What Works

There’s more than one way to measure success—and there’s more than one way to measure time. How do you account for the time you spend working? And is it really the most effective—for you—to spend it? In other words, what constitutes quality time when it comes to the way you work? I talked with business operations coach Elisabeth Jackson about how she changed her overwork habit, how she measures quality time for herself & her clients, and why she doesn’t love the word “productivity.” Resources: * Find out more about Elisabeth Jackson* More about Frederick Winslow Taylor* *Lost In Work*, by Amelia Horgan* EP 373: The Eggbeater Effect, listen or read ★ Support this podcast ★

We spend money on lots of tools designed to save us time and work. But all too often, those tools just end up raising our expectations. Why do work in less time when you could do more work in the same amount of time?! In this episode, I examine “the egg beater effect” and why we should, just maybe, lower our expectations a bit. Resoures: * You’re Wrong About: The Stepford Wives* More Work For Mother by Ruth Schwartz Cowan* Episode 371: What is the creator economy? with Gina Bianchini* Episode 364: The Abundant Value Of Virtual Assistants with Janice Plado Dalager* Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren by John Maynard Keynes ★ Support this podcast ★

“Time is money.” Ben Franklin gave us that chestnut in 1748—and ever since, we’ve been trained to think of our lives as opportunities for making a buck. This week, we start a series exploring the “time is money” construction. But before we think through how we spend our time, we’re going to think through money: what it really is, how we relate to it, and some of the factors that make it “weird.” I talk with Paco de Leon from the Hell Yeah Group and author of the brand-new book, Finance For The People. Resources: * Finance For The People, by Paco de Leon* The Hell Yeah Group* The Nerdletter ★ Support this podcast ★

Emotional labor is an under-appreciated, under-compensated type of work. But it’s essential for navigating the 21st-century economy. Entrepreneurship almost always brings with it a need for managing our emotions to lead and care for others. And this expectation is only doubled when the entrepreneur is a woman or marginalized person. What’s more, the type of marketing that many of us are told to do today is thick with emotional labor: showing up with confidence, using your personality as leverage, banking on your sense of self. It’s no wonder so many business owners are burning out. In this episode, I tackle: What is emotional labor? And how does it impact our work as entrepreneurs? Resources: * The Managed Heart by Arlie Russell Hochschild* The Impact Equation by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith* What Is The Creator Economy? With Gina Bianchini* The emotional labour of academia in the time of a pandemic: A feminist reflection by Michelle Newcomb ★ Support this podcast ★

What is the creator economy? And why are so many creators… miserable? Mighty Networks founder Gina Bianchini was the first person I knew talking about the creating economy. She’s passionate about helping entrepreneurs, organizers, and creators see why building independently beats trying to amass huge audiences on the usual platforms. In this episode, we talk about what the creator economy is, how the game is rigged, what’s making creators miserable, and how she sees a different way forward. Plus, we’ll discuss research from the massive independent study that Mighty Networks commissioned. Resources: * How “Building An Audience” Is Different From “Finding Customers”—And Why It Matters* What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub* Lost In Work: Escaping Capitalism by Amelia Horgan* The New Creator Manifesto (Research on the creator economy)* Mighty Networks* Creators Calculator* Subscribe To What Works Weekly Looking for a transcript? I’m publishing every episode in essay form on Thursdays at explorewhatworks.com! ★ Support this podcast ★

The way we set goals often invites a load of comparison and competition. We can even create a moral hierarchy of more and better. In this episode, I explore the roots of moralizing around the goals we set, borrowing from Dr. Devon Price, Max Weber, Kate Manne, and Simone de Beauvoir. Resources for diving deeper: * *Laziness Does Not Exist* by Dr. Devon Price* Max Weber* Morality* Kate Manne on the immorality of diet culture* *You Belong* by Sebene Selassie* Simone de Beauvoir & The Ethics of Ambiguity ★ Support this podcast ★

“What does growth without striving look like?” Rita Barry posed this question 3 years ago, and it’s stuck with me ever since. In this episode, I talk with Rita about the journey she’s been on to answer that question as her company has exploded. We dive into validation-seeking, social conditioning, and identifying what you really want in the face of so much “common sense” about what success looks like. You’ll hear Rita’s story, plus commentary from writer Anne Helen Petersen (via Librairie Drawn & Quarterly) and psychoanalyst Paul Verhaeghe (via Renegade Inc). Find out more about Rita Barry at ritabarry.co This year on What Works, I’m exploring how we can navigate the 21st-century economy with our humanity intact. Read articles, listen to the archives, and sign up for What Works Weekly at explorewhatworks.com ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode: * Why Darden Creative founder Tamera Darden decided to shut down her business at the end of 2022—and how that decision evolved* How she wrestled with the practical, emotional, and financial questions around this big decision* The experience that led her to reclaiming her original vision for the business* How she’s planning to move forward and what it means for the way she works in her own business How do you know when it’s time to quit? It’s a question I’ve been asked countless times over the years. Sometimes, the question is asked in frustration or sadness. A business owner will tell me they’ve tried everything; they’ve tried everything; they’re at a loss about what to do next. Other times, the question is asked sheepishly, with almost a tone of guilt. The business owner will tell me that they’ve been successful, maybe even more successful than they dreamed. But that something isn’t right. They’re unhappy or just feeling the pull of a new challenge. Either way, knowing when to quit is almost never clear cut. When I sat down with Tamera Darden a couple of months ago, we were scheduled to talk about values and how her business has operationalized those values. But in our pre-show warm-up, she told me she’d decided to shut down her business at the end of 2022. So we pivoted. I let her know we were doing this series on letting go & beginning again and offered, if she was ready, to talk about her decision. We went there. I was struck by her willingness to occupy uncertainty and liminality. And I was impressed by her self-confidence, even when things weren’t quite crystal clear. I told her to let me know if anything changed in the 8 weeks or so before our conversation would actually go live. A few weeks ago, she sent me a message. She needed to make an update. Her decision had evolved. I hesitate to say she’s changed her mind—you’ll hear why. Instead, she asked more abundant questions about what was next for her, why she felt compelled to shut down the business, and what other options could look like. What follows is both parts of that conversation. It’s a rare look into the reality of how entrepreneurial decisions evolve if we let them. Tamera Darden is the founder of Darden Creative. She’s a photographer, creative director, and business mentor with a vision for helping Black women-owned businesses thrive. Changing your mind is hard. Doing so in a public forum is even harder. I believe very strongly we owe it to ourselves to normalize coming to new conclusions based on new information, questions, or perspective. I hope this conversation creates some space for you to let your own positions evolve. ★ Support this podcast ★

In This Episode: * Creative grief worker & curator Charlene Lam shares how grief impacts us—as humans, leaders, and business owners* How she discovered a passion for understanding grief and helping others process after the death of her mother* The practical exercises she uses to process feelings of loss Toward the end of 2020, I started to hear the murmurs of something I’d come to learn was called “ambiguous loss.” Of course, 2020 was full of loss and grief. There were goals, events, and—of course—people who were no longer with us. But there was also an amorphous, chronic type of grief that set in. The murmurs spoke softly of pain and exhaustion that couldn’t be attributed to any one particular loss. In 1999, Pauline Boss coined the term ambiguous loss for exactly this kind of feeling. In a conversation with Krista Tippett, Boss said: “We like to solve problems. We’re not comfortable with unanswered questions. And this is full of unanswered questions. These are losses that are minus facts.” For me, the ambiguous loss of the last 2 years has been felt as a sort of ongoing liminality. I’ve felt stuck between the life, goals, and identities that were part of my pre-2020 life and the next life, goals, and identities that have yet to take form. And while this is my sense of a personal ambiguous loss, I think it also mirrors the ambiguous loss we’ve faced as a society. As the pandemic has worn on and social change has stagnated, we keep catching glimpses of what might be on the other side. But the promises that “it’ll be over soon” have become ever harder to believe. We’re stuck between our pre-2020 world and the world that has yet to come into focus. Grief in general, and ambiguous loss in particular, might seem like an odd topic for a business podcast. But it was conversations with small business owners that made me realization how important talking about grief is for us. Business owners like us go through all sorts of experiences that can bring on a sense of loss or grief: the failed launch, a canceled event, the lost opportunity, an unmet goal, the loss of a team member, or the end of a working relationship. But our natural optimism as entrepreneurs, as well as a culture that doesn’t make much room for grief, means that we rarely pause to observe and process the transition. So last December, we decided to devote this December to letting go, processing grief, and beginning again. At the end of last year, this topic felt urgent—but now, this topic feels timely. While I think we’re all still feeling deep uncertainty about what’s next, we have a little distance from the onslaught of fear. I’ve talked to a bunch of people who finally feel like they have the capacity to make a decision about moving on and process what that means for them. Today, I want you to meet Charlene Lam, a creative grief worker, as well as a business mentor, content marketing strategist, and curator. She’s the creator of The Grief Gallery and Grief. Grit. Grace., where she writes, speaks, and curates exhibitions that help people process their grief. Charlene and I talk about what grief is and how we process it—as well as how grief shows up for us as business owners and what we can do to let go of what was and begin again with a new vision. ★ Support this podcast ★

I always hesitate to talk about practicing an “abundance mindset…” …because it so quickly veers into positive vibes only, charge what you’re worth, girl, wash your face territory. And to my mind, that territory is steeped in scarcity and its cousin, precarity. Abundance isn’t about ignoring unpleasant feelings or people who ask hard questions. When we do that, we’re essentially signaling that our positive vibes are so precarious that something challenging or unpleasant could cause us to lose our high. Practicing abundance, instead, invites us to wrestle with hard things without fear of losing our way. Abundance isn’t about charging what you’re worth because abundance knows that markets are fickle and that human experience can’t be quantified in hourly rates or flat fees. While I readily acknowledge that “charge what you’re worth” has helped lots of people ask for more, it also reinforces scarcity thinking in the form of “getting what’s yours” or “they’re out to get me.” Abundance also isn’t about equating endless hard work with deserving more abundant rewards. It’s certainly not about sucking it up. This kind of thinking reinforces that there’s a limited supply of resources out there and you better get up before dawn to grab your bit. Truthfully, I’m not sure I can define abundance succinctly. What it means to me is a present knowing that I am enough, that I have enough, and that there is enough time, attention, and support to live a meaningful life and do meaningful work. I can’t say that this is my mindset at all times—far from it. But in the times when I’m feeling most hopeless or desperate, it’s the mindset that I eventually bring myself back to. It’s the Truth that’s guided difficult decisions and unlocked completely unexpected paths forward. An abundance mindset—when I’m truly in it—shifts my perception and presents new possibilities. Maybe one way to think about it is that an abundance mindset isn’t so much an answer to the problems of scarcity, urgency, and precarity, but a series of questions that remind you there is always a way forward. Throughout this month, my goal has been to speak some of those questions out loud. Hopefully, you’ve experienced at least a small shift in perception as a result. Today, we’ll round out this series with 3 more stories about interesting questions and new ways forward. You’ll hear from sales coach Allison Davis, business strategist AnnMarie Rose, and Athena Village founder Kelly Pratt. Listen for the shift in perception that allowed them to see a new possibility for their work and businesses. ★ Support this podcast ★