007: Four Theories on How to Fix Work with Laurie Ruettimann

Maybe you despise work. Maybe you’re apathetic about it. Or maybe work would be bearable if it weren’t for that one co-worker who always… You get the picture. Most people aren’t passionate about their cubicles. We’ve had some interesting guests over the past few weeks, and today, Laurie shares her takeaways from those conversations and some of her own theories on how to fix work, starting with one very important thing: to fix work, you need to fix yourself.

• Stop living in your head and comparing yourself to others. You ARE going to face things like institutionalized racism, sexism, ageism and more, and that’s terrible. But you can’t let that force you into your own mental prison. If you’re going to fix yourself, you need to live in the present and live mindfully. You need to be an active participant in your own life.
• Scott Stratton, the author of UnMarketing, was Laurie’s first guest, and he was fearless in burning down his corporate career. The lesson to take from him is that when your job is killing your soul, you should burn down your professional life and build it back up again. You don’t have to do it like Scott did; Laurie argues for a slow, well-planned burn.
• We had another Scott next, Scott Santens. He’s known as the foremost thinker and speaker on basic income. It’s not welfare; instead, it’s a dividend. Companies hide profits overseas. They lobby the government for their own benefit, not yours. And the money they save isn’t invested in employees, not at all. Laurie explains how the basic income is needed, and why it needed now more than ever.
• People need to get fairly paid for their work, and that will only happen with wage transparency, both with employees and employers. Laurie challenges you to ask YOUR potential employers a series of questions that, while they might make them uncomfortable, you need to, and have a RIGHT to know.
• Jason Lauritsen was up next as a guest, and he and Laurie delved into what you can do to get clear on your goal for your work life. Sure, he hates work. But he doesn’t hate working. They talked about his evolution from cubicle to entrepreneurship and doing it the safer way. It all began with learning.
• Guest #4 was Amanda Hite, another of Laurie’s friends. Amanda has had an interesting life, and at one point, she had a boss who encouraged her to stay in the closet to advance her career. Really. Now that Amanda is a successful CEO, she wants people to be their whole selves at work, and she campaigns for employees to be heard and honored, even if it makes management a little more challenging.
• Tim Sackett was the next guest, and he is an expert on recruiters. Yes – the Jerry McGuire type of recruiter who fights to put the best talent in the best jobs. Except they aren’t usually like that. Some – or most – are shady paper-pushers who are only in it for the money. It doesn’t have to be that way, but since you can’t change the recruiters, you can be your OWN talent agent. Laurie explains how.
• Laurie had a careers reporter from Business Insider as her most recent guest. Áine Cain is the type of woman who breaks the barriers and smashes stereotypes for the next generation of workers in offices. From #MeToo to robot workers, Áine has an exciting breadth of knowledge from her role in Business Insider. She also thinks you should smash your own pseudo-science around generational thinking. Laurie shares what you SHOULD be thinking about instead.

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