Doing well, feeling fine

Angus Ridgway is back for a round 3 discussion on personal leadership. He and I use the summer break as a prompt to think about how to re-energize for a fulfilling second half of the year. We focus on personal energy and the idea of "vibrancy". What do you radiate? Optimism? Possibility? Enthusiasm? Opportunity? Leaving "toxic positivity" to one side, we address: Our relationship to the volume of work and volume of effort required to deliver impact We talk about focus and the need to say "no" - not just to the things we don't want to do, but even to things we very much would like to do This relates to a shift from "FOMO" to "JOMO", developing a "joy" of missing out Energy management begs the question of "recovery", which we tackle on a micro (daily), meso (weekly), and macro (yearly) scale We distinguish the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions of increasing our energy levels We also distinguish todo- from "today"-lists because as David Allen puts it: "The mind is for having ideas, not holding them". The todo list is the holding device, the today list is the closed list of things to actually deliver. Today. In our discussion we cite the work of Oliver Burkeman, David Allen and Caroline Webb, which is all highly recommended reading.

This week I am still in Spain, and designer couture features prominently in cafés, waterside promenades, restaurants, and sometimes even supermarkets. Where better to enact a sense of a more passionate life than on holiday, wearing your favorite 'fits? Against a background of "boardwalk" instead of "boardroom" looks, I sit down with MCM Worldwide's newly appointed Chief Digital and Merchandising Officer Marie-Laure Lequain. Before joining MCM, Marie-Laure spent over two decades at Gucci, developing their digital business. We discuss the role of fashion - and especially designer fashion - in constructing our sense of self. We discuss heritage and brand promise in raising customer desire. We also talk about the role of creativity and creative direction as the engine that drives newness and helps brands to balance heritage and fashionability. Given our shared commercial backgrounds, we also compare notes on how to effectively sell fashion, balancing exclusivity and commercial goals.

In this episode, I sit down with Jan Wilmking of Project Eaden, a start-up focused on producing plant-based meats that win through "performance on the plate and palate". Jan shares his personal journey and background that led him to this, his latest venture. His story is full of fascinating vignettes and insights: for instance, his great-grandfather invented and successfully commercialized the mouse-trap, which introduced Jan to entrepreneurship. From 20min onwards, we focus on Project Eaden and dive deep: We discuss the vital importance of the first bite and chew for customer adoption. We discuss Project Eaden's fibre-based approach to create a texture that is similar muscle and how technology from the textile industry can be usefully applied here. We talk about the expected growth in meat consumption worldwide over the next two decades through a growing global middle class (+70% growth expected) and how we need to address the meat-eating customer to reduce emissions from cows (vs. focusing on the vegan/ vegetarian market). Join me for this open exchange with Jan Wilmking and his biggest goals in work and life.

Angus and I decided to team up for a few more episodes on the broad subject of leadership - not just in the workplace, but more broadly. We spoke about leading with "character" in episode #11 and decided to cover a few more angles here (and in a forthcoming episode, later this summer). June, July, and August are typically a period of reflection. In this episode, we talk about endings and beginnings - over different time horizons (HY1, HY2; a couple of years; a break in a career, ...). We talk about retirement: Are we thinking too linearly about our careers? Should we think instead about life-long cycles of learning and building? If so, how should we think about the professional and personal reputations we are building up? Do the risks associated with new beginnings undermine our carefully developed reputations? What about a sense of duty to stay put in a good job, to look after ourselves and our loved ones? Or is the notion of "duty" just something we hide behind, avoiding change? We cover these and other topics with the aim of providing "food for thought"; we also go through a couple of listener questions. Thank you for your submissions! For feedback and topics to cover on the podcast, please email dwff.pod-at-gmail.com. Always happy to receive thoughtful suggestions :)

Subcultures have exerted a continuous fascination throughout the decades. Their styles have been admired; their coolness commodified. Their lifeworlds provided escape from ordinary life. Some members went even further and sought full-time employment as musicians, artists, stylists, DJs and so on. The 1990s saw the rise of the creative industries, especially in London. More recently, we see the emergence of the contemporary creator who seeks to live off of YouTube, TikTok, and other outlets for creative work. But are these legitimate careers? Have subcultures ever offered more than imaginary solutions to real-world problems? Professor McRobbie and I track through the recent history of popular culture trying to answer these questions. We take the role of style, music, art, etc. seriously as sources of "doing well and feeling fine". But we are also critical of what these worlds - and industries - can and cannot provide for its members... Sources: We cite the work of Pierre Bourdieu "Distinction", Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson's "Resistance through Rituals", as well as Dick Hebdige's "Subculture and the Meaning of Style": three classical works of cultural sociology.

Andrea Fernandez, CEO of Vitamin, shares her experience of leading a company through funding challenges and having to shut it down. She discusses how she and her team took care of customers, broke the news to employees, and grew stronger from the experience.

Angus Ridgway and I sit down together in this free-flowing conversation about leadership and, well, personhood, discussing how to "human". We start with the question of how to lead with "character", but really we are talking about some core tenets of how to be, full-stop. We cover several ideas that apply equally to being an effective leader in an organization or in a community and family. We talk about purpose, "purpose fatigue" and how to live in a purposeful way (which is less about the lofty ambitions we pursue and more about finding meaning in day-to-day encounters and moments. We talk about the role of morals and morality as they relate to character and how that manifests in leadership behaviors. We advocate for cognitive diversity and touch on the risks of group-think, especially as we are by definition "in a hurry", rushing to come to a decision. We explore creativity and how to create the conditions for it. We acknowledge the existence of non-linear work (high-value work being produced in bursts and fits vs. even increments spread out across the 9-18h workday), and what that means for an era in which more routine work becomes increasingly automated. We come back full-circle to the concept of character in relation to authenticity and whether being "real" is possible when so much of our identity is influenced externally. Angus and I had a lot of fun in this very free-flowing conversation and hope you enjoy it, too. We cite the work of David Brooks ("The Road to Character") and Oliver Burkeman ("Four Thousand Weeks") in case you would like to read on.

Today I am speaking with Hélène Guillaume Pabis. Hélène founded Wild.AI, a customer-facing app to optimize physical performance and wellbeing tailored to women athletes.  Hélène also operated as an angel investor in startups and worked in AI consulting, hedge fund management and trading in a number of investment banks.  She is a passionate athlete, parent, and founder.  I was keen to have Helene on the show to share her interesting bio and life-lessons, but also for two more specific reasons: First, I wanted to understand how she builds with AI tools, providing us with a practical example that is deployed to customers today (and what usage her business will have for such tools in the near future).    Second, she's very vocal about her ambition to change still all-too common gender stereotypes. We also touch on this with Julia Grosse in Episode #4, when we talk about some of the gender conventions of 30-40 years ago that contributed to couples staying together for a lifetime.  In this conversation with Hélène, we cover: Lessons from hedge fund management and trading securities  Dealing with setbacks including being made redundant Some differences between predictive analytics, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) Using large-language models (LLMs) in consumer apps (what Wild.AI is doing today and tomorrow) We discuss hyper-conventional conceptions of womanhood and counter-narratives that more accurately account for plural selves and varied personalities. They also account for what customers really want and need, and are not getting from the market right now  How to push back confidently on Dragons Den The power of pre-mortems and negative visualization (yes, there is a lot of work on how "positive" visualization can help; here, we look at a Stoic philosophy variation, anticipating and desensitizing ourselves against potential failure to better face risks Embracing shame and fear as a strong way to feel alive (vs. trying to avoid these emotions at all cost). And...  Puerto Williams, the southernmost settlement in the world.

I am sitting down today with Jannis Bandorski, serial entrepreneur who founded and co-founded multiple businesses; most recently, ARRtist, which provides networking and knowledge exchange for SaaS founders and Xletix, a market-leading obstacle course racing event. In our conversation, we focus on his latest project: "the happiness remix", which he’s about to take to clients and other outlets. The happiness remix is essentially an eclectic mix of key lessons from the broad body of happiness research that he started to engage with as a graduate student.  Jannis is inspiring to me because of his “go for it” attitude: If he’s excited about something, he just goes for it: whether its pursuing happiness research in one of europe’s pre-eminent management schools Uni St. Gallen; whether its teaming-up with some passionate supporters to help relocate one of Berlin's most iconic club spaces Bar 25, or spinning up a community for SaaS leaders in DACH: Jannis is the kind of person who sees more downside in not-doing than doing. There’s something infectious about his energy and that sense of possibility. In our conversation, we focus on his latest interest in happiness habits:  There are some well known attempts to define happiness in a way that allows you to optimize it. For example, happiness as a function of how different life events unfold compared to our expectations teaches us to be realistic about setting those expectations (see Mo Gawdat's work). Or Martin Seligman's famous equation that happiness = setpoint + fixed circumstances + voluntary conditions, which directs our attentions to those areas that actually are under our control. Those definitions are still largely "meta": What areas of life should we focus on? What matters?  Jannis cuts happiness into 4 broad components that all contribute to wellbeing:  First, health, incl. moving, eating, breathing, sleeping; second, personal relationships and community/ belonging; third, work and focus, and fourth: purpose.  *** If you happen to be listening to this on Spotify, there’s a question for you on the episode page: Please tell us about a happiness routine that you introduced recently that is simple to do and really effective for you. We’ll pool the best ideas and share them back *** Some sources we cite: The Harvard Study on adult development analyzes the determinants for well-being. You can find it here. We also refer to Tim Urban's book What's Our Problem, which you can follow-up on here.

I am sitting down today with Tahir Hussain who has 25+ years of global leadership experience in the consumer, retail and tech space. He lived and worked in Korea, China, the US and the UK. Having worked for BCG, Bertelsmann, and Amazon in senior roles, Tahir is now an independent advisor, and the founder of the non-profit education startup: 21 Future. Tahir already addressed a question many of us face: what happens after the corporate career? What’s the “exit strategy” that is both personally rewarding and economically sustainable?  In our conversation, we unpack what he calls the 2/2/1 model. It describes his allocation of time to commercial activities, philanthropic goals, and, well, unstructured flexi-time, which he can dedicate to family, hobbies or spontaneous interests.  People often dream of such portfolio approaches, but few do it. Tahir is one of them.  In the interview we also track through a series of leadership lessons, especially from his time as a leader at Amazon. We discuss:  … The power of leadership principles to synchronize how large groups of colleagues deliver results together … Why focusing on controllable inputs - such as assortment availability in retail - often connects directly with what matters to customers, but also why such inputs are at risk of being bypassed with a short-term focus on outputs, especially quarterly commercial metrics. We explore why owning your defects publicly - that is to say the underperformance in your area of responsibility - can be a way of enhancing one’s reputation if you can come back and show that the underlying root causes of the defect have been removed as a result of flagging them. We discuss the famous “?” email, customer complaints forwarded to responsible teams by Jeff Bezos, and what that level of customer focus at the top of the house produces across the company. We unpack the “Press Release FAQ” approach as a way to put forward proposals for innovation. Based on this, we track through “working backwards” from a northstar goal, and ... Why sometimes, it’s important to be comfortable with being misunderstood for long periods of time, while in pursuit of a genuinely new and bold idea.     Fully on topic with doing well and feeling fine, here is Tahir Hussain and his biggest goals in work and life.