Whether or not someone is able to consume a piece of media depends upon whether its affordable or otherwise accessible. Whether or not a piece of media spreads depends upon whether incentives are aligned for the distribution platform to allow it to spread. So, a journalist may be motivated to write a story that gets page views, because that's how they're paid. That's how they're paid, because the newspaper doesn't have paying subscribers and thus relies upon ad revenue. The stories with click-bait headlines spread and get more page views because they increase engagement for the social media platform they're shared on, which increases the social media platform's ad revenue. 2. Sensory The Sensory characteristics of a medium are the ways in which the medium engages senses such as sight, hearing, and touch. Marshall McLuhan wrote about how so-called “sense ratios” were engaged by a medium. Sensory characteristics primarily affect the consumption of the medium, but those effects overlap with creation and distribution. Written content, for example, can be absorbed at a reader's own pace. As Neil Postman pointed out in Amusing Ourselves to Death, the written word is especially well-suited to careful review and comparison, which makes it easier to convey the truth. Audio content can be replayed to be reviewed, but it's more work than simply moving your eyes back over the content. 3. Physical The Physical characteristics of a medium are the ways in which the medium engages the body. The subtitle of Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media is Extensions of Man. As a medium extends our abilities, it also removes or “amputates” abilities. When you listen to a podcast, your entire body is free to do other things. You may be cooking, showering, or fighting your way to the exit of a crowded subway car. So, audio with dense content may not be absorbed as well as if the same content were printed in a paper book – which can still be read on a subway car, but not likely while walking. Podcasts became distributed more widely as they became easier to download on smartphones, which people physically carry around. 4. Social The Social characteristics of a medium are the ways in which the medium facilitates interactions amongst people. In the age of social media, these interactions affect creation, consumption, and distribution, in concert. Algorithms that drive distribution on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are designed to distribute a piece of content based upon its engagement. Much of that engagement is social. If you comment on, like, or share a piece of content, that social interaction leads to further distribution. Additionally, the level of privacy involved in consuming or sharing content has social consequences. You may be reluctant to even “like” certain content, for fear of who might see. But you might share the same content with a close friend through a text message – so-called “dark social” – or even a dinner conversation. 5. Psychological The psychological characteristics of a medium are the ways in which a medium interacts with human psychology. Cognitive biases affect the way people interpret a piece of media, and media platforms are designed to exploit these biases. For example, variable rewards make social media platforms habit-forming for both consumers and creators. You never know when you'll find something incredibly valuable during a social media session, and as a creator, you're always checking to see if you've gotten more comments and views. To go back to our example of a journalist paid by the page view, incentives may motivate them or the newspaper at which they work to cover more natural disasters, shark attacks, and terrorist attacks, which grab people's attention as a result of the availability heuristic. Here's a sampling of how these five characteristics shape various mediums. Podcasts 1. Incentive There are two main ways podcast creators make money: either have a lot of listeners and sell sponsorship, or have few listeners, but make money on some kind of “back-end” business. It's very hard to get new listeners for a podcast, for reasons that will be clear when we analyze the other mechanics, so this motivates many podcast hosts to do “swaps,” wherein hosts interview one another on each other's podcasts. 2. Sensory Many listeners listen to podcasts alone, through headphones. Audio can't be rewound as easily as someone can re-read, so the content should present simple ideas with simple language, and storytelling can keep the listener engaged. 3. Physical Listening to a podcast doesn't engage much of your physical body, so listeners may be doing nearly anything while listening. They could be driving, showering, or doing household chores. With AirPods, they could even be hitting golf balls. Listeners may be in distracting situations, so again, the mechanics of the podcast medium lend themselves to simple ideas presented through simple language, and strong storytelling. 4. Social A podcast host makes an intimate connection with a listener because they're often talking right into the listener's ear, often while they're alone. In this way, the host becomes like the internal monologue of the listener. This is part of why there are so many podcasts despite it being so hard to attract new listeners. This intimate connection can attract new customers and clients for high-ticket items, and advertisers are willing to pay a lot per listener, especially when the host reads the ads. It's hard to attract new listeners to podcasts, because podcasts don't lend themselves well to social consumption and distribution. Podcast listeners are usually physically occupied when listening, and unlikely to engage through likes, shares, and comments. These features aren't available in most podcast-listening apps, since podcasts are distributed through decentralized feeds that can be captured by one of many such apps. Podcast content can be several hours long, with the information presented in the disorganized form of a conversation. Even when pieces of a podcast are presented as clips on social media, there are a few formidable barriers to such clips attracting listeners: Editing long-form content to be interesting in short-form is difficult, audio content has trouble competing with other content on social media feeds, and social media is often consumed in contexts in which it's not convenient to download and listen to a podcast. 5. Psychological Podcast producers take advantage of the ways in which audio content can affect the psychology of the listener. Narrative podcasts use music and storytelling to manipulate listeners' emotions and build suspense and engagement. Compelling podcast interviewees know how to talk passionately and persuasively in a way that will excite listeners. Still other podcast hosts deliberately speak in an unpolished way, to make their shows feel more like listening to a friend. Twitter 1. Incentive On Twitter, journalists can build followings, which can help them get more page views, which can help them either get paid more, or not rely on their employers at all. Entrepreneurs can grow their businesses. Writers, such as myself, can test out ideas. People, generally, can be entertained, or feel as if they're heard. Twitter is still primarily an ad-supported platform, so more engagement with the platform means more ad revenue. While I presented above an example of a social media platform presenting articles with click-bait headlines, the incentive characteristics of Twitter also work against this. If you were to click on a link, you would leave Twitter, where you could no longer be served ads. So tweets that are just links get less distribution. 2. Sensory Twitter is primarily text, which is supposed to be the form of media most-capable of communicating the truth. Yet anyone who has used Twitter has noticed there is a lot of sensational content, with lots of arguing and fighting amongst tribes. How can this be? Since Twitter is mostly a collection of snippets of text, which can be easily skimmed, it puts people in a “hunting” mode. Unlike reading a book, where the sensory experience locks you into the progression of ideas presented by the author, on the Twitter timeline, the sensory experience is like scanning the landscape for the gazelle in the grass, or the tiger in the bush. 3. Physical Many Twitter users consume its content on their phones. They're looking at their hands, often slouched over with neck craned downward. This is a posture that makes you more close-minded and negative, as opposed to say, standing up, with a monitor at eye-level, and shoulders back while typing on a split keyboard. Users can be in a variety of settings, such as on public transport, or even crossing the street. On Twitter, consumption and creation can be physically the same, which lends itself to off-the-cuff and often reactionary or poorly-thought-out content. So content creators on Twitter who do the majority of their thinking away from the app, and put intention into their creation process, are essentially practicing attention arbitrage. 4. Social Twitter has followed the lead of platforms such as TikTok, and decoupled the distribution of content from the follower relationship, in lieu of a feed driven by engagement or relevance of topic. Still, the number of followers greatly influences distribution on Twitter. Thus, savvy Twitter creators know they have to be active “reply guys” – replying to tweets on related accounts – until they gain a following. Besides followers and the ever-more-rare retweet, the biggest driver of distribution on Twitter is replies. Therefore, tweets that drive conversation get more distribution. Ironically, if a tweet is clear and factual, it won't get as much distribution as if it is unclear and controversial. So, creators who are either unintelligent in a lucky way, or savvy and machiavellian enough to feign ignorance, see great distribution through “fake takes,” or expressing with great confidence a simplistic opinion people will argue over in the replies. 5. Psychological Almost all activity on Twitter is public by default, so this creates a media environment with a bias toward behavior that's either prosocial or tribal. There can be social consequences for merely following someone or liking one of their tweets. There's a lot of what Timur Kuran calls “preference falsification” on Twitter, to signal that one is part of a tribe. The only characteristic that counters this is that expanding a tweet or media within a tweet is private, so this private engagement can help somewhat the distribution of content people may not be comfortable supporting publicly. TikTok 1. Incentive Many creators are attracted to TikTok because it's a platform where it's possible to have a lot of success very quickly, and seemingly for no good reason. You can get tens of millions of views just dancing in front of your bathroom mirror. TikTok is an ad-supported platform, so the platform distributes content that will overall increase the time spent on the platform. Yet TikTok overall has a more-positive vibe than Twitter. We'll get to why. 2. Sensory If the sensory experience of Twitter puts the viewer into “hunting” mode, the sensory experience of TikTok is more like the campfire. You're not skimming a vast sea of text. Instead, you're immersed entirely in a video – at least for a moment. You're often face-to-face with a person talking. It's harder to get angry with someone when you're looking right at them. This campfire instead of hunting experience makes content on TikTok more positive than on Twitter. But you're not immersed in that video for long. Users can quickly swipe and be immersed in the next video. So, there is a lot of pressure for creators to create content that grabs the attention of the viewer. It's not unusual, when looking at an engagement graph on a TikTok video you've created, to see a note informing you there was a drop in viewership at the one second mark. This is part of why TikTok has a reputation for being all about looks. Indeed their new “Bold Glamour Filter” reshapes women's faces to an astounding degree (yet they still have nothing for my gray beard hairs). 3. Physical TikTok, like all social media, is primarily consumed on a mobile phone. So consumers may be in any of a variety of settings, including highly distracting environments where they don't have control over sound. So, TikTok videos present simple ideas, presented quickly, and videos with captions perform better, as viewers may have audio off. However, there is some incentive for creators to present complex data associated with their simple ideas. If you flash a data-rich graphic in a TikTok video, viewers will try to pause it, which is a signal of engagement for the TikTok algorithm. You'll do even better if the graphic flashes so quickly it can't be paused the first time. The viewer will have to let the video play again, to once again attempt to pause at the right time. For example: @davidkadavy Time multiplying helps you create more time. Credit: Rory Vaden #timemanagement #timemanagementhacks #timemanagementskills #xkcd ? original sound - ???David Kadavy 4. Social Since pausing or rewatching a video signals engagement to TikTok, dance videos have performed well on the platform. Consumers can become creators and post “duets”, in which they perform a dance next to its originator. Of course you have to watch the video many times to get your dance moves right, which signals engagement. This physical bias towards dance videos, helped along by the social characteristics of TikTok, may also contribute to its more-positive vibe. Like anywhere many humans congregate, there is still some negativity on TikTok. But if you're going to be explicitly negative, you're going to have to show your face. Comments are limited to 150 characters. Beyond that, you can make a reply video, a “duet” – such as in dance videos, or a “stitch,” where you place your video at the end of the video you're responding to. 5. Psychological Because simple videos that viewers re-watch get more distribution, videos on TikTok resist the sense of closure humans have been used to since at least the time of Homer. If you summarize what you've covered at the end of a video, your engagement will drop and you'll get fewer views. So videos don't have the satisfying end we're used to. Some creators make their videos “loop,” wherein the final thing said connects to the first thing, which hypnotizes the viewer into watching again. This being an article, it's not bad for me to take the time to present a conclusion. That's my overview of what I believe to be the five characteristics that shape the mechanics of media, and how those mechanics shape the mediums of podcasts, Twitter, and TikTok. The next time you're creating something for a medium, or feeling highly-persuaded by a piece of media, take time to think about the five characteristics that shape the mechanics of media. Image: Painting 1930, by Patrick Henry Bruce Thank you for having me on your show! Thank you for having me on your podcasts. Thank you to Rachel Roth at The Rachel Roth Show. As always, you can find interviews of me on my interviews page. 300 episodes! This is the 300th episode of Love Your Work. Something I haven't asked in years: Can you please rate the show on Apple Podcasts? About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/mechanics-of-media/

Making, recording, and evaluating predictions is a simple way to improve your thinking and decision-making. But the way to properly make and record predictions isn't obvious. In this article, I'll share some predictions I've made, what I've learned, and how you can improve your thinking by making predictions. Making predictions has grown my business Five years ago, I had been running my business for ten years, and it wasn't going great. Then, I started publishing monthly income reports, and along the way, making predictions. My income has nearly doubled, and I attribute much of that success to my habit of making predictions. I began by predicting how much money I'd make in a product launch, and grew to predicting how much traffic articles I had written would gain, and how many copies books I'd written would sell. I now routinely make predictions for things as seemingly mundane as whether I'll enjoy a conference, whether I'll still be publishing on TikTok a year from now, or whether an avocado is ripe. On the surface, making predictions seems like a pointless game. This is, indeed, true of making predictions the wrong way. But making predictions the right way helps you deal with uncertainty you otherwise have no hope of handling. Predictions help you bet your life, better Each of us has limited resources, such as time, money, and mental energy. We're constantly making decisions about how to use these resources, and when we make those decisions, we are expecting outcomes. If we go on this date, will we find the love of our life, or wish we'd stayed in? If we write this book, will we achieve fame and fortune, or feel as if we've wasted years of our life? If we spend an hour on social media, will we make valuable connections, or spiral into self-hatred over our lack of discipline? As Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets wrote: In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing. —Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets Each decision we make is a bet. We bet a resource, and expect something in return. Most of us don't recognize or express the expectations of our bets. But we should. Some bets are clearer than others If you bet a dollar on a coin flip and only win $1.50 for guessing correctly, you'd easily recognize that as an unfair bet: There's a 50% chance of guessing correctly, so you clearly should receive two dollars. But the more variable the odds, and the more vague your wager and winnings, the more difficult it becomes to think clearly. What's the value of finding the love of your life? What other benefits can you get writing a book besides fame and fortune? What are the chances that during this hour of social media you'll make a life-changing discovery? Making objective decisions taking into account all these variables becomes so complicated you might as well throw up your hands, surrender to randomness, and do what feels right in the moment. And that's what most of us do. Case in point: The multi-billion-dollar gambling industry, propped up by people doing what feels right in the moment – their decision-making shrouded by the smokescreen of ever more complex and variable bets. The key to making predictions in a way that helps you evaluate your decisions is to avoid what Annie Duke calls “resulting.” If you wager a dollar on a coin flip, with a chance to win $10, and lose, the result of your decision was bad, but your decision was good. The odds were clearly in your favor. Mathematically, you were sure you'd win that bet one of two times. If you had won, you were going to win ten times your money. Now how do you apply this thinking to more complex and vague situations, such as a product launch, your Saturday night plans, or whether or not your new hobby is a passing obsession? The key is to make a prediction, the right way. How to make predictions the right way There are two components to making predictions the right way. Turn it into a coin flip. Identify the odds. 1. Turn the outcome into a “coin flip” First, turn the prediction into a coin flip. I don't mean in terms of odds, but in terms of result. When you flip a coin, it comes up heads or tails. When you make a prediction about a result, that result must either happen or not. For a prediction to be useful, it has to be falsifiable. This is not easy to do, which is why few of us make predictions the right way, if at all. If you think it's going to rain, in what area will it rain, by what time? Does a single raindrop count? If you think you'll still be doing bird photography in six months, how many bird photos will you have taken, within the previous month? If you think you'll enjoy going to the party, how many good memories will you be able to recall a week later? You can define a successful result in whatever measurable way you want. The important thing is that to make a prediction, you need to turn the result into a coin flip. Not in terms of odds, but in terms of how you define the result. Some actual predictions I've turned into coin flips: My Black Friday promotion will earn $3,000–$6,000. My blog post on Zettelkasten will average worse than a ranking of 10 for the keyword “zettelkasten”, the first three months after publish, according to Google Console. I will sell 5,000–15,000 copies of Mind Management, Not Time Management within the first year. With each of these predictions, I was wagering resources. It took, time, money, and energy to run a promotion, write a blog post, and write a book. But what did I expect from those investments? I could have done any of these without making a prediction. Besides the long-term benefits of making these predictions – which I'll get to in a bit – turning these predictions into coin flips had immediate benefits. Turning predictions into coin flips helps answer these questions: Is this worth doing? By defining a successful result, you're forced to ask yourself if it's worth the investment, based upon your expectations. How will I achieve this? In the process of defining a successful result, you start thinking about why you expect to achieve that result. Do you have prior experiences or past data to draw upon? You'll never search as hard for these as when you're making a prediction. Can I do better? Defining a successful result has a symbiotic relationship with the effort you put forth trying to achieve the result. Making the prediction motivates you to try to make that prediction correct, which sometimes motivates you to predict and try to achieve an even better result. When you flip a coin, you of course aren't sure whether it will come up heads or tails, and when you make a prediction, you aren't sure whether you'll achieve that result. And that is how it should be. 2. Identify the odds The second way to make a prediction the right way is to identify the odds of achieving that result. You've turned the prediction into a coin flip, but it's not necessarily a coin flip with 50/50 odds. It may be more like a die roll, with 1:6 odds, or a roll of four or lower, with 2:3 odds. If you've turned your predicted result into a coin flip by adjusting a range, you can adjust that range according to your expected odds. In this way, if you want to literally turn your prediction into a coin flip, you can pick a range you feel you have 50/50 odds of achieving. For example, I believed I had 50/50 odds of making $3,000–$6,000 on my Black Friday promotion, and of selling 5,000–15,000 copies of my book in the first year. I specifically chose those ranges based upon what I expected to have 50/50 odds of achieving. If your prediction doesn't involve a range, such as whether or not you will regret going to a party, then you simply have to identify your expected odds of that result. For all odds, I think it's easiest to choose a percentage of confidence, such as 50% for 50/50 odds, or 66% for 2:3 odds. For example, I was 70% sure I wouldn't regret attending a conference in Vegas last year. Each of these predictions is for one event. But the result will either be achieved, or not. Therefore, what you felt 70% sure would happen will in retrospect look as if it had 0 or 100% odds of happening. So what is the point of choosing odds for your prediction? There are three benefits of choosing odds: It helps you gain clarity on each decision. It helps you distinguish risky from not-risky decisions. It helps you rate and improve your decision-making, over time. Choosing odds helps you gain clarity First, choosing odds of achieving a result helps you gain clarity on a decision. Let's say you buy your first guitar. Surely you're picturing yourself being a pretty good guitar player someday. But how do you define that, how sure are you you'll become a good guitar player, and how soon? A year later, when your guitar is collecting dust in your closet, you might feel pretty bad about yourself. But suppose that when you bought your guitar you had predicted that you were 50% sure, one year later, you would have practiced guitar at least fifteen minutes in the previous month? Based upon that prediction, it turns out you weren't so sure to begin with that you'd become a good guitar player. Choosing odds helps you distinguish sure bets from wildcards Which brings us to the second benefit of choosing odds, which is that it helps you distinguish risky decisions from not-risky decisions. You took a chance buying a guitar, and it didn't work out. That's easier to live with if you know you were taking a chance. Some of life and business's greatest benefits come from taking chances. But you only have so many resources to gamble with. Professional poker players know they need a certain “bank roll” to stay in the game and keep making bets. If they have a lot of bank roll, they might play a riskier bet than if they have little. They're able to do that because they know the odds. In business, especially creative business, your “sure bets” keep you in business, while “wildcards” can change your business. As you decide how to invest your resources, and evaluate whether you've achieved successful results, you'll make better decisions if you know ahead of time whether you're playing a sure bet or a wildcard. For example, I was 95% sure my Zettelkasten blog post wouldn't rank in the top ten for the search term, so I was clear going into it I was playing a wildcard. Additionally, while I was 50% sure I'd sell 5,000–15,000 copies of my book in the first year, I was 90% sure I'd sell fewer than 250,000 copies, which helped put a ceiling on my expectations. Choosing odds improves your decision-making Which is the third benefit of choosing odds: improving your decision-making over time. If you had been 90% sure you'd've practiced guitar ten hours in a month, you'd still feel bad when it turned out you didn't, but at least you'd have data to learn from. Without that data, you might say to yourself, “I never finish what I start. I'm a loser.” With that data, you can say, “I overestimated my enthusiasm to play guitar. I'll keep that mistake in mind in the future.” Notice you wouldn't tell yourself you were “wrong.” Because you weren't. Even if you were 90% sure you'd've practiced guitar ten hours in a month and didn't, you'd only end up 90% wrong. Which means you were 10% right. When you choose odds of your expected results, it's easier to learn from your mistakes because you're never totally wrong, and always a little right – which makes your mistakes sting a little less. But to get enough data to know how good your predictions are, you need to make a lot of predictions over time. If you don't know the odds of a coin flip, and your prediction turns out wrong, you don't learn a whole lot. But if you make a hundred predictions, you'll end up with a pretty good idea of the odds of that coin flip. Make many predictions with the same odds, for faster calibration The more predictions you make with the same odds, the more quickly you can tell how good your predictions are. I've presented to you examples of predictions I've made with various odds. But whenever possible, I try to choose “coin flips” I believe have a 70% chance of being correct. 70% is an arbitrary level of confidence. What's important is that by making many predictions of which I have 70% confidence, I learn how accurate my predictions tend to be at that confidence level. I've made 19 predictions at 70% confidence. Only 63% of those have turned out correct. By making and tracking many predictions, I've learned that when I'm 70% confident something will happen, it will generally happen only 63% of the time. I'm slightly overconfident at that range, and so should be more conservative with my future predictions. My prediction track-record I keep track of and publicly display many of my predictions on PredictionBook.com, which is one of those totally free websites with no ads that makes you nostalgic for 2007. Because I've made more than fifty predictions, I can see how good I am at predicting at various levels. For example, after fifteen predictions at 90% confidence, 80% have turned out correct. After five at 50% confidence, and five at 60% confidence, those have turned out correct 80% and 100% of the time, respectively. While I should to be more pessimistic about things I'm pretty sure will happen, it seems I should be more optimistic about things I'm not so sure will happen. It turned out the prediction that my Black Friday promotion would earn between $3,000 and $6,000 was correct. Since I was 50% confident, I was half-right, and half-wrong. I did sell between 5,000 and 15,000 copies of my book in the first year. Again, half-right, half-wrong. And the Zettelkasten blog post I was 95% sure wouldn't rank in the top ten, actually did! I was happy to be 95% wrong about that – it was a wildcard that turned out. Making predictions feels unnatural – which is why you do it The next time you're choosing whether something is worth doing, I highly recommend you make a prediction. If turning the outcome into a coin-flip and picking a percentage of confidence feels uncomfortable to you – it should. Thinking in this way doesn't come naturally – which is why it's a superpower. Image: Ghost of a Genius, by Paul Klee About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/make-predictions/

Stefan Falk shares his secrets to loving your work and succeeding like never before. He teaches you how to gain intrinsic motivation, overcome procrastination, and improve concentration so you can learn skills faster, sustain high levels of work satisfaction, and work towards any dream or goal you have. We've all experienced lack of motivation or dissatisfaction with work at some point in our life. It's common for people to feel like their work is boring, uninteresting, difficult, or uncomfortable, yet we continue to stay in those jobs. This begs the question: Do we need to love our work in order to have a good, successful life?  If you're struggling to find motivation from within or find enjoyment in your work, this episode is for you. “Figuring out how to tap into that energy in a smart way, to unlock our intrinsic motivation, I think that is actually the key challenge that humans should take on,” he says. Stefan Falk is an internationally-recognized performance coach who helps people achieve things they don't think they're capable of. He's also the author of “Intrinsic Motivation: How to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before”.    Follow Chase on Instagram @chase_chewning Follow him on Twitter @chasechewning   Key Highlights It's how you think about what you're supposed to do that decides whether you will love it or not. Thus, it's all about mindset and taking baby steps towards building and tapping back into intrinsic motivation. If you learn how to unlock intrinsic motivation, you will gain the ability to learn and master new skills much faster, work effectively towards any type of goal or dream, and sustain great satisfaction in whatever you choose to do or need to do. Stefan shares how to concentrate more effectively with minimal energy expenditure. It's important to recognize the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and how you can balance the two. Listen in to learn more! Stefan details the fascinating role of fantasy/daydreaming in building intrinsic motivation and the role of intention in sustaining motivation. Hint: The brain gets really good at what it focuses on. “If you don't erase negativity from your life, how on Earth are you ever going to have inner peace? It's impossible,” Stefan says. Episode resources: Save 20% on any skin care item with code EVERFORWARD at https://www.CalderaLab.com  Save 10% on Ketone-IQ with code CHASE at https://hvmn.me/CHASE  Join the EF Book Club https://bit.ly/efbookclub  Watch and subscribe on YouTube https://youtu.be/D4hrjxl1TUY  Learn more about Stefan's work and get his book https://learntoloveyourwork.com 

In the midst of the Great Depression, cereal manufacturer Kellogg's switched to a shorter, six-hour day. This continued a trend that seemed inevitable: people would work less and less. But economic policies, management strategies, and cultural attitudes changed. The story of the rise and fall of Kellogg's six-hour day is a microcosm of these changes, as well as of our attitudes about the roles of money, leisure, work, and women and men. In the book, Kellogg's 6-Hour Day, historian Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt shares his findings in studying Kellogg's shorter workday. His main sources of information were 434 interviews conducted by the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor, 124 interviews he himself conducted of workers, and 241 responses to a survey he had sent. What follows is a summary of the story, and Hunnicutt's findings. Kellogg's switched to a 6-hour day to create jobs During the Great Depression, American businesses took on a policy of “work sharing.” The idea was that fewer would be unemployed if everyone shared jobs – more workers, working fewer hours. So, on December 1, 1930, W. K. Kellogg changed most departments in Kellogg's Battle Creek, Michigan plant from three eight-hour shifts to four six-hour shifts. A shorter workday had seemed inevitable This continued a decades-long trend of shorter working hours. Labor activist William Heighton had written in 1827 that the workday should be reduced from twelve hours to ten, eight, and so on, “until the development and progress of science have reduced human labour to its lowest terms.” John Stuart Mill had written in 1848 about his vision for a “Stationary State”: After necessities were met, people would seek progress in mental, moral, and social realms. John Maynard Keynes would predict in the same year Kellogg's switched to six hours, 1930, that we'd have a fifteen-hour work week by 2030. George Bernard Shaw and Julian Juxley had predicted a maximum two-hour workday by the end of the 1900s. Other businesses shortened their workdays, too Other businesses followed Kellogg's' lead. A survey by the Industrial Conference Board in 1931 estimated 50% of American businesses had shortened hours to save jobs. President Herbert Hoover was considering making a 6-hour day a national policy. In the 1932 presidential campaign, both major parties were advocating shorter hours. The 6-hour day was the hot business topic Not only did the six-hour day help create jobs, it seemed for a while like it was a better business policy. Forbes called it “the topic of discussion in the business world.” Business Week concluded it was profitable. The New York Times called it “a complete success.” Factory and Industrial Management magazine called the six-hour day, the “biggest piece of industrial news since Ford announced his five-dollar-a-day policy.” At Kellogg's, 15% more shredded wheat cases were being packed per hour. Profits had doubled in 1931, versus three years prior. After five years with the six-hour day, overhead costs had been reduced 25%, labor costs 10%, with 41% fewer accidents. W. K. Kellogg said, “We can afford to pay as much for six hours as we formerly paid for eight.” (That should be taken with a grain of salt. W. K. Kellogg took pride in crafting a public image as a “welfare capitalist,” as evinced by the full-page newspaper ads he took out, boasting how Kellogg's had done its part. In reality, nearly half of workers later surveyed recalled that their wages were reduced.) Kellogg's returned to an 8-hour day for WWII In 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order to direct the maximum amount of manpower toward supporting the country's fight in WWII. Kellogg's responded in kind by temporarily returning to eight-hour shifts. A rift formed between Kellogg's management and the labor union This was actually an opportunity the company had been looking for. Kellogg's management and that at other companies were beginning to resent the six-hour day, and workers were becoming divided over whether they wanted a shorter workday, or more pay. In 1936, the National Council of Grain Producers had started a union chapter in Kellogg's Battle Creek headquarters. W. K. Kellogg had been proud to pay what he considered the best hourly wages in town. During the first meeting with union officers, he wept, and kept saying, “If only they had come to me, I would have given them what they wanted.” The union got an inch, and wanted a mile After this point, the relationship between Kellogg's workers and management became adversarial. W. K. had left in 1937, after the union came in, and at that point the union leaders had been pushing to not only have a six-hour day, in which they could earn a bonus based upon productivity, but they had also wanted time-and-a-half pay for working more than six hours in a day. Hunnicutt wrote, “More than any other union demand, this position would come to haunt Kellogg workers.” Demanding overtime pay on a six-hour day helped turn management against the shorter workday, and create a rift between workers who wanted higher wages, and workers who wanted shorter hours. In the larger relationship between management and labor, the American Federation of Labor introduced a bill in congress, prohibiting goods produced by workers working more than thirty hours a week from being traded across state lines. Hunnicutt cites this as having shifted the business world's stance on shorter hours from support to opposition. Shorter hours became exploitation, longer hours a reward In 1938, Kellogg's management deepened the divide between six-hour and eight-hour workers by proposing they be allowed to schedule 40-hour weeks during periods of heavy production. Overtime became available instead of a productivity bonus. Senior workers had priority access to overtime, and so they lost interest in the productivity bonus. So in the early 1940s, before the war, worker opinions were shifting to view shorter hours not as a benefit, but as instead an exploitation of workers – making them bear the brunt of fighting unemployment. And Kellogg's was actively campaigning against shorter days, asking workers to consider how much more they would make working eight hours. Human Relations Management saw work as life's center Meanwhile, the business world was shifting from a Scientific Management philosophy to a Human Relations Management philosophy. Scientific Management practitioners were obsessed with efficiency, but Human Relations Management practitioners were more interested in imbuing work with joy and meaning – making work its own reward. The Human Relations Management school envisioned that as work brought satisfaction, engineers and scientists would lead society into an orderly world, where desires met obligations, consumption met production, and work and leisure merged. According to Humans Relations Management, time away from work and consumption was a relic of an illogical past. Instead of work becoming obsolete, giving way to more freedom, work would become the center of life, and help us ascend Maslow's hierarchy. Fewer workers wanted to return to 6 hours After the war, many departments returned to six-hour shifts, but six-hour workers slowly lost their beloved shorter shifts over the following decades. Central to this struggle was how workers viewed leisure. Kellogg's workers had previously voted to essentially “buy” shorter working hours, being paid less overall, in exchange for more leisure time. Employees used their time to improve their homes, go hunting, grow and can food in their gardens, and spend time volunteering in their communities. But slowly, workers became less interested in having time away from work. Leisure was outsourced to mass media One explanation from a worker Hunnicutt interviewed was, people were now outsourcing all things they used to spend time on. One place they were outsourcing to was mass media. Sports had been such serious business amongst Kellogg's employees, they had hired “semi-pro” softball or basketball players to play on the teams. But why watch the company team play, when you can watch pros on television? One former six-hour worker bemoaned that even conversation had been outsourced – to radio, or television talk-show hosts. Shorter hours became seen as weak and feminine The question, Six hours or eight? became a gender issue. Early on, both men and women were interested in six-hour shifts. Three-fourths of men voted for six-hour shifts in 1937, but half of men were working eight hours by 1947. The six-hour departments began to be referred to as “girls' departments,” doing “women's work.” Management also assigned sick and disabled employees to the six-hour departments. Men who chose to work six-hours were labeled “sissies,” “lazy,” or “weird.” Men saw work, not leisure, as a source of control and identity Hunnicutt's interpretation was that men were increasingly seeing work as a place for control and identity – that many hadn't known what to do with themselves after their shorter shifts. They didn't like spending more time at home and being assigned chores by their wives, or hearing what they considered gossip. As a result, men placed more importance on working longer hours – or at least appearing to. Hunnicutt said men he interviewed commonly claimed to have gotten second jobs while they were working six hours. How often is “commonly”?, he doesn't say, but he points out only 35% ever did get second jobs. Men felt they “had to” work long hours This attitude, which we might today call “toxic masculinity,” extended into attitudes about leisure. When asked why they preferred longer hours, men spoke of necessity, and used dramatic language, saying they had to “keep the wolf from the door,” “feed the family,” and “put bread on the table.” When Hunnicutt pointed out to men who had been working in the 1950s that workers in the Great Depression had been willing to take pay cuts to have more free time, he says they got defensive, lectured him on “the facts of life economically,” called six-hours “nonsense” or a “pipe dream,” or dismissed the question as silly. While Hunnicutt's conclusions here are plausible, it seemed like he really wanted it to be true, and didn't present men's attitudes scientifically. There's no mention of what earnings were relative to cost-of-living, and no acknowledgement of what these men's roles might have been, truthfully, in the economics of their homes. There's not even a mention of how throwing thousands of young men into the meat grinder that was WWII, tasked with saving the world, might have affected their own perceptions of what was expected of them. Though he did present a story of one man who had found that the extra money he made going back to eight hours was due to his ex-wife, as alimony. A shorter workday became “a sexist ploy” In the 1970s, Kellogg's women worked with a local women's-rights group, who presented the case that six-hour shifts were a sexist ploy meant to subjugate women. They demanded management “allow” women to have “full-time” jobs. Kellogg's posted notices in the plant claiming that to make pay “comparable,” they were opening up eight-hour departments to women. In doing so, they skirted the issue: The activists had wanted not just comparable hours, but comparable hourly pay. The 6-hour mavericks held on Workers who stuck with the six-hour shift – who Hunnicutt calls “six-hour mavericks” – were about a quarter of the Kellogg's workforce from 1957, into the 1980s. The union worked according to a department-by-department vote on the length of the day, so long as the six-hour workers didn't interfere with the union majority's strategy to try to get higher wages and more benefits. With longer hours, efficiency fell by the wayside Overtime had previously been thought of as a penalty to the company for being understaffed, but it became a way for workers to earn more money while the company's staffing requirements remained flexible. According to Hunnicutt, with overtime instead of productivity bonuses, workers were less-motivated and careful. The company had to resort to being more controlling, motivating workers with fines, threats, and firings. The death of the 6-hour shift The increased benefits the union had fought for over the years may have worked against the six-hour shift. The final nail in the coffin was driven in 1984, when Kellogg's threatened to relocate if workers didn't vote to abandon the six-hour shift. So the six-hour workers gave in and voted to give it up. Some retired, some worked eight hours, but the coffin in which this nail was driven was both figurative and literal. The six-hour workers held a “funeral,” building a full-sized cardboard coffin, painted black, placed on the workroom floor, a cut-out skeleton placed inside. Thus reversed a trend that had held on for over 150 years. The idea of less work and more leisure gave way to a stable amount of work, and more consumption. It's tempting to blame the death of the 6-hour shift on one of many juicy narratives. You could say people forgot how to spend their leisure time. You could say people were overly-materialistic, and wanted more money, instead of time. You could say toxic masculinity and a patriarchal society tipped the scales so those who wanted to work shorter hours were no longer in the majority. You could say the unions got too demanding and sabotaged the long-fought battle for a shorter working day. All these are probably true to an extent. Ultimately, businesses want to, need to, maximize profit. They have to offer benefits to employees to stay competitive. To offer those benefits profitably, they need more work from fewer workers. If you believe the efficient-market hypothesis, if a shorter workday were indeed more profitable, some business would beat its competitors by offering one, and other businesses would follow suit. So far, that hasn't happened. If, as I believe, creativity becomes more important, productivity will be about [Mind Management, Not Time Management, and a more-relaxed work schedule will be embraced. But probably not for boxing corn flakes. There's your summary of Kellogg's 6-Hour Day This episode is essentially a summary of the book, Kellogg's 6-Hour Day, by Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt. The book is very dense and written in an academic style, so I can't recommend it unless you really want to dig deep into questions about work and leisure. It's a provocative story that makes you wonder if we could be living in a world where a 6-hour day is standard. But it sounds like it wasn't even close. About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/kelloggs-6-hour-day/

Desire paths are trails left on the ground, by anything that frequently travels along a route. There are subcultures fascinated by desire paths as symbols of collective wisdom, disregard for authority, or mere evidence of existence. Desire paths are also celebrated as a design technique. Desire paths in their pure form are about what you can see, but the characteristics of desire paths – which you can't always see – can help you optimize your life and gain clarity in your creative projects. Desire path examples Desire paths are also known by a number of other names: cattle trails, cow paths, elephant paths, just to name a few. In forests or grassy meadows, it seems pretentious to call them desire paths – they're just paths. Desire paths that question authority Desire paths are most interesting when they show up in places where a man-made path has already been put in place. A sidewalk turns a corner at a ninety-degree angle, but as people cut the corner, a desire path develops at forty-five degrees. An overgrown hedge encroaches on a sidewalk. To avoid squeezing between the hedge and a tree, people walk off the sidewalk and around the tree, and a desire path develops. A landscape architect tries to get fancy by building a curved path, but people instead take a straight path, and a desire path cuts through the grass. These desire paths that eschew the suggestions of man-made paths are like visual jokes that show a disregard for authority. Desire paths that acknowledge existence But some desire paths acknowledge the existence of a single being. A dog leaves a desire path where he's cut across the yard a thousand times. A woman leaves a desire path where all summer she's walked off the end of a dock, into the shallow water, to the shore of a lake. When a single being who has left a desire path passes away, the desire path remains as a reminder of their existence. The thought of nature reclaiming the desire path – for example, the grass growing back – is a sad reminder of how long they've been gone, and a reminder one day we'll be gone, too. But the being doesn't even have to be a living one. Delivery robots have left desire paths, their tire tracks marking the sidewalk with GPS precision. Desire paths as a design technique The most striking thing about desire paths is they can be used as a design technique. As I said, desire paths are like visual jokes that show a disregard for authority. They poke fun at civilization's feeble attempts to plan, make decisions for others, or control people. Sometimes “authority” surrenders to the crowd and lets desire paths do the decision-making for them. University campuses are often full of desire paths. With so many students migrating from one of many buildings to one of many other buildings, there's no way to predict what routes exactly will be the most efficient. So some schools, such as Ohio State University, held off on creating paved paths. Once the desire paths showed up, they then paved on top of them. The result is a latticework of criss-crossing paths, of varying widths, that no single human would have designed. Desire paths aren't always good But sometimes “authority” has a good reason for building a path that seems inefficient. On the leading subculture of desire-path enthusiasts – Reddit's desire paths community – parks planners have explained that nature trails often have switchbacks going back and forth across steep inclines, because such a design prevents soil erosion. When people cut across these switchbacks, hiking directly up the hill, they hasten erosion. Additionally, desire paths express the desires of the majority. Sometimes the path expressed by desire paths don't work for people in the minority. That curved path that looks like the result of a landscape architect gone wild might soften the incline for people in wheelchairs – and how does that work out when path installation is delayed until desire paths form? Ultimately, people are going to tend toward their desires to get to their destinations quickly. Whatever practical reasons “authority” has for designing a path, the wisdom carried by desire paths can't be ignored. The power of invisible desire paths Desire paths, in their pure form, are about what you can see. It seems the use of desire paths in design projects originated with analyzing data you can't see. A 1942 transit study in Detroit charted origins and destinations of commuter trips, to determine where best to build roads. If you break the phenomenon of desire paths down to its essential components, you can find desire paths you can't see, and harness their power to optimize your life and achieve clarity in creative projects. When used as a design technique, a desire path essentially does four things: A good-enough solution Collects data Exposes a pattern in the data Which leads to an ideal solution The unmodified ground is a good-enough solution people can use. Through the usage patterns of that good-enough solution, data builds up. Each footprint is a piece of data. The footprints don't overlap, all in the same place. Instead, a pattern emerges, in the form of a path. That pattern is then used to determine an ideal solution. In the case of a college campus, that ideal solution is usually a paved sidewalk where the desire path once was. 1. Start with a prototype When a desire path forms, the untreated ground is essentially a prototype. So to create an invisible desire path, build or find a prototype. Find a low-cost, low-commitment way to give yourself a good-enough solution. For example, if you're looking for the perfect backpack, you could take the top-down approach that desire paths so often protest: You could plan out everything you want your backpack to hold and do, then design a custom backpack. Or, you could start with a prototype: Buy any cheap backpack at a thrift store, and try it out. 2. Collect data Desire paths collect data based upon use of a prototype. Once you have a good-enough solution, you're collecting data as you use it. With your cheap backpack, maybe you notice the straps gets loose, or dig into your shoulder. Maybe a pen falls out of it, or you find yourself rummaging through a big compartment full of small items. 3. Look for patterns Desire paths collect data, but that data is only useful once a pattern emerges. When a desire path forms, you can see it, but when an invisible desire path forms, you can't. After enough time using your prototype, individual bits of data turn into patterns. Maybe a pen fell out of your cheap backpack only once and you fixed the straps so they didn't loosen anymore, but the strap kept digging into your shoulder and you got sick of rummaging through a compartment full of small items. You've found your invisible desire path: You want a backpack with comfortable straps, and lots of small compartments for small items. 4. Find a solution When desire paths are used as a design feature, the visible path becomes the backbone of the solution. The designers simply pave a path over the desire path. Once you've found an invisible desire path, that becomes the backbone of your solution. Now that you've used a prototype enough times for patterns to emerge, you can find a solution that fits those patterns. Desire paths in creative projects Now how can invisible desire paths help you gain clarity on creative projects? Creative projects are a lot like choosing a backpack: You have a variety of requirements and preferences, not all of them are clear, and many contradict one another. There's no one perfect solution, but there's some ideal solution that balances everything. Too often, we approach creative projects thinking top-down: We don't want to act until we have the perfect plan. But the perfect plan doesn't exist. The best way to find an ideal plan is create an invisible desire path: Find a good-enough solution, collect data, and see what patterns emerge. Only then can you quickly and efficiently get where you're going. Thank you for having me on your show! Thank you for having me on your show. Thank you to Ajay Mathur at the Be Yourself show. As always, you can find interviews of me on my interviews page. About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »       Show notes: https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/desire-paths/

On this edition of the Book Club, Stefan Falk talks about his newest book, “Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed Like Never Before.” Stefan is an internationally recognized executive coach and human performance expert. Get your copy of Intrinsic Motivation HERE You can learn more about Stefan at LearnToLoveYourWork.com and LinkedIn. You can learn more about us at LifeBlood.Live, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook or you'd like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood.Live.  Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood

Do you love your work? Even if you own your own business, it's very easy to slip into a mindset that resents having to go to the office each day. Even if you work in exactly the industry and position you always wanted to. How then can we manage our mindset and bring our awareness back to all that we have to be grateful for? How can we shake ourselves from the malaise and get back on track to expansiveness? Intrinsic motivation! TAKE OUR FREE MONEY MINDSET QUIZ HERE: https://dreamwithdan.com/money-mindset-quiz/ Welcome once again Dreamers, to the Do it with Dan Podcast! The place to truly dream with your eyes open. It's time to expand our experience with some more great discussion on the power of the mind in all things. Whether you want to manifest more wealth, emotional abundance or love in your life; this is the podcast for you. Stefan Falk is an internationally-recognized executive coach and human performance expert. He has trained over 4,000 leaders across more than 60 different client organizations in North America and Europe. He has held C-suite roles at several global companies and has been responsible for driving corporate transformations valued in excess of two billion dollars. His leadership and human performance techniques have been developed in continuous cooperation with leading scientists in fields including neuroscience, behavioral science, and psychology. Please share your stories with me over at dreamwithdan.com. Connect with Stefan here: Website: learntoloveyourwork.com *PLEASE RATE US AND SHARE* Join me on: Facebook Instagram Twitter Music Credit: "The Dreamer", Common Timestamps of interest: 01:25 - Welcome Stefan 07:45 - The motivating factor of energy conservation 09:28 - Most work stress is self-inflicted 17:15 - What you can do if you're trapped in negative thinking 22:00 - Pull more beauty from your experiences 30:20 - The extreme importance of fantasy 32:28 - Stefan's book - Intrinsic Motivation

The term, “vulnerability” has spread into realms where it's not an accurate description of what's going on. The case for being vulnerable often doesn't make sense. In the creative realm – and possibly in others – we should pursue something beyond vulnerability. When I wrote about vulnerability to my Love Mondays newsletter, saying some of what I'm about to say, I got a lot of pushback. In the current – and what I believe to be incorrect – parlance, some might say I had made myself vulnerable. I don't agree. I'll build up to why in the course of examining the vulnerability movement. I'll try to keep this organized, so that if you disagree with my line of thinking, it's easier to identify where. It's hard to talk about vulnerability in an organized way, because the more the term is abused, the more vague its definition gets. Vulnerability means “open to harm” Let's start by defining vulnerability. In the most basic terms, vulnerability means, “open to harm.” If you want to be more technical and specific, “open” in this case doesn't mean “inviting” harm, but rather “susceptible” to harm. Now I'll paraphrase some examples of how vulnerability is espoused in the current movement: “Be vulnerable at work. If you need help, don't be afraid to ask.” “Be vulnerable in relationships. Share your feelings, even if it means you might be rejected.” “Be vulnerable in your writing. Share your struggles.” (Anyone familiar with my work might be surprised to hear me tee up this last one.) I don't deny that a person might feel vulnerable in these situations. I'm not convinced they are vulnerable. I'm definitely skeptical that striving to be or even feel vulnerable is helpful. Emotional harm is the most-subjective harm If being vulnerable is being open to harm, to understand vulnerability we have to define what harm is. There are many types of harm, but I think most are covered in three categories: physical, economic, and emotional harm. Physical harm is the least-subjective realm of harm. Yes, people might perceive their physical wounds differently, and someone can have physical pains with an emotional cause, but for the most part, you can measure physical injury. Economic harm is slightly more-subjective. If you lose your job in a flourishing modern economy, you won't necessarily have scars, such as if you experienced physical harm. You may ultimately be better off. Emotional harm is almost entirely subjective. What seems like emotional harm to one person may not to another. Some can't stand to be looked at by a stranger. Others don't care if someone criticizes them. Importantly, what causes emotional harm to a person when they're inexperienced in a realm may not – later, to that same person – cause emotional harm after they become experienced in that same realm. More on that later. The vulnerability movement: “Be vulnerable, and benefit” Now that we've defined vulnerability as “open to harm,” and identified most harms as physical, economic, or emotional, let's try to identify the case being made for vulnerability by the vulnerability movement. When I say vulnerability movement, I'm not talking about any one person, but rather my perception as a very-confused outsider, trying to make sense of the conversations being had about vulnerability in TED talks, on social media, on podcasts, and at cocktail parties. As far as I can understand, the pitch of the vulnerability movement is, “be vulnerable and benefit.” To paraphrase, using the prior examples from work, love, and art: “If you need help at work, ask for it. You risk looking like you don't know what you're doing, but you and your team will perform better.” “Be the first in a relationship to say, ‘I love you.' You risk rejection, but otherwise you'll have a deeper relationship.” “Share your struggles in your writing. People may laugh at you, but your words will help others.” To be clear, I think these actions can be wise. But I don't believe they're objectively vulnerable, and you don't have to make vulnerability a goal – and maybe you shouldn't make vulnerability a goal – to catalyze these actions. These are all cases to “be vulnerable and benefit.” To be vulnerable is to be open to harm. If you ultimately benefit from an action, were you vulnerable – were you open to harm – in the first place? Is it vulnerability if it needs boundaries? Some might say, Well, you don't know the outcome of these actions in advance, so you're risking harm by taking them. Yet anyone who speaks intelligently about vulnerability rightly says it should come with boundaries. A CEO shouldn't freak out about the potential fate of the company, in front of employees and shareholders. You shouldn't spend your first date complaining about your ex. You shouldn't share your struggles with depression in writing a user manual for a Bluetooth speaker. Too much vulnerability is oversharing. So, according to the movement, vulnerability should be a calculated risk, one you're likely to benefit from, and one that isn't likely to ruin you. Don't seek vulnerability, seek ideals It seems to me the case being made for vulnerability is in pursuit of important ideals, including but not limited to truth, security, and alignment. The more we're honest at work, the more effective we can be in an efficient marketplace. The more we share our feelings in our relationships, the more secure we feel. The more of our true selves we put into our art, the more it resonates with others. “Fear” is the word you're looking for I think a better term for what we experience in pursuit of these ideals is “fear.” Fear is a feeling of discomfort in the face of perceived danger. Fear can be irrational. The perceived danger can be entirely in your head. Some people experience fear just looking at a spider that has no chance of physically harming them. Some people experience fear looking at birds. Valid vulnerability isn't the type being promoted I've ventured into unfamiliar territory thinking about vulnerability and putting together this critique. I found many areas where truly being vulnerable resulted in benefits, such as in combat, activism, and workplace inclusion. True vulnerability, it seems, is the product of power, and people sometimes have to be vulnerable to dissolve that power. These areas are outside the scope of this short critique. Besides, I haven't come across much chatter in the vulnerability movement that makes cases for vulnerability in these valid areas. But aren't I a “vulnerable” writer? One area I am very familiar with is creative work. Some readers have described some of my work as “vulnerable.” I've written about the death of my mother, the death of a lover, and published a conversation about grief. I've listed my failures and published my private doubts in my pursuit of a career as a writer. I've written about my health struggles in graphic detail, and shared my struggles with moving to another country. I've been publicly reporting my income for years, starting when it was even less-impressive than it is now. I'm further critiquing vulnerability in this article, even though I got angry emails in response to my short newsletter on the topic. Was I, am I, vulnerable in creating these things? I don't think so. Am I risking physical harm? Not likely. Economic harm? I don't think so. Emotional harm? That's not up to someone else to decide. What looks like “vulnerability” is “antifragility” Have I ever felt vulnerable writing these things? In retrospect, I guess I did. More accurately, I felt fear. Because I was not vulnerable. I benefitted greatly writing these things. I grew, and got to know myself. I found my voice and got closer to doing work that comes from my core. It was all real and came from an authentic place, but I grew my business in the process. I took calculated risks, and I got better at calculating along the way. I thought that by writing public income reports, I would improve my thought processes and grow my business – I did. I thought that having a public conversation about grief would help me live with it – it has. I thought that by writing about my mysterious health issues, readers would send me ideas that would help me get better – they did. I'm not claiming to be Galileo or Harvey Milk, which is kind of the point – their work made them objectively vulnerable. But I know I've never set out to deliberately be vulnerable. I've set out to face fears, because I believed they were irrational. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being scared. What once felt like fear morphed into excitement to see what would happen – to see if this action would take me closer to truth, security, and alignment. Vulnerability as a boundary, not a beacon Now that I've been at it a long time, if I were to feel vulnerable, I would see that as a boundary, not a beacon. That would be a warning sign that I'm oversharing, and needlessly putting myself in danger. That's one problem with espousing the pursuit of a subjective feeling: Being afraid is not the same as being vulnerable. The more experienced you get – in work, love, or art – the more adeptly you can recognize when you really are vulnerable, and decide it's a good idea to stop. Performative vulnerability is a slippery slope When I wrote about this in my newsletter, some readers said they had been in communities where appearing vulnerable became a sort of contest. People seemed to be oversharing just to outdo one another. That's another problem with espousing the pursuit of a subjective feeling: If vulnerability is the goal – whether that's being, feeling, or appearing vulnerable – you incentivize vulnerability. The definitions and the actions fitting those definitions tumble over one another down a very slippery slope. Vulnerability can be a productive lie Sometimes we tell ourselves productive lies. You can commit to working for ten minutes, knowing you'll keep going once you've reached that goal. You can give yourself permission to suck – notice that's “permission,” not “directive” – knowing you'll improve or do better than you had expected. Maybe the pursuit to feel vulnerable is a productive lie. It teaches you to face your irrational fears. But at some point you hopefully grow beyond vulnerability – where feeling vulnerable is a sign of danger. There are cases where danger – true vulnerability – is worth the risk, but that's only because the ideals you're pursuing are worth that much. What looks like vulnerability is a byproduct, not a goal Choosing your actions with vulnerability as a goal is like building a boat designed to splash water. Boats splash water because they're traveling to a destination. You feel or even are vulnerable in the pursuit of something more important. A boat designed to splash water won't travel as efficiently as a boat designed to go somewhere. I believe that a person designing their actions to feel vulnerable won't be as effective as a person driven to pursue an ideal. That's what lies beyond vulnerability. Image: Error on Green, Paul Klee Thank you for having me on your podcasts! Thank you for having me on your podcasts. Thank you to Brilliant Miller at The School for Good Living podcast. As always, you can find interviews of me on my interviews page. About Your Host, David Kadavy David Kadavy is author of Mind Management, Not Time Management, The Heart to Start and Design for Hackers. Through the Love Your Work podcast, his Love Mondays newsletter, and self-publishing coaching David helps you make it as a creative. Follow David on: Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Subscribe to Love Your Work Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Stitcher YouTube RSS Email Support the show on Patreon Put your money where your mind is. Patreon lets you support independent creators like me. Support now on Patreon »       Show notes: http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/beyond-vulnerability/

Stefan Falk is an internationally-recognized executive coach and human performance expert. A McKinsey & Company alumnus specializing in leadership and corporate transformation, he has trained over 4,000 leaders across more than 60 different client organizations in North America and Europe. Stefan's book, Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before, is available now! Find more about Stefan at learntoloveyourwork.com. Support the Show - Become a Patron! Help us grow and become a Patron today: https://www.patreon.com/smartpeoplepodcast Sponsors: ButcherBox - Sign up today at butcherbox.com/SMART and use code SMART to get a 100% grass-fed chuck roast and a whole chicken FREE in your first box plus $20 off. Justworks – Take a look at Justworks' transparent pricing by visiting justworks.com/pricing. Wonolo - A comprehensive, easy-to-use online staffing platform that helps businesses connect with the workers they need. Head over to wonolo.com/smart to get started. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I welcome Stefan Falk to Passion Struck, who is a senior executive and performance coach working with elite athletes, top executives, special operators in the armed forces, and leaders from all walks of life. We explore his new book Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before. Stefan Falk discusses why intrinsic motivation is vital to success Stefan Falk and I discuss why to achieve productivity and positivity in both personal and professional life, it's important to have a sense of control, an understanding of current events and future prospects, and a strong and supportive social network. The need for connection and trust has become even more crucial with the rise of remote work. However, many of us struggle to meet these needs effectively and instead resort to unhelpful coping strategies. The key to success is to develop intrinsic motivation by focusing on activities that align with our career and life goals, rejecting a competitive mentality, finding joy in our work, and doing it well.  Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/stefan-falk-intrinsic-motivation/  Brought to you by Shopify, Green Chef, and Indeed. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/9YK9RPUpRl0 --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

My guest today is Stefan Falk, a professional advisor, and executive performance and development coach. His proven and unique expertise is centered around themes such as change and transformation, organizational effectiveness, performance management, and behavior development. His industrial experience spans most industries and sectors, from financial institutions to traditional industrial companies to leading professional services firms. The topic is his book Intrinsic Motivation: Learn to Love Your Work and Succeed as Never Before. In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss: How to master your inner environment How the human mind operates The pre-configured mind and its priorities Explaining a deeper self-understanding Leveraging risk in the entertainment industry Our cognitive reserve Jump in! --- I'm MICHAEL COVEL, the host of TREND FOLLOWING RADIO, and I'm proud to have delivered 10+ million podcast listens since 2012. Investments, economics, psychology, politics, decision-making, human behavior, entrepreneurship and trend following are all passionately explored and debated on my show. To start? I'd like to give you a great piece of advice you can use in your life and trading journey… cut your losses! You will find much more about that philosophy here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/trend/ You can watch a free video here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/video/ Can't get enough of this episode? You can choose from my thousand plus episodes here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/podcast My social media platforms: Twitter: @covel Facebook: @trendfollowing LinkedIn: @covel Instagram: @mikecovel Hope you enjoy my never-ending podcast conversation!

After spending a decade grappling with a fast-paced career in marketing and two autoimmune diseases, Amina AlTai hit burnout. In hopes of healing her own life, she sought training in coaching, nutrition, fitness and mindfulness and her goal became to teach others how to balance a thriving career, body and mind. She takes a holistic approach to coaching— examining any blocks in the mindset, in our bodies and in how we lead. Amina is on Goal Digger to talk about hustle culture, about knowing the difference between burnout and exhaustion, setting boundaries in the workplace, and tips for confidently selecting your next path towards and aligned, authentic career. PRE-ORDER MY FIRST BOOK: jennakutcher.com/book GOAL DIGGER FB COMMUNITY: https://www.facebook.com/groups/goaldiggerpodcast/ GOAL DIGGER INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/goaldiggerpodcast/ GOAL DIGGER SHOWNOTES: jennakutcherblog.com/amina