Unleashed - How to Thrive as an Independent Professional

Our guest today is a hero of mine, Ethan Rasiel, a McKinsey alum and the author of The McKinsey Way and The McKinsey Mind. I read The McKinsey Way before I got interviewed by McKinsey – it helped me understand the Firm, and, well, I got an offer. In this episode, Ethan shares the story of how he got the idea for the book, how he did the research, and the reaction of the Firm.

Our guest today is Jessica Rhodes, who runs a firm called Interview Connections. They help their clients get booked as a guest on podcasts. Let’s say you want to raise your visibility by being on someone’s show. Jessica’s firm will come up with a list of podcasts that would be a good fit for your expertise and the audience you are trying to reach. And then they work to build relationships with hosts so they can get you booked as a guest. Their website is https://interviewconnections.com/

Tiffany Pham is a mogul, and she wants you to be a mogul too. Tiffany is the Founder and CEO of Mogul, a platform reaching 18 million women per week – users can read trending content, take courses, solicit advice from other members, find job opportunities. Visit onmogul.com Mogul organizes an annual conference called Mogul X, billed as the modern millennial classroom, and the next one is this Saturday, September 8 in New York City – topics include Finding your mentor, finding your purpose, Building resilience, building your financial future, side hustles, building a business to work remotely – looks like an awesome day.  Registration fee is $250, but Tiffany kindly offered a discount code for listeners of this show – enter the code Unleashed at checkout and you can register for just $99. Or use this link: http://bit.ly/2wC5gAr Tiffany is ALSO the author of a new book out today, You Are a Mogul: How to Do the Impossible, Do it Yourself, and Do it Now. Tiffany is truly an inspirational leader, and I hope you enjoy this discussion.

Our guest today is Umbrex member and Booz alum Wissam Kahi, who’s been a close friend of mine since we sat together in the same cluster at Columbia Business School. In parallel with running his successful consulting practice, Wissam, together with his sister, has started an amazing social enterprise called Eat Offbeat.  https://eatoffbeat.com/ Eat Offbeat delivers authentic and home-style ethnic meals that are conceived, prepared and delivered by refugees resettled in NYC. Eat Offbeat was the recipient of WeWork's global creator awards and has been featured in dozens of major publications. At a time when refugees may not be feeling the most welcome in the United States, Eat Offbeat is creating jobs while also helping to build bridges. And their food is delicious – I’ve hired Eat Offbeat to cater several events that I’ve run and they always get rave reviews. Check them out online at Eat Offbeat – and if you’ve got an event in NYC, you can’t miss by having them prepare your meal.

Nayla Bahri is a former Dean of Students at Columbia Business School who has a PhD in Adult Learning and Leadership.  Nayla interviewed professionals who lost their jobs during the Great Recession, and studied their future trajectory.  After that setback, some truly flourished, and ended up far better off than before they got fired. Some managed to get back to a similar role and their career plateaued. Some got derailed and didn’t really recover. Nayla sought to identify the factors that differentiated those groups, and the good news is that it wasn’t personality or something innate, but behaviors that are under our control. In today’s episode, Nayla shares the key insights from her research on the five behaviors that differentiated those who flourished after a career setback.

Louis Hyman is McKinsey alum and Associate Professor of Economic History at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. In this episode we talk about his new book: Temp: How American Work, American Business, and the American Dream Became Temporary. The gig economy is not a new phenomenon – this book explores how we got to where we are today. It weaves together the stories of Manpower,Inc. McKinsey & Co., the Bracero program that legally brought seasonal farm laborers from Mexico to the United States. There is also the story of how accounting firms became the big technology consulting firms. And how consultants helped encourage the rise of big conglomerates and then the reorganization and restructuring of those same companies.  Fascinating throughout.  To learn more, visit www.LouisHyman.com.

Chara McGill runs The RMG Group, what has traditionally been called a bookkeeping firm, with about 20 employees based in New York City. Chara suggests a different term for the work her firm does instead of bookkeeping – she calls it “internal accounting operations,” since the work goes well beyond the traditional bookkeeping tasks of general ledger entries. In this episode, Chara shares her advice for independent professionals on how to do the bookkeeping yourself, the signs that it may be time to outsource the work, and how to find a firm who will meet your needs. https://www.thermggroup.com/

Our guest today is Dirk Hanschur, the CEO of Log-hub, a firm that has created a range of supply chain analytics tools that work as Add-ons to Microsoft Excel. In this Episode, Dirk explains a selection of these apps which include geo-coding, distance calculator, live tracking, shortest path calculator, milk run optimization, and more. Log-hub is happy to partner with independent consultants, who can become authorized resellers of the software.  A link to their website is in the show notes. https://www.log-hub.com/supply-chain-apps/

To bring her whole self to the game, the business athlete Stays physically fit, flexibility, strength, cardiovascular fitness – because in long days at work, physical fitness supports mental alertness She insists on getting enough sleep She practices some form of mindfulness, to remain centered in the midst of inevitable crises She finds a coach who will help her keep improving her game through deliberate practice She puts time into mastering the basics until they become automatic - She studies the competition to understand their moves She regularly reviews, with an objective lens, her own performance, identifying what went well and what can be improved She is motivated not by standing on the medal podium, but the satisfaction of performing at the highest possible level She compares herself, primarily, not to other athletes, but to her own performance yesterday She looks out along the full arc of her future career, and not just to the next competition. She phases out from her life acquaintances who are a drag on her energy rather than a contribution to it Thanks to Michael Feiner, who, in his course "High Performance Leadership" at Columbia Business School, introduced me to this concept of the business athlete.

In which the Engineer Officer told me that he expected me to get out of the wardroom and put my eyeballs on the jobsite. The lesson has carried over to my consulting career.