Tactics are important and necessary if you want to do brilliant work, but so is mindset. You can be the most talented and disciplined person on the planet, but if you have a blind spot in your mindset you will eventually fail. On today's episode, I talk about one very important mindset tweak that will help you to bring your best effort every day.
When you hear the story of the founding of a business, you often get the sanitized version. You only hear the high points. However, it's often in failure that the biggest lessons are learned. Today's guest Kristen Hadeed founded Student Maid several years ago, but the early days weren't always so smooth. She's just published a book called Permission To Screw Up in which she chronicles some of the lessons learned as an entrepreneur and a boss, and on today's show she shares some of the hightlights.
You're a pro. You do the work even when you don't feel like it. Still, you can't discount the value of inspiration. Without it, your work might begin to ring hollow. How do you protect the fire so that you can stay engaged and motivated to do your best work? That's the question Scott Mautz is here to answer with tips from his new book Find The Fire.
Diversity in leadership is not only good for culture, it's good for business. On today's show, Kat Gordon, the founder of the 3% Movement, shares insights into how the movement began and how leaders of organizations can build more diversity into their teams to help them better serve their clients.
It's one thing to build an income around a product or an idea, but it's something entirely different to build a business. On today's episode, Dorie Clark shares insights from her new book Entrepreneurial You. She's going to help us think through how to develop multiple sources of revenue to grow trust, influence, and income.
Andrea Summer has been working on an album project called Wanderlust for a few years, but it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. She’s had to work on the project a little at a time as the resources were available, she lost her voice due to a fluke illness, and she struggled with wanting to give up multiple times. In our conversation, we discuss the origins of the project, the source of her dedication to making it happen, the highs and lows she’s encountered along the way, and what other artists can learn from her journey.
We set up a false choice between pursuing creative work that you love, and maintaining a day job. In fact, some of the great artists, writers, thinkers, and scientists throughout history did their best work while simultaneously working a "day job". Today's guest, Adam Walker Phillips, has just released a mystery novel called The Silent Second. On this episode, we discuss the book, and how he managed to write and publish it while still having time for his family and his very successful career.
Leading creative teams is challenging. You not only have to manage very complex work, but also the very complex interpersonal relationships and aspirations of the people on your team. Today's guest Cy Wakeman shares tips for minimizing the drama and producing your best work. Her new book is called No Ego.
You have an idea inside of you that could change the very world around you. And, many people allow those ideas to die on the vine because they lack the courage to take the first step, or the community around them to support their efforts. Today's guest, Nilofer Merchant, has just released a book called The Power of Onlyness: Make Your Ideas Mighty Enough To Dent The World, and she shares stories of people who have taken their idea from hunch to impact and changed the world in the process.
One of the greatest sources of tension on creative teams is when unspoken expectations are violated. This can lead to misalignment with your clients, with your peers, and even with your own efforts. On today's episode, we'll look at three kinds of unspoken expectations and three ways to prevent them from taking root and disrupting your work.
Every day we are flooded with information. Some of that information might be helpful in serving our clients or organization, but because there is so much of it we are often unable to step back and look for patterns we can apply. On today's episode, I share some thoughts about the art of selective attention and how to transform information into understanding so that we can create more value for the people we serve.
Have you ever considered whether the work you're doing today will still be around in five years? How about ten or twenty years? Many people don't think strategically about how to create work that will resonate deeply for a long time to come. Today's guest Ryan Holiday has just released a book called Perennial Seller that examines work that lasts and how it is created and marketed. In the interview, we discuss not just how to make work that stands the test of time, but how to structure your life so that you have the margin you need to create proactively and not just reactively.
When you work as a freelancer, or are doing creative work largely on your own, it can be difficult to find a rhythm that allows you to simultaneously bring your best work into the world, and also keep yourself on-track and healthy. On today's show, Carrie Wilkerson shares her thoughts on avoiding the lure of comparison, running your day like a pro, and keeping yourself on course financially and personally.
My question for you this week is very simple: where is your sacred space? Do you have a place in your life where you go in order to retreat from the world, to think, to write, to create, to read? Do you have a dedicated space where you can simply play with ideas, free from the pressure of the world and without concern for what anyone else might think? It's important to have such a space, and on this week's episode I share how you can make one happen.
Difficult people can make work miserable. You can control your own work and collaboration, but when there is someone throwing wrenches into the machinery just for fun, it can seriously derail your work and drive you crazy. On today's episode, Dr. Jody Foster is here to talk about her new book The Schmuck In My Office, and help us deal with a few different types of difficult people.
When you think about innovation, what comes to mind? Blue-sky ideas? Complete disruption? Something no one has ever seen before? Yes, those are important. However, today's guest David Robertson believes that in our pursuit of disruption we often overlook a very valuable source of new value: little ideas. On today's show, he shares how companies and teams are leveraging little ideas to delight their customers and win fierce loyalty with insights from his book The Power Of Little Ideas.
Yes, work hard. Of course you need to put your full effort into whatever you’re doing at any given time. However, be careful not to fall into the hustle trap. You might find you’re only sprinting on a treadmill rather than making true progress. On today's episode I share three ways that the hustle trap can rob you of your best work, and what to do about them.
There are many things a good leader does to help their team gain focus, stay motivated, and produce great work. However, there are also some very common mistakes that many leaders make that they don’t even know are killing their team’s ability to engage with their work. This is especially true when doing creative work, because it requires tremendous trust and an ability to take risks that could be costly to correct later.
The better you are at setting good rails for your team, the more they will feel freedom to bring their best ideas and work to the table.
Today I discuss a few ways that leaders unknowingly squelch their team’s creativity, and to do about it.
No matter how experienced you are or how much great work you’ve produced in your career, there inevitably comes a time when you’ll find yourself “stuck”. This usually has less to do with a lack of ability to do the work and more to do with some kind of psychological or habitual barrier that is preventing you from diving into the heart of the work in front of you. I’ve encountered many of these in my day, both personally and with those I’ve worked with. Here are a few questions to help identify productivity-zapping roadblocks.
Ever feel like you can't possibly please a boss or client? Or, are you ratcheting up the expectations for yourself (or your team) in a way that makes it impossible for you to be satisfied with an outcome? You might be experiencing something called expectation escalation. However, it's not always the boss or client that's to blame. We often do this to ourselves. On today's episode, I share how to mind your baseline.