Podcasts about Dropbox

President Trump speaks on federal prosecutors dropping the last of their cases against people charged with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. MySpace might be relaunching a new webpage. LA county is charging officer Daniel Flores for secretly recording his co-workers. Duji secretly recorded one of Gia's teachers. Congressman Max Miller released a Dropbox of secret recordings he has made. 

Bullying Ariana Grande. People are tired of JLR. A FBI counterintelligence agent stole about $1 million in cryptocurrency from a suspect's account. At a baseball game in Mexico a fight breaks out after a player is tagged out. People complain about Celine Dion's performance in Paris. Startup company, LemonLime, is facing backlash over their "instant interview" tattoo. Comcast's cable division is being sued over a manager allegedly smashing cream pies into the face of the lowest-performing salesperson. President Trump speaks on federal prosecutors dropping the last of their cases against people charged with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. MySpace might be relaunching a new webpage. LA county is charging officer Daniel Flores for secretly recording his co-workers. Duji secretly recorded one of Gia's teachers. Congressman Max Miller released a Dropbox of secret recordings he has made. Gaslighting. Rover and Krystle have a list of their sexual partners. 

Davida Lindsay-Bell, Chief People Officer at Hanna Andersson, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why AI transformation needs to start with people, how Hanna Andersson operationalized psychological safety, and why trust, learning, and intelligent failure are the foundation for lasting change.----  Sponsor Links:

Laura Fuentes, CHRO at Hilton, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about Hilton's hospitality mindset, why great leaders should operate like great hosts, and how Hilton scales culture, listening, recognition, and purpose across more than 500,000 team members.----  Sponsor Links:

Episode 455 | Martial Arts Appreciation Month: How to Drive Referrals, Reviews, and Retention Podcast Description National Martial Arts Appreciation Month (September) isn't just a “fun theme” — it's a full marketing and retention campaign you can run every year. In this episode, Duane Brumitt and Allie Alberigo break down how they built Martial Arts Appreciation Month into a repeatable playbook that drives referrals, strengthens culture, and gives families a real reason to talk about what martial arts has done for their kids. You'll hear practical ideas you can copy: a buddy week where students bring friends, sponsor-funded T-shirts that turn into walking billboards, review drives that feel like appreciation (not begging), and simple ways to educate parents on your school's legacy so they feel more connected — and stay longer. Key Takeaways Treat Appreciation Month like a campaign, not a calendar gimmick. When you plan it as a full campaign, it becomes a system for referrals, reviews, and retention — not “extra work for maybe results.” Appreciation changes the story families tell themselves. You can't force people to value what you do. However, you can give them a lens to look through so they notice progress: who their child used to be vs. who they are now. Events drive attention — and attention drives action. People are event-oriented more than ever. So when you package your message as an “event month,” families pay attention in a way they don't during normal weeks. Buddy Week + T-shirts = a referral engine that doesn't feel salesy.A structured “bring-a-friend” week inside the month gives you a clear referral push. Pair it with a T-shirt for both the student and the guest, and you create instant excitement and visibility. Use sponsorships to fund (and profit from) your marketing. Instead of paying out of pocket for shirts, Duane and Allie use community sponsors (with tiered packages) to cover costs and create profit — while building local business relationships. Reviews work better when they're framed as appreciation. A review drive tied to “show your appreciation” feels natural. Add a raffle-ticket system and prizes, and participation goes up. Video testimonials are marketing assets — not one-and-done content. Have instructors and students record short videos on why they appreciate martial arts (and your school specifically). Those clips can be reused on social, email, and your website. Brand the testimonials so they don't become generic. If students say “martial arts helped me,” you're advertising every school in town. Ask them to say your school name (ex: “TriStar Martial Arts helped me…”) so the message stays attached to your brand. “Dead leads” aren't dead — they're future event buyers and referral sources. Even if a guest doesn't enroll, they may attend camps, seminars, parent night outs, or refer someone later because they had a great experience. Education builds reverence — and reverence builds retention. Many families join because you're convenient and professional, not because they understand your legacy. Appreciation Month is your chance to teach them who you are, what you've built, and why it matters. Action Steps for School Owners Pick your month and commit to the campaign. September ties nicely to back-to-school, but you can run it any month. The key is planning early enough to execute. Choose 5 core activities (don't try to do all 30 ideas). Start with a simple stack like: Buddy Week (bring-a-friend) T-shirt incentive Review drive + raffle Weekly “Martial Arts Legend / History” spotlight Video testimonials (students + instructors) Build your sponsor offer (even if it's just 2 tiers). Create a simple sponsorship sheet for local businesses. If you want to copy Duane's approach, use four tiers: Community Champion — $200 Character Builder — $250 Leadership Partner — $300 Warrior Advocate — $400 Make the T-shirt the “ticket” to participation. Give a shirt to the guest and the student who brings them. It's a reward, a uniform, and a walking ad. Run a review raffle instead of “please leave us a review.”Every review = a ticket in the drawing. Pick prizes families actually want (gear credit, private lesson, birthday party discount, etc.). Collect video testimonials with one rule: say your school name. Give families a simple prompt and remind them to name your school in the first sentence. Add one “culture education” piece per week. Rotate options like: Word of the Week (grit, legacy, inspire, strength) Legacy chart (your instructor lineage) Instructor spotlight videos “Did you know?” facts about the owner/head instructor Create a follow-up plan for visitors. Don't just invite them to join. Invite them to the next event: movie night, bully-proofing seminar, parent night out, camp, etc. Additional Resources Mentioned Martial Arts Appreciation Month PDF playbook (Duane + Allie mention they'll share it via Facebook message and link it on the Episode 455 post at SchoolOwnerTalk.com.) Event Journal / Event recap questions (a repeatable set of questions to document what worked, what to change, and the numbers from each event.) Video testimonial collection + transcription workflow (they mention using Dropbox to collect videos and auto-transcribe, then repurposing the transcript with AI.) Movie Night Ideas (from the episode) Allie's “family martial arts friendly” movie list mentioned: 3 Ninjas (series) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (movies) Warriors of Virtue Top Dog (Chuck Norris) Surf Ninjas The Karate Kid (series) Kung Fu Panda (series) Mulan Underdog Kids Big Trouble in Little China Additional Resources Mentioned (Action Items to Implement) Link the MAAM PDF to the Episode 455 post on SchoolOwnerTalk.com. Plan and promote a movie night (example: 3 Ninjas) with pizza/popcorn and a giveaway. Closing Note If you want a campaign that helps families feel the value of martial arts again — and gives them a reason to bring friends, leave reviews, and stay committed — Martial Arts Appreciation Month is a simple, repeatable way to do it. And if you want the full PDF playbook, Click HERE

Special thanks to Triangle for sponsoring this episode. Triangle's founder, Matt, is offering a complimentary one-hour strategy session for founders seeking to grow their personal brand. I can't recommend this service enough, and get in quick as there are only three remaining slots available this month! Get in touch at matt@mattswain.com or book directly at https://www.triangle-branding.com/book-a-call What if the feedback culture you're desperate to build is actually being blocked by bias you don't even see? Leadership is not a choice between empathy and accountability; it demands both. In this episode of World's Greatest Business Thinkers, Nick Hague speaks with Co-founder of Radical Candor and bestselling author Kim Scott about the principles behind her books Radical Candor and Radical Respect. Kim shares how leaders can build teams grounded in trust, honesty, and psychological safety. Kim explains why respect must come before candid feedback and how managers can distinguish between bias, prejudice, and bullying to respond appropriately. She shares practical strategies for soliciting honest feedback, conducting more effective one-on-ones in hybrid workplaces, and helping employees grow through meaningful career conversations.  The discussion also explores why high-performing individuals don't always become great managers and how leaders can create environments where people feel safe to challenge ideas and speak openly. What You Will Learn: The Radical Candor Framework Why Feedback Feels Like Existential Dread Three Distinct Problems Requiring Different Solutions The Four Steps to Soliciting Feedback That Actually Works How Radical Respect Becomes the Foundation for Radical Candor Building Teams Where Everyone Steps Toward Their Dreams Why Managers Must Solicit Feedback First Making It Work in Hybrid Environments   If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube Podcasts.   About the Guest: Kim Scott is a bestselling author, leadership expert, and co-founder of Radical Candor. She is the author of Radical Candor and Radical Respect, two influential books on management, feedback, and workplace culture. Kim has coached CEOs at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other leading technology companies, served on the faculty at Apple University, and led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. A TED speaker and podcast host, she helps leaders build high-performing teams through candid communication, mutual respect, and human-centered leadership.   Quotes: "If you don't teach that dog to sit, you're gonna kill that dog. And then he pointed at the ground with this kind of harsh gesture, and he said, sit. The dog sat. I had no idea she even knew what that meant. And I kind of looked up at him in amazement, and he said to me, it's not mean. It's clear." "At some level, Radical Candor is about love and truth at the same time. If you care personally and you challenge directly at the same time, that's radical candor. You can be really kind and really successful at the same time; you don't have to choose between being a jackass and being successful." "From the time we get our first job, we're maybe 18, 19, 20 years old, right when our egos are maximally fragile. Someone comes along and says, be professional. I think an awful lot of us leave our emotions, leave who we really are, leave our humanity at home, and show up at work like some kind of robot. And you can't possibly care personally if you're showing up at work like some kind of robot." "Radical respect is sort of the prequel to radical candor. The most helpful feedback I got was from a CEO colleague who explained that as soon as she would give even the most compassionate, gentle criticism, they would call her an angry black woman. In that moment, I realized I hadn't been the kind of colleague I wanted to be, and that I had been in denial about disrespectful attitudes happening around me."   Keywords: Primary Keywords (Core Themes): radical candor, radical respect, leadership feedback, management training, psychological safety, caring personally, challenging directly, workplace culture, bias in the workplace, prejudice vs bias, bullying at work, honest communication, employee feedback Secondary Keywords (Related Subtopics): CEO coaching, team building, one-on-one meetings, performance management, organizational culture, diverse teams, inclusive leadership, conflict resolution, difficult conversations, workplace respect, managing bias, soliciting feedback, giving criticism, praise and recognition Episode Resources: Kim Scott on LinkedIn Radical Candor Website Radical Candor Book Radical Respect Book World's Greatest Business Thinkers on Apple Podcasts World's Greatest Business Thinkers on Spotify World's Greatest Business Thinkers on YouTube

This isn't one of my usual stories or episodes – but it is still terrifying (to me, at least). Over the weekend, a devastating cyberattack locked me out of my Google account, YouTube channels, Dropbox, and many of the tools I rely on to produce Weird Darkness. For several days, I genuinely didn't know if the show would survive.In this special emergency update, I explain what happened, why new episodes suddenly stopped, what became of the YouTube channels, where things stand now, and why this has been one of the darkest weeks of my life—both professionally and personally.The good news? Weird Darkness is still here.Thank you for your patience, your encouragement, and your prayers. It means more than you know.Listen and subscribe at: https://WeirdDarkness.com

AI makes it easier than ever to find and act on information—especially now that teams can connect to and search across all the apps they use for work. So how do you ensure that only the right people and the right tools can access your team's most sensitive content? In this episode, we talk with Jess Jimenez, the head of security at Dropbox, about what security looks like in the age of AI at Dropbox-scale—from building AI products securely to building trust with the people who use them. Jess talks about the importance of access control lists, defending against the latest AI threats, and how Dropbox Protect helps teams securely share content with both humans and AI so they can collaborate more safely. ~ ~ ~  Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox. Find, organize, and share your work—all in one place—with context-aware AI from Dropbox. You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.ai This show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Ben Montoya, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrator Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck.  Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart.  Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

You can have the right strategy, the right numbers, and the cleanest slide deck in the world and still fail to move anyone. That gap is not about intelligence or effort. It is about meaning. I sit down with Robert Kennedy III (RK3), keynote speaker and communication strategist, to talk about storytelling as a leadership skill that cuts through noise and turns information into understanding.We unpack one of the biggest myths holding people back: “I'm not a storyteller.” Robert explains why that is often an identity story, not a talent issue, and how choosing a new agreement with yourself changes what you attempt and what you avoid. We also dig into public speaking fear and nervous energy, including Robert's unforgettable line about not getting rid of the butterflies but getting them to fly in formation, plus the mindset shift that turns anxiety into excitement.Then we get practical. Robert shares his Moment, Meaning, Message framework for business storytelling and leadership communication. We explore how ordinary moments can become powerful stories, why relatability beats drama, and how stories create vivid mental images, emotional connection, and trust in a way data rarely can. You'll also learn what a signature story is, how to find yours, and when personal stories build credibility better than third-party examples.If you want to become a clearer communicator, a stronger leader, and a more persuasive speaker, listen now, then subscribe, share this with a colleague, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Amanda Natividad, Chief Evangelist at SparkToro and co-author of Zero Click Marketing.We'll cover:(00:00) - Intro (01:14) - In This Episode (06:37) - Why Attribution Breaks Down in a Zero Click World (16:09) - What the Alligator Graph Means for Ops Teams (22:46) - How to Run a Zero Click Launch Week You Can Actually Measure (32:35) - How Incrementality Testing Works at Enterprise Scale (38:09) - What Audience Listening Adds to the Marketing Ops Stack (42:50) - What Content Leaders Need From Marketing Ops (47:59) - How to Turn Audience Research Into an Operational System (52:00) - How AI Visibility Changes Zero Click Marketing (58:36) - Setting Boundaries to Protect Your Energy and Focus Summary: zero click marketing won the strategy war, and now nobody can prove it's working. Amanda has spent over a decade building marketing that lives where the audience already is, and in this episode she takes apart the measurement crisis that creates. We get into why your attribution dashboard is quietly lying to you, how a viral story about HubSpot losing 80% of its organic traffic actually hid record revenue, and what a 25 million dollar ad blackout taught Dropbox about the gap between credit and cause. She also shows how to turn audience research into an operational system and why winning AI visibility comes down to writing genuinely good stuff. Stick around for the launch-week playbook and the overslept-webinar story that completely reframes how she guards her time.About Amanda NatividadAmanda Natividad is the Chief Evangelist at SparkToro, the audience research startup, and the founder of Zero Click Marketing, a podcast and consultancy built around the framework she co-created with Rand Fishkin in 2022. She spent 4 and a half years as SparkToro's VP of Marketing, where she launched a newsletter that reaches more than 60,000 subscribers at a 35% open rate and built Office Hours, a webinar series that pulls as many as 1,200 registrants a show.She's keynoted at AdWorld, Content Marketing World, and MozCon, and guest lectured at Columbia, Cornell, and Stanford. A Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef and former journalist, she now teaches Content Marketing 201 on Maven.Why Attribution Breaks Down in a Zero Click WorldEvery marketing ops team runs on a dashboard that hands out credit. This lead came from paid search. That demo came from a LinkedIn ad. This signup traces back to the nurture email. The numbers look authoritative, and leadership treats them that way. The trouble is the data underneath has been eroding for years, and most teams still read the output like scripture.Amanda has spent more than a decade building marketing programs that don't depend on the click. Her take on measurement starts from an uncomfortable place. Attribution was never as precise as the industry sold it, and every year it gets less precise.4 separate forces have chipped away at what attribution can actually see, and they stack on top of each other.Third-party cookies barely function. Only about 30% of users accept them, and Safari rejects them by default., Ad blockers hide a huge share of traffic. Somewhere between 20 and 60% of people run one, and among tech-savvy B2B audiences that number climbs toward 60%., The multi-device journey is untrackable pre-login. People average 3.6 devices each, so stitching a single human across all of them is mostly guesswork., Privacy regulation makes persistent tracking impractical. GDPR, CCPA, and LGPD mean what's legal in the US often isn't legal anywhere else, a real burden for any team with a global audience.None of this means you rip attribution out of the stack. In a mature organization it's already there, already wired into the reports leadership reads, so ignoring it would be its own kind of malpractice. The shift Amanda argues for is one of posture. Go in knowing exactly where the model goes blind, then ask the more useful question of what you can measure next to fill the gaps. That's where incrementality, media mix modeling, geo-testing, and holdout tests start to earn their place. The teams that keep their budgets in a down market are the ones who stopped presenting attribution as ground truth and started presenting it as one flawed witness among several. A single confident number is easy to attack. A converging set of imperfect signals is much harder to argue with.Key takeaway: Audit where your attribution model goes blind before your next leadership review. Write down how much of your traffic Safari blocks, how many of your B2B visitors run ad blockers, and how many touchpoints happen before anyone logs in. Bring that context into the room so a drop in tracked conversions reads as a gap in measurement, not a failure in marketing.Why Dark Social Traffic Shows Up as DirectOpen Google Analytics on any given week and a fat slice of your traffic sits in a bucket labeled direct. The polite interpretation is that all those people typed your URL straight into the address bar. Almost none of them did. Most of that direct traffic is dark social, the shares that happen inside messaging apps and closed platforms where the referral information never makes it back to you.SparkToro put real numbers on it. About 2 years ago the team ran an experiment, sending more than 1,100 visits across 11 social networks and then checking what Google Analytics reported. For TikTok, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, and Mastodon, every single visit landed in direct.Amanda has a theory about why, and it follows the money. The platforms can see the organic referral string. They keep it invisible, because the moment you pay to join their ad network, that traffic suddenly becomes visible and measurable. Organic reach stays in the dark so paid reach looks like the only reach worth buying. And it goes well past the obvious suspects. Facebook Messenger strips the referral about 75% of the time, Instagram DMs about 30%, and even LinkedIn hides it roughly 14% of the time. A share is a share whether it happens in a feed or a private message, but only some of them ever get counted.The practical lesson for an ops team is to stop treating the direct channel as a junk drawer. When word of mouth and private sharing drive a real share of pipeline, a measurement model that files all of it under direct is quietly erasing your best-performing channel. The brands that figure this out start asking where conversations about them actually happen, instead of waiting for a clean UTM that the platform was never going to hand over.Key takeaway: Run your own dark social test before you trust the direct bucket. Push a known batch of clicks through TikTok, Slack, and a few DM channels, then watch how your analytics file them. Use the gap to set expectations with leadership, and lean on post-purchase survey questions like "where did you first hear about us" to recover the attribution the platforms refuse to share.What the Alligator Graph Means for Ops TeamsThere's a chart making the rounds that content marketers have started calling the alligator graph. Impressions climb while clicks to your website fall, and the 2 lines drift apart until they look like an open set of jaws. For a content team this reads as proof the strategy is working, because more people are seeing the brand. For a marketing ops team staring at the same chart in Google Analytics, it reads as failure, because the dashboard they own is built to count clicks and the clicks are going down. The measurement layer is undercutting the exact thing the content layer is producing.Amanda's first move is to reframe the problem. The j...

AI can speed up the work, but it still cannot replace the human connection that moves trust forward.In this episode, John sits down with Katrin Gurvich, a GTM Strategy & Operations leader at Navan, to talk about networking, referrals, AI, hiring, and what modern sales teams need to protect as the go-to-market world gets more automated. Katrin shares how she built connection as a skill, why referrals have lost meaning when they become a checkmark, and why AI-assisted work still requires real ownership from the person using it.If you are in sales, RevOps, enablement, leadership, or any GTM role where AI is changing the way work gets done, this conversation gives you a practical way to think about human touch, buyer trust, personal brand, and how reps should use the time AI gives back.Want to build a team AI can support but never replace? Visit www.jbarrows.com and learn how you can Make It Happen.What You'll LearnWhy networking is a skill you can build through repetitionWhy referrals only matter when real trust sits behind themHow AI use reveals ownership, curiosity, and judgmentWhy human connection still matters in modern GTM executionHow onsites, events, and personal touches can change sales conversationsWhy reps need to use AI-given time to get sharper, not just fasterKatrin Gurvich is a GTM Strategy & Operations leader at Navan, where she partners across sales and revenue teams to translate high-level strategy into day-to-day execution. Her work spans diagnosing business health, improving pipeline visibility, and helping revenue leaders separate real signal from vanity metrics like quota attainment.Before Navan, Katrin held roles in sales planning and analytics at Dropbox, management consulting at HealthScape Advisors, and corporate and institutional banking at PNC, giving her a cross-functional view of how strategy, data, and operations intersect. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Case Western Reserve University, where she studied economics, psychology, and world literature.Visit and learn more about Navan:Website: https://navan.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navan/?viewAsMember=trueFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/GetNavanInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/getnavan/Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@navan?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pcYoutube: https://www.youtube.com/@GetNavanConnect with Katrin Gurvich:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrin-gurvich-559142130/John Barrows is a sales trainer, speaker, and founder of JB Sales with over 25 years of experience in the industry. He has made hundreds of cold calls a week, led startups to acquisition, and trained high-performing teams at companies like Salesforce, LinkedIn, Amazon, and Okta. Through JB Sales, John focuses on practical sales execution—helping reps fill pipeline, close deals, and build trust with buyers in today's AI-driven sales environment.Connect with John Barrows:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbarrows/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnmbarrows/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@johnmbarrowsCheck out John's Membership: https://learn.jbarrows.com/pages/individual-packages?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcastJoin John's Newsletter: https://www.jbarrows.com/newsletter

Dans cet épisode, j'interroge Max Berthelot, co-fondateur de Lucis, sur la création de sa startup en santé préventive: le bilan santé qui vous accompagne dans le changements des habitudes de vie (nutrition, exercice, sommeil, compléments, santé mentale), mais aussi sur leur passage pas Y Combinator: l'incubateur célèbre qui a fait naître Airbnb, Stripe et Dropbox.Quel est ce bilan santé et combien ça coûte?Pourquoi c'est mieux que de donner sa prise de sang à Claude / ChatGPT?Comment ça change réellement la santé de ses clients?Les européens sont ils prêts à payer pour la santé préventive?Comment intégrer le meilleur incubateur du monde?Que fait YC pour que ces boîtes avancent aussi vite?Le site de LucisMax sur LinkedinAnastasia sur LinkedinCarnets d'Entrepreneurs sur InstagramHébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Jessie Zwaan, author of Purpose and Work and Built for People, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why the old purpose-at-work narrative is breaking, how people relate to work through jobs, careers, and callings, and why HR leaders need to rethink how they build meaning into work.----  Sponsor Links:

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Dennis Woodside, CEO of Freshworks, the $2.5B public software company helping IT and customer support teams use AI to work faster, smarter, and more efficiently. Dennis shares how Freshworks serves more than 75,000 companies around the world, including major names across technology, sports, education, entertainment, manufacturing, and enterprise software. Dennis breaks down how AI is transforming the way companies operate, from freeing creative teams from administrative work to helping IT departments automate repetitive requests and focus on higher-value projects. He explains why the next wave of enterprise software will be defined by speed, simplicity, and the ability to help teams adapt without needing months of custom implementation. Jess and Dennis also dive into what it takes to lead a founder-built company through major transitions. Dennis shares lessons from his time at Google, Motorola, Dropbox, Impossible Foods, and Freshworks, including how founders can successfully hand off the CEO role, how public companies can maintain long-term ambition, and why profitability, focus, and discipline matter more than ever in today's SaaS market. This conversation is a practical look at AI, enterprise software, founder transitions, public company leadership, and how Freshworks is building AI-powered service software for the agile enterprise. If you care about SaaS, scaling, leadership, AI adoption, or the future of IT, this episode is one to watch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today I'm going to talk about software and software as a service items that I use. I probably forgot some because there's going to be 42 on this list. Okay. Now, I don't want you to get all whacked out and think, oh my God, I got to have 42 different things to be successful online. Well, remember, I've been doing this for 32 years, and a lot of stuff has gone by the wayside and been replaced with new stuff. But you don't have to do everything that I'm talking about today. But there's a lot of good stuff here that maybe you didn't know about. Launch Team - https://www.ScrewTheCommute.com/launchteam Please watch this short trailer to the end and leave a comment - https://www.facebook.com/AmericanEntrepreneurFilm/videos/558575401181955 AI Hacks - https://www.ScrewTheCommute.com/aihacks AI Hacks Video Masterclass - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miJed0mCFHQ Professional Speaking Masterclass - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFLR1MLTnf0 Email Marketing Masterclass - https://youtu.be/_wlvw073xP0 How Podcasting Got Me Invited to the White House - https://www.screwthecommute.com/pod Screw The Commute Podcast Show Notes Episode 1149 How To Automate Your Business - https://screwthecommute.com/automatefree/ Internet Marketing Training Center - https://imtcva.org/ Higher Education Webinar – https://screwthecommute.com/webinars See Tom's Stuff – https://linktr.ee/antionandassociates 00:23 Tom's introduction to Software & SaaS 03:00 ChatGPT, Claude, QuillBot, CapCut, Captions, HeyGen 04:43 Hydra, Opus Clips, Eleven Labs, Google Alerts, Outlook, Aweber, Savicom 06:19 Kartra, Elgato StreamDeck, Adobe Premier Pro, Audition, and Creative Cloud, Libsyn 08:59 Roadcaster app, iPICCY.com, fal.ai, Roboform, Keyboard Maestro, Mouse Pose 12:14 Zoom, OBS live stream, Dropbox, iCloud, Chrome browser, Google Maps, Notes/Notepad 13:20 Microsoft Word, Google Sheets/Drive, Kindle Create, Logi Tune, Meetup, Camtasia Entrepreneurial Resources Mentioned in This Podcast Higher Education Webinar - https://screwthecommute.com/webinars Screw The Commute - https://screwthecommute.com/ Screw The Commute Podcast App - https://screwthecommute.com/app/ Screw The Commute Podcast Producer - https://screwthecommute.com/larryguerrera/ College Ripoff Quiz - https://imtcva.org/quiz Know a young person for our Youth Episode Series? Send an email to Tom! - orders@antion.com Have a Roku box? Find Tom's Public Speaking Channel there! - https://channelstore.roku.com/details/267358/the-public-speaking-channel How To Automate Your Business - https://screwthecommute.com/automatefree/ Internet Marketing Retreat and Joint Venture Program - https://greatinternetmarketingtraining.com/ This is the shopping cart system Tom uses! Kartra - https://screwthecommute.com/kartra/ Copywriting901 - https://copywriting901.com/ Become a Great Podcast Guest - https://screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest Training - https://screwthecommute.com/training Disabilities Page - https://imtcva.org/disabilities/ Tom's Patreon Page - https://screwthecommute.com/patreon/ Tom on TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire/ Email Tom: Tom@ScrewTheCommute.com Internet Marketing Training Center - https://imtcva.org/ Related Episodes Gadgets - https://screwthecommute.com/1148/ More Entrepreneurial Resources for Home Based Business, Lifestyle Business, Passive Income, Professional Speaking and Online Business I discovered a great new headline / subject line / subheading generator that will actually analyze which headlines and subject lines are best for your market. I negotiated a deal with the developer of this revolutionary and inexpensive software. Oh, and it's good on Mac and PC. Go here: http://jvz1.com/c/41743/183906 The Wordpress Ecourse. Learn how to Make World Class Websites for $20 or less. https://screwthecommute.com/wordpressecourse/

John Lilly has had a front row seat to almost every major shift in technology over the last thirty years, and he has sat in almost every chair while it happened.He was a Senior Scientist at Apple in 1997, when the market cap was two billion dollars and most people assumed the company was finished. He co-founded Reactivity, later acquired by Cisco. He became CEO of Mozilla and led Firefox past 450 million users, running an open source nonprofit at a time when nobody else in Silicon Valley was doing anything like it. Then he spent over a decade as a General Partner at Greylock, where he led investments in Instagram, Dropbox, Figma, Tumblr and Quip. He sits on the boards of Figma, Duolingo and Nuro, and recently joined Gigascale Capital as an Advising Partner, backing companies rebuilding the physical economy.In this conversation with Jessica Neal and co-host Jeff Markowitz, John walks through what he actually saw in the founders everyone else missed.He tells the story of chasing Kevin Systrom for six months, wiring the money on a Thursday, and getting the call three days later that Instagram was selling to Facebook. He explains the moment a friend showed him Instagram and what clicked was not the filters, it was the distribution. And he describes meeting a 19 year old Dylan Field at a Starbucks in Palo Alto, telling him his product did not matter, and then spending the next decade watching him prove it wrong.He is also honest about the parts that are harder to hear. Why some partners at Greylock wanted Dylan replaced. Why he thinks micromanaging the right things is a feature of good leadership, not a flaw. Why he does not tell CEOs anything, and what he does instead. And why, at a moment when OpenAI and Anthropic are pulling talent out of every company on earth, the answer is not matching the money.He closes with something a colleague at Mozilla told him years ago that he still carries: we had a chance to make the world we wanted, and we did it.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHAT WE COVER━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━THE FOUNDER QUESTION→ How John spotted Dylan Field at 19→ Why recruiting senior people is the strongest early signal→ The trait every great founder shares: relentless about getting help→ Why non-defensiveness beats raw intelligence→ The lunch where they told Dylan he had to build a go to marketTHE INVESTMENTS→ Chasing Kevin Systrom for six months→ The underwater photographer who explained Instagram to him→ Why the network mattered and the filters did not→ The four day flip to Facebook and what he told his LPs→ The Adobe Killers that came before Figma and why this one was differentLEADERSHIP AND SCALE→ Going from 12 people to a quarter of the internet at Mozilla→ Why he never learned the delegation lesson everyone teaches→ Larry and Sergey reviewing every resume and what that signals→ Learning to be simpler in your message as you grow→ Deciding you would rather be successful than comfortableTHE TALENT WAR→ Why every great person is now a free agent→ The spreadsheet exercise he gives every CEO→ Tour of duty and the bilateral deal between company and employee→ Never making an offer until you know it will be accepted→ Why money is rarely the only reason people leaveTHE CURRENT MOMENT→ Why leadership now means stability without pretending anything is stable→ The collision of faster scaling and total vulnerability→ Why org size no longer scales with impact→ Alpha nerds, Tim O'Reilly, and following the most technical people around→ Investing in transformers, copper recycling and rare earth supply chains→ Why none of the AI future is settled and it is all still to play for━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH JOHN LILLYLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/johnlilly━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Truth Works is hosted by Jessica Neal, former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix, with co-host Jeff Markowitz.

Day one is exciting. Day two still feels fresh. Day three is when the “new car smell” is gone and the work gets real, and that's where most goals quietly die. We talk with Dre Baldwin (Dre All Day), former pro basketball player and founder of Work On Your Game, about how to push through that moment without waiting for motivation to magically return.We get practical about the difference between motivation and discipline, why you can't build a career on feelings, and how to create execution reliability through structure, habits, and standards. Dre shares the mindset that helped him go from Division III basketball to the pros through personal initiative, cold calls, and proof, then translate the mental game of sport into business, leadership, and life. We also break down confidence as “competence minus interference,” why “fake it till you make it” backfires, and how identity drives behavior when no one is watching.For leaders, we dig into accountability that doesn't feel like a personal attack. Instead of vague expectations and late performance reviews, we explore a simple “scoreboard” approach that measures execution early, catches drift before results fall apart, and makes feedback easier to hear and easier to give.If you're chasing a big goal, leading a team, or trying to build real consistency, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a third day reset, and leave a review with the standard you're raising next.

EPISODE 453: If you're a contractor working 60 to 80-hour weeks and still putting out fires, here's an uncomfortable truth: Waffle House is probably more systematized than your construction business. Todd Dawalt sat at the counter during a lunch rush and walked out with four systems lessons that show exactly where your company is bleeding time and profit. ⚡Schedule a Business Evaluation Call with The Construction Leading Edge Team: HERE

Daniel Bay, Chief People Officer at Underdog, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why HR teams in hypergrowth should stop copying big-company playbooks, how Underdog invests deeply in manager coaching, and why impact matters more than activity.----  Sponsor Links:

Not all work happens in writing. Teams that work with photos, videos, and audio need AI that works for them too. This is why, with Dropbox, you can search within multimedia content for key moments and important information—not just text. In this episode, we talk with Appu Shaji and Hicham Badri, two Dropbox machine learning engineers who are part of the team that makes all of this possible. They explain how multimodal search works—from understanding the context of the initial query, to identifying objects and actions in complex scenes—and how they ensure those models work fast, even at Dropbox-scale. ~ ~ ~  Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox. Find, organize, and share your work—all in one place—with context-aware AI from Dropbox. You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.ai This show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Ben Montoya, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrator Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck.  Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart.  Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

The fastest way to derail a team is to lead on autopilot. Walk into a meeting, speak first, “set direction,” and watch everyone quietly align to your opinion, even when they see a better answer. Step back too far, though, and the same team can feel abandoned, unclear, or unsupported. That tension is exactly where Brad Semmens lives. Brad is the founder of Objective Consulting and Employee Yield, and he brings a rare mix of real-world leadership experience and organizational psychology to a framework he's developed called the Five Stances of Leadership.We dig into what it really means to step up, step down, step in, and step back and how those moves create an immediate power dynamic whether we intend it or not. Brad explains leadership through two practical lenses: authority (directive vs distributive) and influence (direct vs indirect). From there, we explore “leading from your center” as the skill that helps you shift from reactive protection to responsive presence, especially when pressure spikes and your default stance kicks in.One of the biggest takeaways is the difference between filling the space and holding the space. We talk about why some leaders accidentally crowd out ownership by solving too quickly, and how a simple pause plus better questions can unlock psychological safety, clearer thinking, and real accountability. We also get into how strengths can become weaknesses when overused, why complementary styles can either create conflict or balance, and how the “Swiss army knife” leader becomes truly adaptive.If you want a practical way to build self-awareness, take Brad's leadership assessment and reflect on your primary and stress stances. Subscribe, share this with a leader who needs a reset, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

What if the remote vs. in-office work debate was actually missing the point?It's easy to think that in-office work will solve our performance, connection, and culture problems. But the truth is those existed long before work from home entered the picture.In this episode, Emily sits down with Allison Vendt, VP of People Operations and Head of Virtual First at Dropbox. Allison led the design of Dropbox's Virtual First model, rethinking how work happens at scale. Together, Emily and Allison unpack what it really takes to design work that works for people, teams, and the bottom line.They explore why treating the employee experience like a product changes everything, how structure (not proximity) drives performance, and why most return-to-office mandates fail to address the real issue. And they offer practical strategies to rethink your ways of working, from redefining meetings and async work to using in-person time intentionally for trust, decision-making, and speed.Whether you're leading a distributed team, navigating return-to-office pressure, or trying to rebuild engagement and trust, this conversation will help you move beyond the proximity debate and learn to lead your teams stronger than ever before.Timestamps: [00:03:13] The Office Wasn't Working Either – Emily and Allison challenge the assumption that pre-pandemic work was effective, unpacking why many organizations are trying to return to a system that never truly solved performance or connection.[00:09:06] Designing Work Like A Product – Allison shares how Dropbox approached Virtual First like a product. From identifying first principles to treating the employee experience as something to build, test, and iterate with user input and data along the way.[00:15:30] Structure Drives Performance, Not Proximity – The conversation turns to practical execution, from async-first communication to redefining meetings, showing how intentional structure enables focus, clarity, and better collaboration.[00:37:24] Make In-Person Time Earn Its Value – Emily and Allison explore how leaders can get leadership buy-in and demonstrate the ROI of time spent together.Access the episode transcript.Connect with Emily Frieze-Kemeny on LinkedIn and Instagram or explore her work through AROSE Group's website.If you'd like to receive new episodes as they're published, please subscribe to Let's Talk, People in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It helps others discover the show.Thanks for listening to Let's Talk, People!

Nichole Viviani, Chief People, Culture and Change Officer at Global Payments, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why culture makes or breaks M&A, how Global Payments aligned 27,000 people through “goals before roles,” and why leaders need to over-communicate through uncertainty.----  Sponsor Links:

Courtney Kolar, Chief People Officer at Neighborly, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how she helped build an HR function from a three-person team into a 40-person people organization, the People Services 2020 roadmap that created the foundation for scale, and why every company should operate as if it needs to be IPO ready.----  Sponsor Links:

That thought you can't stop replaying isn't just annoying. It quietly shapes how you walk into meetings, how you speak under pressure, and how safe other people feel around you. Susan Drumm, bestselling author of The Leader's Playlist and founder of Meritage Leadership, joins me to unpack a powerful idea: every leader has a playlist. Some of it is literal music that shifts your energy fast. Some of it is the internal soundtrack of beliefs, doubts, old wounds, and reflex reactions that can end up leading on your behalf.We dig into pattern recognition and pattern disruption, from Susan's own unlikely career pivots to the everyday leadership traps of sunk cost fallacy and social expectation. We also get specific about the inner critic and imposter syndrome, including how to create separation from that voice so it stops acting like the only truth in the room. Susan brings nuance too: this isn't about suppressing anger, grief, or frustration. Emotions carry information, like anger signaling a crossed boundary. The goal is to feel what's real without getting stuck in an eight-lane neural highway that keeps pulling you back into resentment or self-doubt.Then we make it practical. Susan shares how music can act as a “pattern interrupt,” why it has such a strong neuroscience effect, and how leaders can build intentional playlists tied to new “I am” or “I create” identity statements. You'll hear a workplace example of a leader stuck in the story “I am left out” and how shifting state, attention, and behavior changes collaboration outcomes over time. If you want to lead with more emotional regulation, presence, and intention, this will give you a concrete starting point. Subscribe, share with a leader who needs a reset, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

One email, a few MIDI files, and a shared obsession with atmosphere can turn into a finished single that sounds huge. We sit down with Ohio singer-songwriter Kate Stanton to talk about “Rise,” a track inspired by the Greek idea of mania, the kind of love that looks a lot like limerence and fixation. Kate walks us through how the song came together, from early synth sketches to deep vocal layering, and why making music that feels immersive sometimes matters more than showing off flashy parts.A big thread running through our chat is remote collaboration done right. Kate and her German collaborator Tomas build songs through email, Google Translate, Dropbox, and a tight back-and-forth that keeps ideas moving without endless meetings. We dig into real home studio details: piano-first chord progressions, topline melodies, sending stems and MIDI, arranging in Cubase, and how programmed drums and bass can still feel alive when the goal is modern dream pop and atmospheric music. Kate also shares how journaling becomes lyrics, and how the toughest edits happen when a line that reads well simply will not sing.We also zoom out to the bigger creative mission: a concept album exploring love in eight forms, from friendship to self-love, not just romance. Along the way we talk covers, perfectionism, protecting audio quality, the challenge of playing live with an overseas producer, and why albums, artwork, and physical media like CDs and vinyl still deliver an experience streaming cannot replace. If you care about songwriting craft, indie music production, and building a real artistic body of work, this conversation is for you.Subscribe for more artist interviews, share this with a friend who makes music, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What kind of love song do you wish more artists would write?Send us Fan MailSupport the showLinksJay Franze: https://jayfranze.com/JFS Countdowns/Playlists: https://jayfranze.com/playlists/ContactContact: https://jayfranze.com/contact/SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayfranzeYouTube: https://youtube.com/@jayfranzeEverywhere: @jayfranzeServicesServices: https://jayfranze.com/services/BooksBooks: https://jayfranze.com/books/MerchandiseMerchandise: https://jayfranze.com/merchandise/SupportSupport: https://jayfranze.com/support/Sponsor the Show: https://jayfranze.com/sponsor/Shout OutsHigh Mountain Breezes Music: https://highmountainbreezesmusic.com/VR Knives: https://www.facebook.com/VRKnives

Chapter(s) 59 & 60. I wonder. We learn where Apeiron — and the Mirror — comes from. Content warnings: Digital horror, existential horror, knives. Implied cannibalism, references to genocide, authoritarian regimes, food scarcity, guilt. If you'd like to financially support the project, you can do so on our Patreon. Wanna chat? Join our Discord server or Email us.Show transcripts can be found in this Dropbox. Points of Articulation is… Written by Hannah SemmelhackProduced by Hannah Semmelhack and Fiona Clare, in collaboration with Three Fates.With sound design and dialogue editing by Hannah SemmelhackOriginal music by Rheanne KlineAnd original artwork by Hibah HassanThis episode featuredCheyenne Barton as Ash and Nara Hannah Semmelhack as the Hive Mind and NarratorGraham Cousins as Henry Choix Chrisopher Lau as Ben Valentine C Luke Soucy as Apeiron Fiona Clare as Zosimos Angie Min as Starkey Nemo Martin as Kaidan Sentaku Siena Brown as Felicity Adeyemi Isaac Johnson as Hermes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

AI is changing leadership faster than most executives can lead their team.In this episode of Lead the Team, Ben Fanning sits down with Olivia Nottebohm, COO of Box, to discuss why the companies that win technology shifts aren't the ones with the perfect strategy—they're the ones willing to move before they have all the answers.After helping scale Google Cloud, Dropbox, Notion, and now Box, Olivia shares the leadership frameworks she's used to navigate some of the biggest technology shifts of the last two decades.You'll learn:How to make faster decisions without having all the information.How to turn AI anxiety into optimism across your organization.What separates the companies that win technology shifts from the ones that get left behind.Why speed beats certainty during periods of massive change.How elite leaders build teams that thrive under pressure.Whether you're a CEO, executive, founder, or ambitious professional navigating leadership in the AI era, this episode will challenge the way you think about decision-making, organizational transformation, and leading through uncertainty.Chapters00:00 – If Nothing Feels Broken, You're Moving Too Slowly02:02 – The Biggest AI Mistake Leaders Are Making03:59 – Why Speed Beats Certainty07:54 – Reinventing Organizations for the AI Era09:16 – Turning AI Anxiety into Optimism14:16 – Why Data Strategy Determines AI Success17:40 – Leading Teams Through High-Pressure Sprints22:22 – The Culture Behind Elite Technology Companies25:07 – Why Great Leaders Embrace Failure30:11 – Turning Vision into Execution33:36 – The Transition from Consultant to Operator36:49 – Why Empathy Makes Leaders More Effective42:51 – Olivia's Final Leadership AdviceBen Fanning interviews world-class executives, founders, and leadership experts to uncover the real-world lessons shaping modern organizations. Topics include AI leadership, executive psychology, high-performance teams, decision-making, organizational transformation, communication, and leadership under pressure.Follow Lead the Team for weekly conversations designed to help you become the leader others want to follow.

Sunaina Lobo, Chief People Officer at Omnissa, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why the HR-IT partnership is becoming critical in the AI era, how Omnissa is approaching AI transformation with a small but mighty team, and what it takes to build an AI-first culture while maintaining trust and engagement.----  Sponsor Links:

Intel Chat with Matt Bromiley and Chris Luft.Matt and Chris break down four stories from the week in threat intel:• Cisco CUCM (CVE-2026-20230) — a web-dialer SSRF that chains to root-level RCE, exploited in the wild less than 24 hours after the PoC and full exploit chain were published.• The latest Ransomware Tool Matrix (RTM) / Ransomware Vulnerability Matrix (RVM) update, profiling three active groups — The Gentlemen, DragonForce and Warlock — and the BYOVD and legit-admin-tool tradecraft they increasingly share.• Gamaredon's upgraded toolkit against Ukraine (per ESET): new PowerShell downloaders like PteroPaste, Cloudflare tunneling and Workers for C2, and exfiltration to trusted cloud storage such as Amazon S3 and Dropbox.• Varonis Threat Labs phishing an AI email agent ("Pinchy") — why agents spot technical phishing better than humans yet hand over credentials to a convincing social request, and why you should treat them as privileged junior employees.Chapters:0:00 Intro & catching up2:25 Cisco CUCM exploited within 24h of the PoC9:57 Ransomware Tool Matrix: The Gentlemen, DragonForce & Warlock15:44 Gamaredon's upgraded TTPs against Ukraine22:18 Can AI email agents be phished?28:08 Wrap-up: Black Hat plans & the LimaCharlie suiteThe Cybersecurity Defenders Podcast — a podcast about cybersecurity and the people that keep the internet safe. New episodes drop weekly.Subscribe wherever you listen:• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6ep00zeY3S8ffZ4o0UeSps• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cybersecurity-defenders-podcast/id1649981740• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@limacharlieioLearn more about LimaCharlie: https://limacharlie.io#cybersecurity #infosec #threatintel #ransomware #DFIR

Patricia Frost, Chief People and Places Officer at Seagate, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about her military-to-CPO journey, how Seagate built Talent Link to unlock internal mobility, and what it looks like to democratize AI across a global workforce.----  Sponsor Links:

When AI is at its best, the conversations can feel uncanny—almost magical in their accuracy, relevance, and speed. For that you can thank the AI agents that work together behind the scenes to search, reason, and sift through all your content to get you what you need to do your job. We talk with Jongmin Baek and Marta Mendez, two Dropbox machine learning engineers, about building conversational AI that's helpful, useful, and grounded in your team's shared context, so you can spend more time on the work that really matters. ~ ~ ~  Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox. Find, organize, and share your work—all in one place—with context-aware AI from Dropbox. You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.ai This show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Ben Montoya, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrator Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck.  Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart.  Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

Two people can face the same change and walk away with totally different stories: one feels opportunity, the other feels threat. That gap is where leadership lives. We step back and synthesize three conversations into a simple but demanding framework for modern leadership: Adapt, Care, Connect and the deeper idea underneath it all that leadership is helping people make sense of their world. We talk about adaptive leadership as your context shifts: startup to scale up, stability to disruption, expert teams to developing teams. Instead of replaying the style that made you successful last year, we explore how to create the kind of environment where people can learn through experience, scrape their knees, and build judgment while still being protected from real danger. The question that keeps coming back is simple: what does this person need from me right now? We also dig into caring leadership and why well being and performance are inseparable. We unpack self care, crew care, and red zone care, plus the small, everyday moments that build psychological safety and trust. Then we turn to change leadership and the crucial distinction between communication and conversation. Emails, decks, and town halls may broadcast the plan, but dialogue helps people work through what the change means for their identity, status, certainty, and belonging. If you want practical prompts you can use this week and a challenge to create one real conversation where meaning gets made, hit play. Subscribe, share with a leader who is navigating change, and leave a review so more people can find the show.Send us Fan MailSupport the show✅ Follow The Leadership Project on your favourite podcast platform and listen to a new episode every week!

In this session from DX Annual, Uma Namasivayam, Senior Director of Engineering Productivity at Dropbox, shares how the company's developer productivity efforts evolved from improving developer experience to preparing for the agentic era.He explains how Dropbox approached AI adoption across its engineering organization, the impact it had on developer productivity, and why faster code generation is creating new bottlenecks in areas such as code review, validation, and CI/CD. He also discusses Dropbox's efforts to rethink engineering systems, measurement, and workflows, including the development of agentic tooling and new metrics designed to move beyond PR throughput and toward product velocity.Where to find Uma Namasivayam:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/unamasivayIn this episode, we cover:(00:00) Intro(00:57) The beginning of Dropbox's DX journey(02:34) AI adoption at Dropbox: what made it work  (04:46) The results of Dropbox's AI adoption efforts(05:39) What the results mean for the business (06:55) The phases of AI adoption and where they are now(08:00) The new bottlenecks(09:16) Three challenges Dropbox faces moving into agentic engineering(10:05) How Dropbox is redesigning the SDLC for agentic engineering(15:46) The new metrics that matter (19:16) Final takeawaysReferenced:• Dropbox • Developer Experience Index (DXI) | DX • DX Core 4 Productivity Framework• Cursor• Claude Code | Anthropic's agentic coding system• JetBrains • Visual Studio Code• Jira | Project Management for the AI Era | Atlassian• GitHub 

Jetzt habt ihr euer NAS, um eure Dateien lokal zu speichern statt bei Google Drive, OneDrive oder Dropbox. Aber wie denn nun konkret? Bindet man den Netzwerkspeicher einfach als SMB-Share ein? Installiere ich umständlich eine Nextcloud? Bringt das NAS vielleicht was mit, beispielsweise Qsync von Qnap? Und was können diese Peer-2-Peer-Lösungen wie Syncthing, Resilio und Seafile? Oder machen Localsend und KDE Connect den ganzen Kram nicht viel einfacher? Im Podcast gehen die c't-Redakteure Niklas Dierking, Stefan Porteck und Jörg Wirtgen diese Fragen durch. Zuerst die einfachste Lösung, ein Netzwerk-Share. Wir diskutieren die Vor- und Nachteile der gängigsten Protokolle SMB, NFS, Webdav und AFP und gehen dann auf die strukturellen Eigenschaften ein: Die Dateien liegen dann nicht lokal vor, sondern man benötigt ständig eine Netzwerkverbindung, und um von außerhalb des eigenen LANs zuzugreifen, muss beispielsweise der Router ein VPN- oder Wireguard-Netz aufspannen und man muss das irgendwie per DynDNS finden. Auch wie gut das auf dem Smartphone geht, erwähnen wir. Eine Alternative wäre, Nextcloud auf dem NAS zu installieren: Die Daten liegen dann lokal vor, allerdings benötigt man DynDNS und VPN weiterhin. Wir sind einerseits zufrieden damit, auch weil die meisten Nextcloud-Clients ganz gut mit virtuellen Dateien umgehen können (die nur auf Wunsch lokal gepuffert vorliegen). Andererseits haben wir alle drei Zuverlässigkeits- und Geschwindigkeitsprobleme mit Nextcloud festgestellt, vielleicht aber auch aufgrund zu schwachbrüstiger NAS-Geräte. Gerade wenn man einen Reverse Proxy benötigt, der den DynDNS-Namen innerhalb des LANs auf eine lokale IP umbiegt, damit Transfers nicht auf die Geschwindigkeit der Internet-Anbindung beschränkt sind, und wenn man das beispielsweise mit einem PiHole im Docker auf dem NAS löst, könnten einige NAS überfordert sein. Einen interessanten Tipp brachte Niklas: OpenCloud ist ein abgespeckter Fork von Nextcloud, der vielleicht performanter läuft. Was auch einen Blick wert ist: Die Software, die das NAS mitbringt. Qnap beispielsweise kommt mit Qsync, was ein ähnlicher Dienst ist: Clients für Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS; die Clients verbinden sich im LAN automatisch direkt per IP; DynDNS über Qnap-Dienste eingebaut; virtuelle Dateien funktionieren einigermaßen. Weitere Alternativen sind Peer-2-Peer-Lösungen. Eigentlich synchronisieren sie Verzeichnisse zwischen zwei Geräten, die dazu eingeschaltet sein müssen. Auf den ersten Blick klingt es unpraktisch, extra seinen PC einschalten zu müssen, damit das Handy auf aktuellen Stand kommt. Aber der Trick beim NAS ist natürlich, dort einen Client permanent laufen zu lassen. Vorteil der Systeme: Sie fummeln sich von selbst durch die Firewall, sodass man keinen DynDNS benötigt, und der lokale Zugriff erfolgt automatisch schnell. Syncthing machte sich als solches Peer-2-Peer-System bei allen drei gut, auch weil es das für einige NAS als native Anwendung gibt. Allerdings fehlen virtuelle Dateien. Zur Sprache kommen auch die Alternativen Resilio Sync und Seafile. Schließlich sprachen wir über ganz andere Lösungen, um explizit nur einzelne Dateien auszutauschen, aber auch beispielsweise Zwischenablagen, und das ganze auch ohne Usernamen und Passwörter einfach mit Leuten im gleichen Raum – so etwas wie Apple AirDrop oder Google Quick Share, nur systemübergreifend. Gute Erfahrungen gabs mit Localsend und mit KDE Connect – das anders als der Name vermuten lässt, auch Clients für Windows, macOS, Android und iOS bereit hält. Mit dabei: Niklas Dierking, Stefan Porteck Moderation: Jörg Wirtgen Produktion: Tobias Reimer ► Der von Niklas erwähnte Newsletter c't Open Source Spotlight: https://www.heise.de/newsletter/anmeldung.html?id=ct-opensource

Jetzt habt ihr euer NAS, um eure Dateien lokal zu speichern statt bei Google Drive, OneDrive oder Dropbox. Aber wie denn nun konkret? Bindet man den Netzwerkspeicher einfach als SMB-Share ein? Installiere ich umständlich eine Nextcloud? Bringt das NAS vielleicht was mit, beispielsweise Qsync von Qnap? Und was können diese Peer-2-Peer-Lösungen wie Syncthing, Resilio und Seafile? Oder machen Localsend und KDE Connect den ganzen Kram nicht viel einfacher? Im Podcast gehen die c't-Redakteure Niklas Dierking, Stefan Porteck und Jörg Wirtgen diese Fragen durch. Zuerst die einfachste Lösung, ein Netzwerk-Share. Wir diskutieren die Vor- und Nachteile der gängigsten Protokolle SMB, NFS, Webdav und AFP und gehen dann auf die strukturellen Eigenschaften ein: Die Dateien liegen dann nicht lokal vor, sondern man benötigt ständig eine Netzwerkverbindung, und um von außerhalb des eigenen LANs zuzugreifen, muss beispielsweise der Router ein VPN- oder Wireguard-Netz aufspannen und man muss das irgendwie per DynDNS finden. Auch wie gut das auf dem Smartphone geht, erwähnen wir. Eine Alternative wäre, Nextcloud auf dem NAS zu installieren: Die Daten liegen dann lokal vor, allerdings benötigt man DynDNS und VPN weiterhin. Wir sind einerseits zufrieden damit, auch weil die meisten Nextcloud-Clients ganz gut mit virtuellen Dateien umgehen können (die nur auf Wunsch lokal gepuffert vorliegen). Andererseits haben wir alle drei Zuverlässigkeits- und Geschwindigkeitsprobleme mit Nextcloud festgestellt, vielleicht aber auch aufgrund zu schwachbrüstiger NAS-Geräte. Gerade wenn man einen Reverse Proxy benötigt, der den DynDNS-Namen innerhalb des LANs auf eine lokale IP umbiegt, damit Transfers nicht auf die Geschwindigkeit der Internet-Anbindung beschränkt sind, und wenn man das beispielsweise mit einem PiHole im Docker auf dem NAS löst, könnten einige NAS überfordert sein. Einen interessanten Tipp brachte Niklas: OpenCloud ist ein abgespeckter Fork von Nextcloud, der vielleicht performanter läuft. Was auch einen Blick wert ist: Die Software, die das NAS mitbringt. Qnap beispielsweise kommt mit Qsync, was ein ähnlicher Dienst ist: Clients für Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS; die Clients verbinden sich im LAN automatisch direkt per IP; DynDNS über Qnap-Dienste eingebaut; virtuelle Dateien funktionieren einigermaßen. Weitere Alternativen sind Peer-2-Peer-Lösungen. Eigentlich synchronisieren sie Verzeichnisse zwischen zwei Geräten, die dazu eingeschaltet sein müssen. Auf den ersten Blick klingt es unpraktisch, extra seinen PC einschalten zu müssen, damit das Handy auf aktuellen Stand kommt. Aber der Trick beim NAS ist natürlich, dort einen Client permanent laufen zu lassen. Vorteil der Systeme: Sie fummeln sich von selbst durch die Firewall, sodass man keinen DynDNS benötigt, und der lokale Zugriff erfolgt automatisch schnell. Syncthing machte sich als solches Peer-2-Peer-System bei allen drei gut, auch weil es das für einige NAS als native Anwendung gibt. Allerdings fehlen virtuelle Dateien. Zur Sprache kommen auch die Alternativen Resilio Sync und Seafile. Schließlich sprachen wir über ganz andere Lösungen, um explizit nur einzelne Dateien auszutauschen, aber auch beispielsweise Zwischenablagen, und das ganze auch ohne Usernamen und Passwörter einfach mit Leuten im gleichen Raum – so etwas wie Apple AirDrop oder Google Quick Share, nur systemübergreifend. Gute Erfahrungen gabs mit Localsend und mit KDE Connect – das anders als der Name vermuten lässt, auch Clients für Windows, macOS, Android und iOS bereit hält.

Kate Railton, Chief People Officer at Mejuri, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how Mejuri transitioned from e-commerce into retail, why they've decided to flatten the organization, and the business review cadences and operating model that allow them to move faster.----  Sponsor Links:

TODAY ON THE SHOW, we SURVIVED the GREAT BUILDING FIRE OF 2026! We'll break it ALL down but FIRST, Why did Payton wake up to SHEEP? Also, Would you PAY for the chance to CRASH A WEDDING? Plus, Nic's INSANE Niall Horan Game and similarly insane NOISE MACHINE an hour later for DOUBLE TROUBLE! Rich also has the rest of the week TO HIMSELF and Kyle can no longer trust DROPBOX! All of this and MUCH MUCH MORE during your JJR SUMMER!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of the Woodard Report podcast, Joe speaks with Jessica McKellar about her journey from studying computer science at MIT and building successful software startups to founding Pilot, a bookkeeping and accounting technology company. Jessica shares how Pilot evolved from solving the financial back-office challenges faced by entrepreneurs into a platform and explains how automation, AI, and value-based pricing are reshaping the economics of accounting firms. She also introduces Meridian, Pilot's new platform that enables autonomous bookkeeping, month-end close processes, and AI-assisted accounting workflows designed to help firms scale while improving both client and employee experiences. About Jessica McKellar Jessica McKellar is the co-founder and CEO of Pilot. She started the company with a simple conviction: small business owners shouldn't have to be their own bookkeeper, accountant, and financial advisor all at once. Today, Pilot serves more than 3,500 businesses, from neighborhood restaurants and retail shops to growing service businesses, helping owners get books off their plates so they can focus on what actually grows their company. Before Pilot, Jessica founded two other companies that were acquired by Oracle and Dropbox. She holds 3 degrees from MIT. Jessica also teaches programming at San Quentin State Prison and advocates for hiring formerly incarcerated people. She believes that excluding talented workers based on their records doesn't make business sense, and that second chances belong in the workplace too.  Learn more about Meridian from Pilot Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn Thank you to our show sponsor, Canopy! Unclunk your firm with Canopy, the fully integrated practice management that helps accountants build the firm they always wanted. The suite includes client and document management, workflow, time and billing, engagements and proposals, and more. Check out GetCanopy.com. Learn more about the show and our sponsors at Woodard.com/podcast.

Topics covered in this episode: Backup Docker volumes locally or to any S3 Pyodide 314.0 Release nb-cli: A Command-Line Interface for AI Agents and Notebook Automation Hindsight Agent Memory That Learns Extras Joke Watch on YouTube About the show Sponsored by us! Support our work through: Our courses at Talk Python AWS Community Day Midwest tomorrow Wednesday the 24th in downtown Indianapolis, Six Feet Up is sponsoring and there are 2 Sixies presenting Connect with the hosts Michael: Mastodon / BlueSky / X / LinkedIn Calvin: Mastodon / BlueSky / X / LinkedIn Show: Mastodon / BlueSky / X Join us on YouTube at pythonbytes.fm/live to be part of the audience. Usually Tuesday at 7am PT. Older video versions available there too. Finally, if you want an bonus digest of every week of the show notes in email form? Add your name and email to our friends of the show list, we'll never share it. Michael #1: Backup Docker volumes locally or to any S3 Via Bryan Weber (thanks Bryan!), who spotted it over on Virtualization HowTo. Find Bryan at bryanwweber.com. offen/docker-volume-backup is a lightweight companion container that backs up the volumes your apps actually depend on, then ships them somewhere safe. It's tiny: written in Go and about 25MB compressed, roughly 1/20th the size of the shell-based image (jareware/docker-volume-backup) that inspired it. Drop it into your docker compose file as a backup service, mount the volumes you care about as read-only, and you're off. Push backups to a pile of destinations: a local directory, plus any S3, WebDAV, Azure Blob Storage, Dropbox, Google Drive, or SSH-compatible target. Mix and match as many as you want in one run. Recurring cron-style backups in a Compose setup, or one-off backups straight from the Docker CLI. Production-friendly touches worth calling out: Rotates away old backups so you don't quietly fill the disk. GPG encryption for your archives. Notifications on finished and failed runs (so you find out about failures before you need the backup). Stop a container during backup for a consistent snapshot using a simple docker-volume-backup.stop-during-backup=true label, then auto-restart it. Run custom commands during the backup lifecycle (great for a database dump before the file copy). Docker Swarm support, plus arm64 and arm/v7 builds. Hello, Raspberry Pi homelab. Fun aside from Bryan: he searched our back catalog for this tool and the search came back so fast he thought it hadn't run. Love to hear it. Calvin #2: Pyodide 314.0 Release PEP 783 is the real news — Pyodide maintainers used to hand-build 300+ packages. Now anyone can publish Pyodide wheels to PyPI with cibuildwheel. The version jump from 0.29 to 314.0 is intentional — it now tracks the Python version, so 314.x = Python 3.14. Binary compatibility is locked per Python cycle, meaning packages you build today won't break on the next Pyodide release. sqlite3, ssl, and lzma are back in the default stdlib — no more await pyodide.loadPackage("sqlite3"). Bigger download, but a much smoother experience for newcomers. bigint precision bug is fixed — values above 2^53 were silently losing precision when crossing the Python/JS boundary. The new JsBigInt type makes the roundtrip correct. Worth flagging if anyone is doing numeric work in a browser app. Experimental TCP sockets in Node.js — you can now connect Pyodide to a real database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis tested) when running server-side. Blurs the line between "Python in the browser" and "Python runtime anywhere Wasm runs." Michael #3: nb-cli: A Command-Line Interface for AI Agents and Notebook Automation From Piyush Jain (Jupyter and LangChain maintainer) on the Jupyter blog: nb-cli: A Command-Line Interface for AI Agents and Notebook Automation. nb-cli is an experimental, Rust-based CLI to read, write, execute, and search Jupyter notebooks. The premise: agents are great at CLIs but terrible at hand-editing the nested JSON in an .ipynb, so let them operate on the notebook from the outside instead of running inside it. Works with or without a Jupyter server. No server? It reads/writes .ipynb files directly and talks to kernels over ZeroMQ. Connected to a live JupyterLab, your edits show up instantly via Y.js (the same CRDT Jupyter uses). Smart output format: instead of token-heavy JSON or ambiguous plain markdown, it uses @@cell / @@output sentinels with inline metadata. Less wasted context, unambiguous structure, and it degrades gracefully on truncation. The payoff is composability. "Add a summary section and run it" becomes one shell pipeline instead of six agent tool calls. And nb search notebook.ipynb --with-errors returns only the failing cells, so the agent skips the cells that worked. Claude Code tie-in: it ships as an agent skill. npx skills install jupyter-ai-contrib/nb-cli and your agent can drive notebooks via nb. Out of jupyter-ai-contrib, which aims to become an official Jupyter AI subproject. Still early (crates.io is at v0.0.5), so kick the tires before anything load-bearing. See also marimo-pair. Calvin #4: Hindsight Agent Memory That Learns AI agents forget everything between sessions — Hindsight gives them persistent memory that learns over time Simple three-method API: retain(), recall(), reflect() — store, retrieve, and reason over memories TEMPR retrieval runs semantic, keyword, graph, and temporal search in parallel for accurate results Automatically consolidates related facts into durable observations instead of piling up duplicates pip install hindsight-all runs the entire server in-process; integrates with LangChain, LlamaIndex, Pydantic AI, CrewAI, and more Extras Calvin: Clanker: A Word For The Machine **Ponytail — You know him. Long ponytail. Oval glasses. Has been at the company longer than the version control** **Klangk: Multi-User AI Sandboxing, Collaboration and Coding Platform** Cursor announces Origin performative-ui to quick start your new idea Michael: Astral Joins OpenAI: The Interview SpaceX to acquire Cursor And OpenAI renews Open Source support Portuguese subtitles are now available for Talk Python courses DSF is hiring including Six Feet Up support Joke: Oh Babe…

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 2092: Micheline Nijmeh explains that great marketing content only creates value when sales teams actually use it, and that stronger alignment between the two functions can dramatically improve conversions and lead acceptance. Discover practical ways to create buyer-focused content, make it easier to access, and build a collaborative process that helps turn marketing assets into revenue. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://neilpatel.com/blog/sales-team-use-marketing-content/ Quotes to ponder: "Remember, marketing may own the messaging, but sales generally has the most immediate knowledge of changing customer needs and pain points." "If the content doesn't make it easier to hit the goal that gets measured, reps won't see value in it." "Make it easy for sales to get the content you're producing. They should be able to get content right from their desktops." Episode references: Box: https://www.box.com/ Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/ Aberdeen Group: https://www.aberdeen.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel moderated a live panel at Running Remote 2026 with Carmen Amara (Yelp), Brandon Sammut (Zapier), and Vinícius Coelho (Time Doctor) to discuss how AI is reshaping leadership, management, and career growth. ----  Sponsor Links:

Most change initiatives don't fail because the plan is flawed. They fail because leaders confuse communication with conversation and then wonder why people feel anxious, resistant, or checked out. We sit down with returning guest Huw Thomas, author of Change Anything, to move beyond individual psychology and get practical about organizational change management that actually sticks.We dig into why “overcommunicate” often backfires, how one-way announcements create confusion, and what it looks like to replace broadcasting with dialogue. Resistance gets a full reframe: it's frequently a rational response to perceived loss of certainty, control, competence, identity, or status. We also talk about the real-world consequences of poorly led change, including psychosocial risk, and what care and dignity look like in high-stakes moments like reorganizations and redundancies.From there, we get tactical about building agency. When people feel coerced, they push back even if they agree with the logic. When they're invited to help shape the “how” within clear guardrails, they bring better ideas and real ownership. We also tackle change fatigue and change overload, focusing on change governance, sequencing, and why doing a few priorities exceptionally well beats running dozens of initiatives into gridlock. Finally, we land on the deeper truth behind transformation: it's habit change, not system change, and adoption improves when leaders design around real “day in the life” workflows and build a learning habit across teams.If this helps you lead with more clarity and humanity, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review. What's one change you'll turn into a conversation this week?

Ray'n Terry, Chief People Officer at MOO, joined us on The Modern People Leader to discuss why AI should create more space for humanity at work instead of simply increasing productivity. We talked about balancing business performance with employee wellbeing, rethinking performance management in an AI-powered world, and why leaders must intentionally help people reclaim time, creativity, and connection.----  Sponsor Links:

Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the B2B Go-To-Market Leaders Podcast, Vijay Damojipurapu sits down with Kady Srinivasan, Chief Marketing Officer at Freshworks, to explore what it really takes to build market share in SaaS, and why finding the right ICP is often the difference between accelerated growth and stalled momentum.Drawing from leadership roles across Dropbox, Klaviyo, Lightspeed, and Freshworks, Kady shares lessons from scaling PLG, inbound, outbound, and hybrid go-to-market motions, while navigating the realities of product-market fit, category expansion, and AI-driven disruption.The conversation dives into the evolution of modern GTM, from defining your initial ICP to expanding into adjacent markets without losing your positioning, and why many companies drift away from the messaging and audience that made them successful in the first place.They dive into:Why GTM is ultimately about building market share through coordinated actions across product, marketing, sales, and customer success.How great products still fail when they're sold to the wrong audience or positioned with the wrong messaging.The concept of ICP+ and how successful companies expand beyond their initial customer base without losing focus.Why many SaaS companies unintentionally drift away from their original positioning as they add products and features.The differences between PLG, inbound, outbound, and enterprise sales motions—and when each makes sense.How pricing, packaging, and expansion strategy influence long-term customer value.Kady's ABCD Framework for positioning: Audience, Benefits, Compelling Reasons to Believe, and Differentiation.Why storytelling frameworks like the Hero's Journey remain powerful tools for modern marketers.How AI is creating a new generation of multi-threaded marketers who can operate across traditional marketing silos.A creative CEO influence strategy that transformed LinkedIn engagement into pipeline and qualified opportunities.Lessons from a major ICP pivot at Lightspeed that helped drive significant market share gains in targeted geographies.Why defining and defending your ICP is one of the most important leadership decisions a company can make.Kady's core message is simple:The companies that win aren't necessarily the ones with the biggest products, they're the ones with the clearest understanding of who they're serving and why.This episode is a practical masterclass on ICP definition, positioning, GTM motion design, and the future of marketing in an AI-powered world.

Digital clutter does not take up visible space in your home, but it still takes up head space.In this episode, I talk with Kari Denker about physical memories, photo boxes, old albums, digital files, Dropbox, Google Drive, email clutter, phone photos, and what happens when the next generation has to sort through what we keep. This is not a guilt trip. It is a practical conversation about managing our resources—physical and digital—with small, doable steps.In this episode: Digital clutter becomes overwhelming when we treat it like one huge project we have to solve all at once. Instead, we can manage it little by little by deleting small batches, narrowing down photos, reducing duplicates, and keeping what actually helps tell the story.You'll learn:Why inherited photos and papers can feel sad, confusing, and guilt-ladenHow digital clutter creates mental friction even when it is invisibleA simple weekly method for deleting files and phone photosWhy narrowing an event to seven photos can help you tell the storyHow to stop treating digital decluttering like an emergency projectBest next step:Take the free Smile and Start Challenge: simplyconvivial.com/smileKari's website: ordinarykari.comSusan Allibone memoir: https://amzn.to/4efcYX4Kari shares how sorting through a family estate made her think differently about her own digital clutter. She began deleting 25 files at a time from different storage locations and 50 phone photos during her weekly review. Those small steps help reduce the overwhelm of finding files, managing photos, and leaving behind a more understandable digital legacy.Stop feeling overwhelmed by digital clutter. Learn practical strategies to organize your files and regain control of your workspace today.This discussion focuses on the challenges of managing an ever-growing volume of information. If you struggle with disorganized folders, endless email chains, or general digital overwhelm, these insights offer a clear path forward. We break down actionable steps to improve your digital organization habits and make your daily workflow more manageable.Implementing these methods for digital minimalism helps you clear the noise and focus on what actually matters. By applying these techniques to manage digital files, you can create a sustainable system that keeps your desktop and documents clean over the long term. Many people find that simple adjustments to how they declutter digital life lead to immediate improvements in overall productivity tips and mental clarity.Subscribe for weekly productivity breakdowns, and comment below on which area of your computer gives you the most stress.

Amy Reichanadter, Chief People Officer at Databricks, joined us on The Modern People Leader to discuss her upskilling journey throughout her career, creating consumer-grade employee experiences, and leading through rapid technological change. ----  Sponsor Links:

How do you build AI that actually understands you and the work you do? It all starts with having the right context.  We talk with Dropbox staff product manager Noorain Noorani and principal engineer Sean-Michael Lewis about the art of context engineering and how Dropbox connects to all the tools your team needs for work—so you get AI that works wherever you do.  ~ ~ ~  Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox. Find, organize, and share your work—all in one place—with context-aware AI from Dropbox. You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.ai This show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Ben Montoya, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrator Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck. Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart.  Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

In this Fuck Yeah Friday, Lesley Logan opens up about the unexpected magic of hitting restart on a stubborn laptop, on one-sided friendships, and on the way we show up for ourselves. She shares a recent vulnerability hangover from her appearance on Beyond the Reformer, and celebrates listener wins that prove small, brave moves create real momentum. This episode is a reminder that you are valuable, irreplaceable, and that's worth celebrating. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:Why celebrating wins matters even when the world feels heavy.The unexpected wisdom of hitting restart when nothing else works.How being yourself creates a ripple effect that lasts for years.Why morning routines fuel presence in your biggest moments.Setting boundaries with people who take but never reciprocate.Episode References/Links:Beyond the Reformer – https://beitpod.com/beyondthereformer@jennvfitness - https://www.instagram.com/jennvfitness@inhalepilates252 - https://www.instagram.com/inhalepilates252@ploplates - https://www.instagram.com/ploplatesSubmit your wins or questions - https://beitpod.com/questionsIf you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Lesley Logan 0:00  It's Fuck Yeah Friday. Brad Crowell 0:01  Fuck yeah. Lesley Logan 0:02  Get ready for some wins. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 0:48  Hello, welcome to Fuck Yeah Friday. Oh yeah, we're here, and we are having some fun. We are making some changes to the podcast, and I love it. And this one is that we get to have a moment, because the world's on fucking fire, but then we have to celebrate a win, just like our members have to do in Agency and eLevate. Agency is our Pilates business coaching for Pilates instructors and studio owners, and eLevate is my mentorship program and in both of those communities people can have a moment, but they have to immediately go to the Wins Channel and celebrate a win, because you don't get to vomit and then come back the next day and have a win. No, it isn't about toxic positivity, like someone died, but at least you got to work on time. It's not bad, but it's also just acknowledging that there's also something good happening. Lesley Logan 1:28  Sometimes the moment you want to need is like, "Uh, today I was fighting with my laptop and I did everything right. I'm like, let me check the Wi-Fi. Okay, that's on. Let me quit Dropbox. Okay, that's fine. Let me do this. Okay." And then it's like, "Okay, I'm just going to restart the computer." And then it worked. It's just like remember when you're a kid and the VCR wouldn't work, and you'd hit it three times, and it would? I just hate that the turning on and off is probably going to fix most things, because don't you think it should be more complicated than that? Don't we think? Anyways. All right. This is the world we're in. This is what we deal with, and sometimes the answer is just to hit restart. Lesley Logan 2:09  Now that we've hit restart, my win for the day is a couple months ago I did a recording for a podcast, and it's been out for a bit. Now that you're hearing this, it's Beyond the Reformer, and my win is I love the questions that the person asked. I know that's their work, but I really love the questions they're asking, because I did my morning routine, and because I took care of myself, I was able to be so present and answer them honestly and authentically. Those posts that she's pulled from that podcast are still going around today, over a month later, and people are loving them. They're giving people permission, and it's just so fun that I can do something like that, and then those words can live for years, so that people who need to hear them today versus a month ago versus next year can hear them, and it can hopefully change their Pilates career. So, if you want to take a listen, it's on Beyond the Reformer, and I dropped some truth bombs, just some good authentic stuff. I'm not gonna lie, I also had a vulnerability hangover afterwards, because I was like, "I fucking nailed that," and then I was like, "Did I say too much? What are people gonna think?" Lesley Logan 3:11  So, anyways, it was a great time, and I love how the more you're yourself, the more you can really make an impact. Yeah, you're gonna feel like, "Oh my god, was that the right thing to do?" but then it gets out there, and you're like, "Oh, it was the right thing to do," and then everyone loves it. Then there's one person who's an idiot, and you're like, "Okay, but you're the only one. You seem a little weird." So that's my win. I was myself, and I did something that has helped a lot of people today, even though it's been months later, so there's that. Lesley Logan 3:36  Okay, now I got a few wins from you guys, so remember, you can send your wins in to thebeitpod.com/questions. Okay, so here we go. Here are your wins. This is from @jennvfitness, "I printed flyers for a new class and distributed to the neighborhood all around the studio." Yeah, that can feel so scary, and it's like, "Yeah, but I have a new class I need people to hear about, and these people can walk here, so I'm gonna freaking tell them." Way to go, JV! Lesley Logan 3:59  @inhalepilates252, "OPC classes in two days, and showing up for a 10:00 p.m. live class, because why not?" I love you, Liz. And also, yeah, if you're like, "I'm awake, I'm not gonna go to sleep right now," you might as well move, and that's a fun thing to be in community. You get to move your body, you get to go, "I did two classes in two days." Way to feel so good about yourself! I believe in going to bed early, and then sometimes you just freaking can't. Why fight it? So, thanks for joining us. It was so fun. Lesley Logan 4:26  Okay, @ploplates, "I made the decision today to stop helping people who've never even offered to help me." Boom, mic drop. Lesley Logan 4:35  Love that. Love that. Sometimes you need boundaries, right? Especially like sometimes we're helping people, and we realize that we help the same people, and then when we need help, they never respond, and it's like, "Okay, so I love you, and that's cool. I'm happy to help, and then if you don't help me in return later on, I'm happy to go." Okay, well, it's not that I'm not a helpful person, but maybe someone else.Lesley Logan 4:59  All right. Your mantra for the week: I am valuable and irreplaceable. I am valuable and irreplaceable. Oh my god, you're valuable and irreplaceable, love. So go on and be it till you see it. Send your wins in, share it with a friend who needs to hear it. Sometimes it's nice to know you're not alone in your frustrations, but also be inspired about what could be a win. If you want longer episodes from us, make sure you check out our series every other week, and our interviews and recaps in the week between. We love supporting you on your journey to being the best version of yourself that you want to be on this planet, and help you overcome imposter syndrome and do fun things. So, thank you so much for listening. Until next time.Lesley Logan 5:41  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod. Brad Crowell 6:23  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 6:29  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 6:33  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 6:40  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals. Brad Crowell 6:43  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Lesley Logan 6:58  All right, and pull up, I think it's PLO Pilates, or maybe it's Pop Lot, oh, it's probably Pop Pilates. Okay, got it. Just watch my brain work. Okay, Pop Pilates.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey friends, Chase here Austin Kleon is back on the show, and this conversation is exactly the kind of reminder every creative person needs. You probably know Austin from Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going, the books that have helped millions of people rethink creativity, sharing, influence, originality, and what it actually means to make things in public. But Austin's new book, Don't Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again, goes somewhere even more fundamental. It asks a question that feels especially urgent for creators, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, photographers, parents, and anyone trying to make meaningful work in a world that wants to turn everything into content: What if the way back to your best creative work is not becoming more serious, but becoming more playful? That question matters because most of us have made creativity too heavy. We have wrapped it in identity, pressure, productivity, platforms, metrics, perfectionism, and the fear of being judged. We get stuck asking whether we are real artists, serious writers, successful creators, or legitimate professionals. We worry about the noun before we do the verb. Austin's message is simpler, deeper, and more freeing: "Don't call it art. Don't worry about being an artist. Forget the nouns. Do the verbs. Just make stuff." That idea is the center of this episode. We talk about what kids can teach us about creativity, why play is not frivolous, how to build the conditions for your best work, why attention is your most valuable resource, and why some of the most important ideas in your life might come from goofing off. This conversation is about loosening the grip. It is about getting back to the part of you that makes before it judges, explores before it explains, and follows the energy before it knows exactly where the work is going. Why This Conversation Matters Right Now We are living in a strange moment for creative people. On one hand, there has never been more opportunity. An individual with a laptop, a camera, a newsletter, a sketchbook, a phone, a point of view, or a weird little idea can reach people directly. That is extraordinary. But it also comes with a cost. The pressure to turn every interest into a brand, every hobby into content, every project into a product, and every creative impulse into a strategy has never been stronger. We are constantly being asked to define ourselves: What do you do? What is your niche? What is your platform? What are you building? How are you monetizing it? What is the plan? Those questions can be useful at the right time. But when they show up too early, they can suffocate the very thing they are trying to organize. Austin's work reminds us that creativity begins before identity. Before "artist." Before "writer." Before "photographer." Before "entrepreneur." Before "content creator." Before the nouns, there are verbs. Drawing. Writing. Walking. Noticing. Building. Playing. Collecting. Tinkering. Making. Sharing. Kids understand this instinctively. They do not sit down and ask whether what they are making fits the market. They do not wonder whether they are allowed to call themselves artists. They do not freeze because the thing in front of them might not be good enough. They simply begin. And in that beginning, there is a kind of wisdom most adults have forgotten. What We Explore in This Episode Why kids can be some of the best creativity teachers because they make before they judge, label, or perform. How to reconnect with the feeling you wanted as a kid, not necessarily the exact childhood you had. Why play is not the opposite of serious work, but a form of creative research and development. How to create the conditions for creativity through time, space, materials, and permission. Why tools should feel more like toys if you want to stay curious and experimental. How phones fracture attention and why protecting the edges of your day can change the texture of your life. Why hobbies matter and how bikes, music, golf, drawing, and other forms of play can return us to ourselves. Why "don't call it art" can be liberating for anyone who feels trapped by labels or legitimacy. How to use jealousy, disgust, and frustration as creative information instead of letting them turn into bitterness. Why people pay attention when someone truly believes in what they are doing. The Core Idea: Forget the Nouns. Do the Verbs. The fastest way to get unstuck is often to stop asking what you are and start paying attention to what you do. That sounds simple, but it is one of the biggest traps in creative work. We get obsessed with identity. Am I an artist? Am I a real writer? Am I a serious photographer? Am I a professional? Am I successful enough to call myself this thing? Am I allowed? That kind of thinking can freeze you before you even start. Kids do not have that problem. They are not trying to become "artists." They are drawing. They are building. They are making noise. They are inventing stories. They are throwing materials around and seeing what happens. Austin's point is not that craft does not matter. It is not that ambition does not matter. It is not that we should abandon discipline. It is that the living center of creativity is action. The verb comes first. Make the thing. Move the pencil. Open the notebook. Pick up the guitar. Ride the bike. Take the walk. Make the zine. Shoot the photo. Write the sentence. Start the weird little project that begins with, "Wouldn't it be funny if…" That is where the energy is. Play Is Creative R&D One of the big tensions in this conversation is the voice many of us carry around that says play is not practical. That voice says: You have responsibilities. You need to make money. You need to be serious. You need to have a plan. You need to stop messing around. Austin's response is that play is not the opposite of serious work. Play is often what makes serious work possible. He talks about play as research and development. Any healthy company needs R&D. It needs space to explore, test, wander, fail, and discover things that cannot be found through pure efficiency. The same is true for a creative life. A lot of us start in explore mode. We are curious. We are trying things. We are learning. We are following our taste. We are discovering our voice. Then, if something works, we shift into exploit mode. We repeat the thing. We build a career around it. We systematize it. We professionalize it. We optimize it. That can be useful. But if you stay there forever, you eventually run out of juice. You need space to explore again. That is what play gives you. It returns you to the part of the process where you are not just producing, but discovering. And in creative work, discovery is everything. Create the Conditions, Then Get Out of the Way One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Austin's simple equation: Play = time + space + materials. That may sound almost too simple, but it is profound. When I look back at the most creative seasons of my life, the pattern is obvious. I had uninterrupted time. I had a place to go. I had the right materials around me. I had enough structure to begin and enough freedom to be surprised. That is what we often give kids when we want them to create. We give them a table, some paper, some markers, a chunk of time, and permission to make a mess. Then we grow up and deny ourselves the same basic conditions. We say we are blocked, stuck, confused, or uninspired, but often we have not created an environment where anything could actually emerge. No time. No space. No materials. No quiet. No room to tinker. The lesson is not complicated, but it is easy to forget: Set the conditions. Allow the work to happen. Get out of the way. That is not laziness. That is not indulgence. That is how the good stuff gets a chance to show up. The Best Ideas Often Come From Goofing Off I have said this before, and I mean it: so many of the best ideas in my life have come from goofing off. Not from trying to optimize. Not from grinding. Not from forcing. Not from staring at a blank screen and demanding genius. They came when I was tinkering. Playing. Walking. Talking with friends. Making something that had no obvious point. Trying something because it felt fun, strange, or impossible to explain. Austin and I talk about this because it is one of the hardest things for ambitious people to accept. We want the path to be linear. We want effort to equal outcome. We want the best ideas to come from the most serious hours. But creativity often does not work that way. The mind needs room. The body needs movement. The soul needs a little nonsense. Goofing off is not always avoidance. Sometimes it is how the deeper intelligence gets a chance to speak. Tools Should Be Toys Austin says something in this episode that every creator should sit with: Tools should be toys. That does not mean your tools are unimportant. It means the best tools invite you into a state of play. They make you want to touch them, try them, misuse them, combine them, push them, and see what happens. A sketchbook can be a toy. A camera can be a toy. A guitar pedal can be a toy. A bicycle can be a toy. A cheap notebook, a box of crayons, a microphone, a drum machine, a kitchen table, a phone in airplane mode, a pile of index cards — all of it can become part of the creative playground. The danger is when tools become only professional instruments. When every object in your creative life carries the pressure of output, performance, monetization, or proof, it becomes harder to begin. A toy invites curiosity. And curiosity is one of the most reliable doors back into making. Attention Is the Beginning of Everything Another major theme in this episode is attention. Austin shares a simple practice: start and end the day without your phone. Not as a moral performance. Not as some extreme digital detox. Just as a way to protect the edges of the day from people and companies that do not care about you, but desperately want your attention. That hit me hard. Because attention is not just another resource. In many ways, it is the resource. What you give your attention to shapes your thoughts, your desires, your mood, your relationships, your sense of possibility, and your work. If the first thing you do every morning is hand your mind to the internet, you are letting someone else set the tone for your day. Austin's practice is simple. Coffee. Breakfast. Journal. Kids. Life. Then the phone. At night, the phone charges in the kitchen. Small boundary. Huge impact. Creativity requires attention. And attention has to be protected. Return to Who You Were Before All This There is a beautiful thread in this conversation about returning to the things that made you feel alive before life got complicated. For Austin, that includes riding a bike and playing in a band. For me, golf has become one of those things. Not because it is productive in the traditional sense, but because it gets me outside, off my phone, walking with friends, and fully present for hours. That matters. A lot of people feel lost because they are trying to think their way back into aliveness. But sometimes the way back is physical. Pick up the instrument. Ride the bike. Throw the baseball. Walk the dog. Draw badly. Make noise. Get outside. Do the thing you used to love before you thought it had to mean something. Austin brings up the question: Who were you before all this? Before the career. Before the metrics. Before the audience. Before the obligations. Before the identity got heavy. There may be clues there. Not because you need to go backward, but because some part of you may have been waiting to be invited forward again. Don't Call It Art The title of Austin's book is not a dismissal of art. It is a liberation from the weight we put on the word. For a lot of people, "art" has become intimidating. Sacred. Serious. Something that belongs to museums, geniuses, experts, critics, galleries, and people who have permission. But making is older and deeper than all of that. Kids understand this. They do not call it art. They just do things. And when we stop obsessing over whether something is art, we create more room to actually make. We get less precious. Less frozen. Less performative. Less worried about the label and more connected to the act. That is the invitation: Don't call it art. Don't worry about being an artist. Forget the nouns. Do the verbs. Just make stuff. It sounds almost too simple. That is why it works. Use What Bothers You Austin also offers a surprising creative tactic: pay attention to what you hate. Not publicly. Not performatively. Not as a way to become bitter or cynical. But privately, as information. Disgust can point toward values. Frustration can reveal desire. Jealousy can show you something you want. The things that bother you can become clues, if you are willing to ask what the opposite would look like. Instead of turning your irritation into a rant, turn it into a project. What would you rather see in the world? What is the opposite of the thing you cannot stand? What would it look like to make that? That shift is powerful because it transforms complaint into creation. It turns "I hate this" into "What if we made something different?" People Pay Attention to Belief Near the end of the conversation, Austin shares a line from Kim Gordon that I love: "People will pay to watch other people believe in themselves." That is true in art. It is true in music. It is true in entrepreneurship. It is true in leadership. It is true in life. We are drawn to people who are alive in what they are doing. Not perfect. Not polished beyond recognition. Not optimized into sameness. Alive. When someone believes in what they are making, that belief travels. This does not mean you will always feel confident. It does not mean you will never doubt yourself. It does not mean every idea will work. It means you keep returning to the work. You keep paying attention to what matters to you. You keep making the thing only you can make in the way only you can make it. That is where the signal comes from. About Austin Kleon Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a series of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, Keep Going, and Don't Call It Art. He is also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker. His books have sold over two million copies and have been translated into more than 30 languages. Austin's work has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. New York Magazine called his work "brilliant," The Atlantic called him "positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet," and The New Yorker said his poems "resurrect the newspaper when everybody else is declaring it dead." He has spoken for organizations including Pixar, Google, Netflix, SXSW, TEDx, Dropbox, Adobe, and The Economist. In previous lives, he worked as a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and sons. Follow Austin Kleon Website Don't Call It Art Newsletter Instagram X YouTube Timecodes 04:24 – Austin returns to the show and talks about the new book 06:17 – How Austin's kids became his best creativity teachers 07:04 – What it means to take care of a creative person 10:43 – The childhood question that reveals what makes time disappear 18:34 – Why play is creative research and development 21:43 – Finding what you were not looking for 23:06 – How a fixed vision can blind you to what is actually in front of you 28:13 – Chase reflects on creating the right conditions for creative work 31:37 – Austin's equation: play equals time plus space plus materials 32:48 – Why tools should feel more like toys 35:25 – Reconnecting with the activities that made you feel alive as a kid 38:53 – Who were you before all this? 43:08 – Protecting attention from companies that want to take it 44:17 – Starting and ending the day without your phone 47:08 – Why friendship, hobbies, and shared activities matter 57:17 – Where the title Don't Call It Art came from 58:32 – Forget the nouns, do the verbs, just make stuff 01:00:01 – Why "wouldn't it be funny if…" is a clue worth following 01:03:15 – Finding your creative family tree 01:06:36 – How to use frustration and disgust as creative information 01:08:31 – Why people pay attention when you believe in what you are doing 01:09:44 – Austin's newsletter, book tour, and where to find his work Questions to Ask Yourself If you want to turn this episode into action, take a few minutes with these questions: What did I do as a kid that made hours pass like minutes? Where am I making creativity heavier than it needs to be? What noun am I clinging to that might be keeping me from doing the verb? What conditions do I need in order to make more freely? Do I have time, space, and materials available on a regular basis? What tool in my life could become more like a toy? Where is my attention being stolen before I have a chance to choose? What hobby, activity, or form of play would help me return to myself? What bothers me enough that it might contain a creative clue? What would I make this week if I stopped worrying whether it counted as art? A Simple Practice for Making Like a Kid Again Here's something practical you can do this week. Set aside one uninterrupted hour. No phone. No audience. No outcome. No need to make something good. Choose a space. Put a few materials in front of you. Paper and markers. A camera. A guitar. A notebook. Clay. Index cards. A laptop with the internet off. Whatever feels inviting. Then begin with this prompt: Wouldn't it be funny if… Follow whatever comes next. Do not evaluate it too early. Do not ask what it is for. Do not decide whether it is art. Do not turn it into a brand, a strategy, or a pitch deck. Just make stuff. Then notice how you feel. Notice what surprised you. Notice whether something small wants to keep going. That is enough. Final Thought The longer I do this work, the more I believe that creativity is not something we need to earn. It is something we need to return to. It was there before the labels. Before the pressure. Before the metrics. Before the platforms. Before the fear of being judged. Before we learned to ask whether we were allowed. Austin's invitation in this conversation is simple, generous, and quietly radical: Stop making creativity so precious that you cannot touch it. Give yourself time. Give yourself space. Give yourself materials. Protect your attention. Find your friends. Pick up the toy. Follow the weird little idea. Let yourself begin before you know what it means. Until next time: forget the nouns, do the verbs, and just make stuff.