

What Works
Tara McMullin
Work is central to the human experience. It helps us shape our identities, care for those we love, and contribute to our communities. Work can be a source of power and a catalyst for change. Unfortunately, that's not how most of us experience work—even those who work for themselves. Our labor and creative spirit are used to enrich others and maintain the status quo. It's time for an intervention. What Works is a show about rethinking work, business, and leadership for the 21st-century economy. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 14, 2023 • 9min
This is Not Advice: Metrics, Incentives, and the Seduction of Clarity
This is the 8th edition of This is Not Advice, my "not-advice" column for premium subscribers of What Works. Today, I'm talking about our over-reliance on metrics and how easily we're seduced by reductive data. When does a metric turn into an incentive for bad behavior? And why are we so happy to accept the feeling of clarity and certainty without actually understanding what's going on?Click here to upgrade your subscription and get the full episode! Or learn more about becoming a Premium Subscriber.
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Aug 10, 2023 • 25min
EP 439: Expectations, Boundaries, and Making Work in Public with Randi Buckley
Making work for the public seems to come with a slew of fuzzy social expectations. What do we owe our readers, listeners, viewers, and followers? What more is expected beyond the post, episode, or video? How do you navigate the tension between care and boundaries? When I came across a LinkedIn post that Randi Buckley made, I felt a wave of relief. Her answer to those questions? Nothing. We owe nothing more than we've already given. In this episode, I share wisdom from Randi, additional wisdom from Jordan Maney, and a lot of the inner workings of my own mind.Footnotes:The LinkedIn post that started it allFind out more about Randi BuckleyFind out more about Jordan ManeyNo Time to Spare by Ursula K. Le GuinLe Guin's first blog postNEW: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyiLove What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle. Upgrade your subscription today!
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Aug 7, 2023 • 25min
EP 438: Counterfeit Financial Culture with Manisha Thakor
The media give us wildly exaggerated images of wealth and consumption. And even if we recognize that a tv show or an Instagram account is more fantasy than reality, those images impact what we believe we should be earning and buying. MoneyZen author Manisha Thakor calls the result Counterfeit Financial Culture and argues that it's one of the reasons we end up feeling like we're never quite enough.In this episode, Manisha details Counterfeit Financial Culture, and I offer the mimetic theory of desire as additional context for understanding the situation.Footnotes:Find out more about Manisha ThakorMoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your Enough by Manisha ThakorWanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke BurgisPsychopolitics: Neoliberalism and the New Technologies of Power by Byung-Chul HanCapitalism and Desire by Todd McGowanNEW: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyiLove What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle. Upgrade your subscription today!
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Aug 3, 2023 • 29min
EP 437: Leaving the Cult of Never Enough with Manisha Thakor
At age 50, Manisha Thakor realized that she'd sacrificed her life at the altar of work. How did that happen? And what was she to do about it? Manisha's new book tackles how to unwind a toxic relationship with work and money.Footnotes:MoneyZen: The Secret to Finding Your Enough by Manisha ThakorFind out more about Manisha ThakorAlienation by Rahel JaeggiCapitalism and Desire by Todd McGowanWhat Works by Tara McMullinNEW: I’m teaching a 12-week training program for coaches, managers, consultants, and guides of all kinds starting in September. The program is called Work In Practice, and it’s a deep dive into the social, political, and economic systems that impact what we believe about work.Every episode of What Works is also published in essay form and delivered in my newsletter: whatworks.fyiLove What Works? Support the show and help me reach more people with assumption-busting ideas about work, business, and culture by becoming a Premium Subscriber. For just $7 per month, you get access to bonus episodes, full-length interviews, and quarterly workshops—including August 24's Breaking the Self-Sabotage Cycle. Upgrade your subscription today!
(00:00) - Rough Edit
(02:05) - The Cult of Never Enough
(02:20) - The Roles We Play
(13:40) - Money Worries versus Money Problems
(18:31) - The Image of Our Dissatisfaction
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Jul 31, 2023 • 10min
This is Not Advice: How Flexibility is Used and Abused
This is an excerpt from the 7th edition of This is Not Advice—a not-advice column exclusively for premium subscribers. In this episode, I take a closer look at flexibility. When is it a feature? When is it a bug? When does flexibility create more opportunities for learning or value? And when does it devolve into chaos?To hear the whole episode, become a premium subscriber for just $7 per month. You'll get twice monthly This is Not Advice episodes, plus (mostly) full-length interviews with the people I feature on the show, and more! Go to whatworks.fyi/subscribe
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Jul 27, 2023 • 13min
EP 436: The Myth of Rugged Individualism—and Hope for Something More (Remix)
This episode originally ran on May 25, 2022. It's been lightly remixed for today's release!“Rugged individualism” is the very language we speak in America. It shapes the way we approach work, family, and society. And rugged individualism has a direct impact on the decisions we make about our businesses and careers. In this short episode, I unpack where rugged individualism comes from and highlight a different way forward.Footnotes:Rugged Individualism Monologue by Terry Smith "The Myth of Rugged Individualism” by Robert Reich“We’d Like To Thank You, Herbert Hoover” from AnnieIndividualism and Economic Order by Friedrich HayekHope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit“The Philosophers: Loneliness & Totalitarianism” on Vox ConversationsEvery What Works episode is also published in essay form in my newsletter. Subscribe FREE or become a premium subscriber for bonus content for just $7/month. Go to: whatworks.fyi
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Jul 20, 2023 • 55min
EP 435: Self-Control, Surveillance, and the Body at Work (Classic)
So much of our modern discourse around productivity, empowerment, entrepreneurship, and personal growth includes messages about our bodies. These messages might not be explicit, but the messages are there—and our brains pick them up loud and clear.Similarly, we might not realize that we’re sharing messages that insert themselves into how others perceive their own bodies—but many of us are. It’s impossible to talk about self-discipline, accountability, or efficiency without those concepts leaving their marks on our flesh.This episode covers a tiny sliver of all the ways that the medium of self-help acts on our bodies. But my hope is that it will encourage you to think critically about the messages you receive about your body and the messages you share that might impact others’ bodies.You’ll hear from independent beauty culture journalist Jessica DeFino, body confidence influencer Tiffany Ima, and Flaunt Your Fire founder India Jackson.This episode contains frank talk about bodies, weight, beauty, dieting, and related topics. I know that these subjects can trigger harmful thoughts and behaviors for me if I’m not careful. So please, take care while listening to this episode.This episode originally aired on October 18, 2022. It's been slightly updated for this rebroadcast.Footnotes:Subscribe to Jessica DeFino’s newsletter about beauty culture and the beauty industry.Follow Tiffany Ima on Instagram.Listen to the Flaunt Your Fire podcast and learn more about India Jackson.Erica Courdae on reconsidering your normal, as well as “Normal is a Life with Michelle Kuei” on the Pause on the Play podcast.“Body acceptance stops at the skin. Why?” by Jessica DeFino“The Skin as an Antidote to Consumerism” by Jessica DeFino“How White Supremacy and Capitalism Influence Beauty Culture” by Jessica DeFino in TeenVogueWhat We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon“Postscript on Societies of Control” by Gilles DeleuzeSelf-Help, INC by Micki McGee“Rachel Hollis Part 1: Hashtag Relatable” on Maintenance Phase“The Trouble with Calories” on Maintenance Phase“Bodybuilding vs Powerlifting vs Weightlifting” on ShapeConfidence Culture by Shani Orgad and Rosalind GillLet’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World by Danielle Friedman3 Books for Remembering “You Have a Body”: On disability, on chronic illness, and on our bodies in societyYou can find essay versions of every What Works episode at whatworks.fyi - where you can become a premium subscriber, support my work, and get bonus content for just $7 per month. Upgrade today!
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7 snips
Jul 17, 2023 • 29min
This is Not Advice: Beyond Creating Versus Consuming
This is an episode of "This is Not Advice," a bonus podcast I do for premium subscribers of What Works. Instead of just a teaser this week, I wanted to share the whole episode with you. If you'd like to receive future episodes, go to whatworks.fyi/subscribe and become a premium subscriber for just $7/month.For this edition of This is Not Advice, I wanted to piggyback on the conversation I had with Jay Acunzo about social media generally and Threads specifically. Part of the conversation that didn't make it into the main piece involved the ratio of how much creating versus consuming we do online. On this, Jay and I have very different philosophies. I don't think he's "doing it wrong," but I did want to tease out the factors that influence whether we [can] spend more time creating or consuming online—and how that impacts the work we do.It's an episode about craft, gender, genius, and moving beyond the creating versus consuming dichotomy.Click here to read the full piece and get links to everything I cited in the piece!
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Jul 13, 2023 • 29min
EP 434: What do we really want from social media? with Jay Acunzo
This is an episode about Meta's new app, Threads. It's also about Substack and Substack's new-ish feature, Notes. But really, it's an episode about what we're looking for from the category we call "social media" and how we think about achieving those ends. And perhaps what it's really, really about is how we go looking for and creating meaning in the digital sphere.Jay Acunzo, a writer, podcaster, and public speaker who thinks a lot about online content, was one of the 100+ million people to give Threads a try over the last week. I was not. So I wanted to see how he was approaching the platform, why he joined in the first place, and maybe, just maybe, how he's thinking about making meaning online.Footnotes:Find out more about Jay Acunzo, his podcast, and his newsletterSubstack Notes"Threads is a mecca of Millennial brain rot" by Kate Lindsay on Embedded"Meta unspools Threads" by Casey Newton on Platformer"To quit or not quit social media: opportunity cost can help you decide" on What WorksJohn Austin's How to Do Things With WordsPerformativity in the theory of Judith Butler"Queer Failure" by Kate TysonFind written versions of every What Works episode at whatworks.fyiLove What Works? Consider becoming a premium subscriber for just $7/month. Not only do you help support my work, but you also get access to bonus episodes and other goodies.
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Jul 6, 2023 • 59min
EP 433: What is Capitalist Realism? with Iggy Perillo
"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism," say Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Žižek.Capitalist liberal democracy is construed as the "end of history"—the culmination of millennia of civilizational progress, the inevitable outcome of a long march toward justice and freedom. But is it? And if it's not the best system for our economic and political needs, what is the alternative?It's almost impossible to imagine. But, despite what Margaret Thatcher said, there is an alternative—many, in fact. We just haven't dreamed them up yet.This is the argument of Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism, a great little book that wrestles with big questions and ends on a surprisingly hopeful note. In this episode, I'll share some reflections on our identities as consumers and the nature of capitalist realism. Then, you'll hear the latest episode of the Books Applied Podcast with Iggy Perillo. Iggy and I discussed the book for her podcast and I loved it so much that I wanted to share it with you, too!Footnotes:Iggy Perillo and WSL LeadershipBooks Applied PodcastCapitalist Realism by Mark Fisher"Media Frames UPS Strike as Harming You, the Consumer and Protagonist of Reality" by Adam Johnson in The ColumnAs always, you can find my opening essay, plus a condensed transcript of my conversation with Iggy, at whatworks.fyiLove What Works? You can support my research and writing by becoming a premium subscriber on Substack for just $7/month. Thanks in advance!
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